On November 21, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering announced the results of the 2025 academicians’ election. A total of ten Tsinghua University faculty members were elected academicians, among whom Professor Sun Hongbin from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronics (EEA) was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Sun Hongbin, born in October 1969, received his bachelor's and doctoral degrees from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronics, Tsinghua University, in 1992 and 1997, respectively. He remained at Tsinghua University after graduation and currently serves as a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Applied Electronics and as President of Taiyuan University of Technology. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Energy Committee of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), and as the first Chair of the Energy Internet Coordination Committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He has received the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, holds the title of Chang Jiang Scholar Distinguished Professor appointed by the Ministry of Education, serves as Academic Leader of the Innovation Research Group funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and has been elected IEEE Fellow, IET Fellow, and Fellow of the China Electrotechnical Society.

He has long been engaged in theoretical, technical, and applied research in the field of smart grids and energy internet. In response to the challenges of voltage instability caused by the integration of wind and solar energy into the grid, which can trigger large-scale blackouts, he spent over 20 years developing a self-coordinated voltage control technology system. He led the development of the first large-scale industrial software for automatic voltage control in complex grids, which has been widely applied to ensure voltage security in China’s ultra-large power grids, overcoming a major bottleneck limiting the rapid development of renewable energy in China. To address disciplinary barriers in building new energy systems, he proposed the “Energy Path” concept, extending “circuit” theory into “energy path” theory, unifying mathematical models of heterogeneous energy flows including electricity, gas (hydrogen), and heat (cold), and providing a unified theory for modeling and analysis of integrated energy systems. To tackle the long-standing reliance on fuel in polar research, he overcame extreme environmental challenges to lead the construction of the world’s first polar wind-solar-hydrogen clean energy system at the Antarctic Qinling Station, promoting “green exploration” in polar regions.

As the first principal contributor, he has received the First Prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and the First Prize of National Teaching Achievement Award, as well as the Second Prize of the National Technology Invention Award (ranked second). He has twice been selected among China’s Top Ten University Scientific and Technological Advances and has been awarded the Higher Education Teaching Master Award and the 2022 Engineer of the Year Award by the Asia-Pacific Federation of Engineering Organizations.