Engineers at Ramboll have developed a new technology that substantially eliminates a primary cause of global power grid instability: too many different power sources added to an aging energy infrastructure. It is a growing problem that likely contributed to the national-level power outage of Portugal and Spain in April 2025, and that Ramboll, global architecture, engineering, and consultancy company, has now found an answer to.
The Universal Damping STATCOM (patent pending), acts as a ‘universal shock absorber’ for the grid, making it easier and less risky for operators to add renewable energy sources to grids, preventing power outages, cutting costs of developing power systems around the world, and significantly increasing resilience.
“This breakthrough technology will not only lower energy costs for everyone from consumers to utilities and private investors, we will also see fewer outages and less outage time,” says Cheryl Ginyard-Jones, Managing Director of Ramboll in the Americas.
How it works
Adding new sources of renewable energy such as solar plants, wind farms, and battery storage systems to the grid impacts reliability due to the introduction of potential oscillations, or fluctuations into the transmission system. When designing the system, operators currently try to predict all potential devices that will be plugged into a grid, along with all potential oscillation modes and future operating conditions. Then operators fine tune or add damping controllers for specific identified modes to address potential oscillations. This can still cause outages and other issues down the road because of unanticipated technological advancements, unexpected new devices connecting to the system, or unpredicted operating conditions.
The Universal Damping STATCOM, installed at critical nodes in an existing power system, will detect and neutralise any observable oscillation in system voltage by absorbing energy from the oscillations and converting it to useable power. Coupled with energy storage capabilities, this new technology promises to change the way transmission system operators and regional transmission organisations keep power grids stable and encourages the adoption of renewable sources of energy in the age of rising energy prices and power-intensive data centres.
“One of the biggest challenges in adopting renewable energy is the cost of maintaining grid reliability. It is difficult handling the ever-changing power generation and load patterns, especially when the grid is outdated. Upgrading the grid with our new technology is a relatively inexpensive step that unlocks enormous potential,” says Mojtaba Mohaddes, senior technical manager at Ramboll and the inventor of this innovation.
Power outages are extremely costly and can sometimes result in billions of dollars of losses. By preventing oscillations at the source, the Universal Damping STATCOM can save utilities and their customers enormous sums and provide more uninterrupted power. The cost for grid operators to implement this new technology is estimated to be a modest increase from a current STATCOM, with costs scaling down as adoption increases.
“This invention is a game-changer for power systems, and opens up incredible opportunities for more renewables in our power mix around the world,” says Joanne Hu, Chair of Study Committee B4 at CIGRE. “Not only can developing countries now decarbonise their power grid, they can also have more reliable power for their people.”
Ramboll is actively in talks with potential partners – OEMs, utilities, and investors – to bring this technology to market and help deploy this innovation worldwide.
