Michael Ropp
Dr. Michael Ropp was born on Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota in 1967. He received the Bachelor's degree in Music from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1991, and the Masters and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in 1996 and 1998, respectively, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Ropp was on the Electrical Engineering faculty of South Dakota State University from 1999 to 2010, where he taught and researched power systems and photovoltaics and was an NSF-CAREER award winner. He is presently the President and Principal Engineer of Northern Plains Power Technologies (NPPT).
Dr. Ropp has nearly twenty years of experience in power engineering, power electronics, and photovoltaics. His experience encompasses computer modeling of power systems; grid integration of distributed energy resources (DERs); design, modeling, fabrication and testing of power electronic converters (DC-DC and DC-AC); modeling, control, and monitoring of energy storage systems; and microgrid design, control, protection and seamless grid integration.
He has experience in essentially every aspect of photovoltaic systems, including PV devices, energy storage, PV and battery power electronics and their controls for both on- and off-grid (PV-only and hybrid) systems, integration of PV into microgrids and other low-inertia power systems, and PV system modeling, design, specification, procurement, construction, monitoring, and standards compliance.
He has authored over fifty technical publications, one of which won an IEEE Prize Paper award. He presently holds one patent on a method for detecting unintentional islands in grid-connected DERs. Dr. Ropp is active in the IEEE and the development of standards, including IEEE-1547, and is a registered Professional Engineer in South Dakota and Hawaii.