Symposium DAY 1 – TECHNICAL SESSIONS

LUT Campus, Lappeenranta

Tuesday, 16 June 2026

LUT Campus, Lappeenranta

08:00 – 09:00 Registration Open and Coffee (LUT Entrance Hall)
09:00-10:00 Opening Session (Vipuuri Hall)
9:00-9:20 Gonçalo Mendes (LUT University/ Symposium Chair) and Samuli Honkapuro (LUT University/ Symposium Co-Chair)
Finland 2026 Symposium on Microgrids – Practical information
9:20-9:30 Joonas Grönlund, Chairman, City Council of Lappeenranta
Opening words by City of Lappeeranta
9:30-9:50 Juha-Matti Saksa, Rector of LUT University Olli Pyrhönen, Dean of the LUT School of Energy Systems (LES)
Opening words by Symposium host institution
9:50-10:00 Maria Brucoli (GE Vernova, UK/Symposium ISC Chair)
The Microgrid Symposium Tradition
10:00-10:30 Veikka Pirhonen (Siemens, Finland)
Beyond DER Aggregation: Microgrids, System Value and Reflections on Future Grid
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break (LUT Street Café)
11:00-12:20 Regional Session 1: Europe & Africa (Vipuuri Hall)
Chairs: Radu Plamanescu (UPB, Romania) Tarmo Korõtko (TalTech, Estonia)
11:00-11:15 Anna Kulmala (ABB, Finland)
Innovation in distribution network protection and control as an enabler for new smart grid functionalities
11:15-11:20 Discussion
11:20-11:35 Pedro Costa (INESC-ID, Portugal)
Implementing DC Microgrids: Field Lessons from the SHIFT2DC Project
11:35-11:40 Discussion
11:40-11:55 Britta Buchholz (Hitachi Energy, Germany)
Intentional Islanding to increase resilience in European power grids
11:55-12:00 Discussion
12:00-12:15 Andrey Lana (Danfoss Drives, Finland)
Grid-Forming Control for Off-Grid and On-Grid Microgrid Applications
11:55-12:00 Discussion
12:20-12:30 SYMPOSIUM GROUP PHOTO
12:30-13:30LUT Lab visits (check your assigned group at registration):
•    Visit to LUT’s Jamie Hyneman Center (JHC) – Groups JHC 1
•    Tour of LUT’s Power-to-X (P2X) Lab – Groups P2X 1, and P2X 2
•    Live V2G demo by LUT LEMPS (DriVe2X project) – Groups V2G 1 and V2G 2

Group time slots:
•    JHC 1, P2X 1, V2G 1: 12:35-12:55
•    P2X 2, V2G 2: 13:05-13:25

13:30-14:30 Special Session 1 – Multi-energy Microgrids (Vipuuri Hall)
Chairs: Katja Sirviö (University of Vaasa, Finland) Qin Wang (PolyU, Hong Kong)
13:30-13:40 Miika Rämä (VTT, Finland)
Resilience in operation and design of power and district heating systems
13:40-13:50 Jan Segerstam (University of Vaasa, Finland)
Microgrid — From Island to Node
11:40-11:55 Zhengmao Li (Aalto University, Finland)
Advanced Optimization and AI for Sustainable Multi-Energy Microgrids with Green Hydrogen Integration
14:00-14:30 Roundtable session
Next-Generation Multi-Energy Microgrids: Flexibility, Resilience, and Decarbonization
• Britta Buchholz (Hitachi Energy, Germany) • Miika Rämä (VTT, Finland) • Jan Segerstam (University of Vaasa, Finland) • Zhengmao Li (Aalto University, Finland)
14:30-15:00 Coffee Break (LUT Street Café)
15:00-16:00 Industry Roundtable (Vipuuri Hall)
Bridging Simulation and Hardware: New Trends in Microgrid Technologies and Controls” Moderator: Benjamin Kroposki (NLR)
• Anna Kulmala (ABB, Finland) • Andrea Pavlovic (Typhoon HIL, USA) • Mayank Garg (OPAL-RT, Germany) • Britta Buchholz (Hitachi Energy, Germany) • Antoine Garcia (GE Vernova)
16:00-16:55 Regional Session 2: The Americas (Vipuuri Hall)
Chairs: Guillermo Jiménez Estévez (UNIANDES, Colombia) Luiza Higino Silva-Santos (UNICAMP, Brazil)
16:00-16:15 Camilo A. Cortés (UNAL, Colombia)
Microgrid Deployment in Puerto Carreño (Colombia): A Pilot Project
16:15-16:30 Mike Murray (GENERAC Power Systems, USA)
Utility Load Shedding Solutions – Utilizing hybrid microgrids to reduce cost and increase resiliency during utility load shedding
16:30-16:45 Hércules Oliveira (EQT Lab/UFM, Brazil)
From Isolated Microgrids to Mission-Critical Energy Systems: Lessons Learned and Future Directions in Hybrid Power Systems
16:45-16:55 Salem Al Agtash (SCU, USA)
Agentic Agents for Autonomous Microgrids
16:55-17:00 Closing Sesion

