Xinzhuo Zhang

I am a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering at Durham University, supervised by Prof. Hongjian Sun. My research addresses the challenge of maintaining reliable microgrid operation during transitions between grid-following and grid-forming converter control modes, with a focus on adaptive event detection and fault classification in converter-dominated networks.

Before Durham, I spent two years as a Grid Dispatch Engineer at State Grid Corporation of China, operating Ningxia's provincial grid (56–60 GW installed capacity) with 44% renewable penetration. In early 2025 I was a Visiting Researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences under the EU Horizon 2020 MSCA-RISE TESTBED2 secondment, collaborating with Prof. Wei Pei's group on grid-forming VSC simulation models.

My thesis — Adaptive Event Detection and Fault Classification for Microgrids under Grid-Following-to-Grid-Forming Transition — was submitted in March 2026. I hold an MSc in Renewable Energy and Clean Technology from the University of Manchester and a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Liverpool / XJTLU 2+2 joint programme.