2026 Ali Grid Following Inverter Tutorial

The growing use of inverter-based resources in modern power systems has made grid-following inverters a central topic in power-system modeling, control, and simulation. Despite their widespread deployment, introductory material that explains grid-following inverter operation from first principles and connects control design to time-domain simulation remains limited. To address this need, this tutorial presents a circuit-theoretic introduction to the modeling and simulation of a grid-following inverter connected to an electrical power grid. We describe the inverter’s synchronization with the grid (PLL), power control, and current control structure and show how these elements can be represented within an electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulation framework using companion-model-based formulations similar to those used in circuit simulators such as SPICE and Cadence. By the end of the document, readers should gain a clear introductory understanding of how to model and simulate a grid-following inverter in an EMT platform.