Symposium DAY 2 – TECHNICAL SESSIONS

LUT Campus, Lappeenranta

Symposium DAY 2 – TECHNICAL SESSIONS

LUT Campus, Lappeenranta

09:00-10:00 Poster Pitching Session (Auditorium 2310)
Chairs:Nicanor Quijano Silva (UNIANDES, Colombia) Hongcai Zhang (University of Macau, China)
 1. Mitra Nabian Dehaghani (Tallinn University of Technology – TalTech, Estonia)
2. Leticia Tomas Filol (LUT University, Finland)
3. Luiza Higino S. Santos (UNICAMP, Brazil)
4. Iurii Demidov (LUT University, Finland)
5. Qingwei Tang (National Technical University of Athens – NTUA, Greece/HUT, China)
6. Yerim Lee (Inha University, South Korea)
7. Hojun Yang (Inha University, South Korea)
8. Mohamed Seralkhatm (University of Vaasa, Finland)
9. Görkem Unal (University of Vaasa, Finland)
10. Nida Riaz (Tampere University, Finland)
 11. Alessandro Onori (Politecnico di Milano – POLIMI, Italy)
12. Zhineng Fei (Aalto University, Finland)
13. Radu Plămănescu (University Politehnica Bucharest – UPB, Romania)
14. Jianmin Zhang (Dianzhi University, China)
15. Tarmo Korõtko (Tallinn University of Technology – TalTech, Estonia)
16. Saku Siermala (ABB Oy, Finland)
17. Zhifang Wang (Virginia Commonwealth University, USA)
18. Dana Tizya-Tramm (Yukon University, Canada)
19. Keishi Matsuda (Mitsubishi Electric, Japan)
20. Arsalan Rehmat (National Technical University of Athens – NTUA, Greece)
10:00-11:00 Poster Session & Coffee Break (LUT Street Café)
11:00-12:00 Regional Session 3: Asia & Oceania (Auditorium 2310)
Chairs: Dongjun Won (Inha University, South Korea)               Ryoichi Hara (Hokkaido University, Japan)
11:00-11:20 Maureen Artais (Department of Energy – Philippines)
The Philippine Experience in Microgrid Development, and Policy Innovations for Investment
11:20-11:40 Xiaoxiao Meng (Hefei University of Technology)
Fault Recovery Control for Hybrid AC/DC Microgrids Based on Seamless Mode Switching
11:40-12:00 Xuzhu Dong (Wuhan University)
Research on Control and Application Challenges of Microgrid Clusters
12:00-13:00 Lunch at University of Applied Sciences (LAB) and LUT Lab visits
13:00-14:00 Special Session 2: Off-grid & Remote Microgrids (Auditorium 2310)
Chairs: Nayeem Ninad (NRCan, Canada)               I.V. Prasanna (NTU – REIDS, Singapore)
13:00-13:20 Dave Turcotte (NRCan, Canada)
Microgrids for Energy Security and Resilience in Military Applications
13:20-13:40 Bruce Ackerman (Big Mesa Farm, USA)
A Standalone Microgrid Powering a California Organic Farm
13:40-14:00 Mominul Hasan (Europa-Universität Flensburg – EUF, Germany)
Divergent Microgrid Development Pathways in Developing and Developed Off-grid Contexts
14:00-14:30 Coffee Break (LUT Street Café)
14:30-15:30 Special Session 3: Microgrids for Data Centers
Chairs:Fabio Andrade Rengifo (UPR, Puerto Rico)               Yun Yu (Aalborg University, Denmark)
14:30-14:50 I.V. Prasanna (NTU Singapore – REIDS facility)
MW scale microgrid R&D projects in India and Indonesia dedicated to data Centers and other critical facilities
14:50-15:10 Mahmoud Kabalan (University of St. Thomas – Center for Microgrid Research)
Why Microgrids Matter in the Age of AI
15:10-15:30 Antoine Garcia (GE Vernova, UK)
How GE Vernova’s EMS enables hyperscalers scale-up goals
15:30-16:00 Closing Sesion