The disciplinary directions of the Institute of Electric Power Systems are power system and its automation, and its predecessor was the transmission & distribution teaching and Research Section and the power plant established in 1952. The Section became the first batch of national doctoral and master's degree conferring unit in 1981, was rated as the national key discipline in 1988. The Institute of Electric Power Systems was established officially in 1999. In 2001, it was evaluated again as the key discipline by virtue of the first ranking in the country. The work goal of the Institute is to train high-level talents engaged in research, design, management, teaching and new technology development and application for the power industry and related departments in China.

At present, the Institute has 38 in-service faculty members, including 10 professors (9 doctoral tutors, including 1 CAS academician), 10 teachers with associate senior professional titles and 16 with intermediate professional titles. Among them, 29 are under 45 years old, 27 are doctoral degree winners.

By the end of 2005, the Institute had hosted, participated in and completed more than 200 scientific research projects with an outlay of more than 115 million yuan, including two national key basic research projects (973 Program), one major NSFC project, four key fund projects, two projects by the Excellent Youth Foundation (Professors Sun Yuanzhang & Mei Shengwei) and more than 10 general fund programs. It has won five second-class prizes and four third-class prizes for national science and technology progress, and the seven first-class prizes and more than 20 second-class prizes for provincial and ministerial science and technology progress. In addition, it was awarded a special prize (jointly with other secondary disciplines of the DEE), a first prize and a second prize of the national level teaching achievements, and won the two first prizes and the two second prizes of the provincial and ministerial level teaching achievements, and one national level excellent course. More than 100 doctoral students and 500 master's students have been trained. A total of 15 monographs and textbooks have been published, and more than 1200 papers have been published, including more than 60 in SCI and 500 in EI.

The Institute is always committed to the basic theory research and the study on the important theoretical issues in the operation and development of China's power system for a long time, and has done a lot of exploratory frontier work in solving the basic theoretical problems of the safe and economic operation of large and complex interconnected power systems. The research contents include the core issues in the power system non-linear control theory, the wide area monitoring and control protection theory, the dispatching automation theory and technology, the power market operation theory, the power system dynamic process analysis and calculation technology, and the distributed generation and access.

The Institute adheres to the direction of serving the main battlefield of the national economy, pays close attention to the demand of social and economic development for the power industry, and devotes itself to the research and application of advanced technology which has important practical value for the safe and economic operation of the power system. The dispatching automation system (EMS/DMS), power market trading system, reactive power and voltage optimization control system, load forecasting system, regional stability control system, hydropower station simulation and power station simulation system developed have been applied successfully in China, and so it has made positive contributions to solving practical engineering problems in China's power system.

The Institute lays emphasis on international academic exchanges. During the Tenth Five-Year Plan period, about 70 teachers and postgraduates participated in international scientific research cooperation activities. It hosted four international conferences, which about 180 overseas experts attended. It received about 50 visits and lectures from foreign experts and undertook more than 20 international cooperation research projects.