Keynote speakers
Jovica V Milanović
Title:
Holistic approach to stability analysis of sustainable power systems
Abstract:
Due to the evident climate change and environmental pressures the future power/energy systems will have to operate, sooner rather than later, in a net-zero environment. This will manifest in a mix of wide range of electricity generation, storage and demand technologies (increasingly power electronics interfaced); blurred boundaries between transmission and distribution system; significantly higher reliance on the use of legacy and measurement data including global signals for system identification, characterization and control and Information and Communication Technology embedded within the power system network and its components. The key characteristics of such a complex system, would certainly be proliferation of power electronic devices in different shapes and forms and for different purposes, increased uncertainties in system operation and parameters and much larger reliance on the use of measurement and other data collected.
This presentation will first briefly introduce some of the key characteristics of future net-zero, sustainable power systems and the need for holistic approach to solving the identified challenges and then illustrate as an example a holistic approach to dynamic analysis of net zero power systems focusing on applications of nondeterministic approaches, use of data anаlytics and machine learning
Bio:
Jovica V Milanović received Dipl.Ing. and M.Sc. degrees from the University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, Ph.D. degree from the University of Newcastle, Australia, and D.Sc. degree from The University of Manchester, UK. Prior to joining The University of Manchester, UK, in 1998, he worked with “Energoproject”, Engineering and Consulting Co. and the University of Belgrade in Yugoslavia, and the Universities of Newcastle and Tasmania in Australia. Professor Milanović is Head of Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Manchester, UK, Visiting Professor at the University of Novi Sad and the University of Belgrade, Serbia and a Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia. He was chairman of 6 international conferences, member of 9 (convenor of 3) past IEEE/CIGRE/CIRED WG, participated in or lead numerous research projects with total value of over £80 million, published over 600 research papers and reports, gave over 30 key-note speeches at international conferences and presented over 150 courses/tutorials and lectures to industry and academia around the world. Professor Milanovic is a Chartered Engineer in the UK, Foreign member of the Serbian Academy of Engineering Sciences, Fellow of the IET, Fellow of the IEEE, Distinguished IEEE PES Lecturer, Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, member of IEEE PES Governing board, Executive Board and Financial Committee, IEEE PES Long Range Planning Committee and IEEE PES Vice President - Publications. He was a member of the IEEE PES Governing Board as Regional Representative for Europe, Middle East and Africa for six years, member and vice-chair of IEEE PES Fellows Evaluation Committee, Chair of the IEEE Herman Halperin Transmission and Distribution Award Committee, member of the IEEE PES Industry Technical Support Leadership Committee and member of the IEEE Fellows Committee.
Carlo Alberto Nucci
Title:
Achieving Energy Transition Towards Climate Neutrality:
The Potential of Smart Cities and Renewable Energy Communities in the EU
Abstract:
The goal of achieving global climate neutrality through the energy transition envisaged by the Conference of Parties and the EU Green Deal is discussed, with a focus on smart cities and renewable energy communities.
The continued high consumption of fossil fuels necessitates multiple actions: enhancing the efficiency of existing power plants and shifting from fossil fuels to less climate-impacting sources. Utilizing renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and hydroelectric power is becoming increasingly essential. The gradual electrification of various sectors and diversification to reduce dependence on both energy sources and materials and technologies is viewed as a key strategy for the energy transition. Research into hydrogen and nuclear energy is also a crucial component of a diversified energy strategy.
Short bio:
Carlo Alberto Nucci is a Full Professor and Head of the Power Systems Laboratory of the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering “Guglielmo Marconi”, University of Bologna. Author/co-author of more than 370 scientific articles published in peer-reviewed journals or international conference proceedings and of 13 chapters of internationally distributed books on the following topics: lightning interaction with power systems, restoration processes after blackouts, power systems dynamics, smart grids, smart cities and renewable energy communities. Prof. Nucci is a Fellow of the IEEE, of the International Council on Large Electric Systems (CIGRE), of which he is also an Honorary member, and of the Chinese Society of Electrical Engineering, CSEE. He has received some best paper/technical international awards, including the CIGRE Technical Committee Award and the ICLP Golde Award. He serves as chair of 2024 Electrical and Computer Engineering panel under the MIT-Portugal Program. He is presently serving as the Italian Representative in the Horizon Europe Mission “Climate-Neutral and Smart cities”. He is also serving as the Chair of the International Conference on Lightning Protection, ICLP, as co-chair of the International Conference on Power Systems Transients, IPST and as vice-chair of the Executive Board of the Power Systems Computation Conference. Prof. Nucci is Doctor Honoris Causa of the University Politehnica of Bucharest, a member of the Academy of Science of the Institute of Bologna and a member of the Istituto Lombardo - Science Academy of Milan. He is also distinguished invited Professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing (2023-2026). Invited Keynote plenary speaker and lecturer at some 40 international conferences. Citations (Scopus: 7752, H index: 44. Google Scholar: 13321, H index: 58) – July 2024
Renewable energy communities of prosumers, supported by European directives, could potentially supply 20% of cities' energy needs by 2030, underscoring the significance of electricity systems and smart grids. An analysis of the role of energy communities is presented in this respect, focusing on the importance of storage systems, transaction pricing, reactive power control, and provision of ancillary services.
Within this context, Europe aims to help 100 cities achieve climate neutrality by 2030 through the Climate Neutral and Smart Cities mission, fostering innovation and providing 100 concrete examples for other cities to follow to reach climate neutrality by 2050. To support the selected cities, Europe intends to offer financial instruments, regulatory measures, and a 'climate city contract' (CCC)
Marija Ilic
Title:
Physics and ML/AI meet to manage uncertainties on the path to reliable decarbonization
Abstract:
In this talk we first describe different new major sources of uncertainties, such as intermittent resources, and (N-k) equipment outages caused by climate effects on the infrastructure during extreme weather conditions, and even by the cyber-attacks on the grid. In addition, parts of the world which have undergone industry restructuring of one form or the other have electric energy markets in which stakeholders’ actions are the very sources of uncertainties to both system operators/planners and to the other stakeholders. We suggest that planning and operating for reliable and resilient, cost-effective electricity services in such environment requires systematic information processing needed to support probabilistic decision-making in feedforward manner by both utilities and stakeholders, such as reinforcement learning and model predictive control. At the same time, it becomes necessary to enable more adaptive automated feedback control by the diverse grid users to avoid fast instabilities and cascading. We discuss how a Dynamic Monitoring and Decision Systems (DyMonDS) framework evolves from today’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) as a way to gather and use data and convert into minimal information needed to ensure reliable and clean, yet cost-effective, service.
The good news is that sensing, monitoring and computing technologies have advanced, and it is becoming possible to implement such dynamic data-enabled protocols. Missing is an integration framework based on standardized physics-supported information exchange. In this talk we share our new unified modeling of energy dynamics which can be used to support standardized information processing and exchange. We provide several examples of what may go wrong without such information exchange, and provide quantifiable benefits from having it. Notably, the proposed DyMonDS framework is shown to be a natural evolution from today’s Automatic Generation Control. It supports a synergic use of physics and ML.
Bio:
Marija Ilić, is a Professor Emerita at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). She currently holds a joint appointment of an Adjunct Professor in EECS Department and of a Senior Research Scientist at the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is an IEEE Life Fellow and an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and the Academia Europaea. She was the first recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award for Power Systems in the US. She has co-authored several books on the subject of large-scale electric power systems, and has co-organized an annual multidisciplinary Electricity Industry conference series at Carnegie Mellon (http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~electriconf) with participants from academia, government, and industry. She was the founder and co-director of the Electric Energy Systems Group (EESG) at Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.eesg.ece.cmu.edu). Currently she is building EESG@MIT https://eesg.mit.edu/ , in the same spirit as EESG@CMU. Most recently she has offered an open EdX course at MIT entitled ``Principles of Modeling, Simulations and Control in Electric Energy Systems”. She is founder and chief scientist at New Electricity Transmission Solutions (NETSS), Inc, currently SmartGridz, Inc https://smartgridz.com/ .
João A. Peças Lopes
Title:
Green hydrogen seasonal storage and generation adequacy
Abstract:
Europe has developed roadmaps for deploying hydrogen as a crucial energy vector of the energy transition towards carbon neutrality. This transition includes a significant shift towards the electrification of society, creating synergies between the electric and gas systems, with hydrogen emerging as a renewable energy carrier.
The increased variability of generation from variable renewable power sources will create challenges regarding the security of supply, requiring investment in storage solutions to minimize renewable energy curtailment and to provide dispatchability to the electric power system in order to keep security of supply. Hydrogen can be produced with a surplus of renewable electricity from wind and solar, allowing a long-term energy seasonal storage strategy, namely by using underground salt caverns, to be subsequently transformed into electricity when demand cannot be supplied due to a shortage of renewable generation ensuring adequate security of supply levels of the power system and thus contribute to accelerating the energy transition. The Portuguese study case between 2030 and 2040 will be used to demonstrate application of this approach. A novel regulatory strategy for the P2P solution will be also described.
Electrolysers can also be used a flexible load to provide ancillary frequency services to help balancing the power system. Results from the adoption of this approach will be also presented for scenarios of 2040 in the Iberian Peninsula.
Bio:
João A. Peças Lopes is Full Professor at Porto University (FEUP) where he teaches in the graduation and post graduation areas and is Diretor of the Sustainable Energy Systems PhD program. He is presently Associate Diretor and Coordinator of the TEC4Energy initiave at INESC TEC, one of the largest R&D interface institutions of the Unversity of Porto. He is also member of the accompanying national committee of the Portuguese recovery and resilience plan. His main domains of research are related with large scale integration of renewable power sources, power system dynamics, storage systems and security of supply, microgeneration and microgrids, smartmetering, electric vehicle grid integration and exploitation of P2P using hydrogen. He is co-editor and co-author of the book “Electric Vehicle Integration into Modern Power Networks” edited by Springer. He is a Fellow from IEEE. He was Adjoint Professor of the Iowa State University and Visiting Professor of University Pontificia Comillas in Madrid.
Bikash Pal
Title:
Stability Modelling and Analysis of Converter Driven Power System
Abstract:
The number of power electronics converters connected to electrical networks has been growing exponentially as they are part of all new generation connected to the grid. While the rapid control and fast electronic switching available with this technology offer flexibility in network operation, the dynamic interactions between several of them threaten the operational stability of the transmission grid is a concern. It is required to develop a methodology for identifying the risks associated with the stability and control interaction before a new power electronic device (e.g. Windfarm, interconnector, STATCOM) is introduced to the network
The talk will focus on an analytical framework in impedance domain to quantify the interaction between the new plant and the rest of the network for setting additional grid connection study specifications which will include detail technical study to check and mitigate the risks associated with new power electronics interfaced generation. The framework developed is to support MMC technology, control delay, system strength and FRT capability of dynamic voltage support devices and windfarm through technical case study conducted at the research group of Bikash Pal at Imperial College London. Future research challenges and opportunities will be highlighted.
Bio:
Is a Professor of Power Systems at Imperial College London (ICL). He is research active in power system stability, control, and estimation. Currently he is leading a six university UK-China research consortium on Resilient Operation of Sustainable Energy Systems (ROSES) as part of EPSRC-NSFC Programme on Sustainable Energy Supply. He led UK-China research consortium project on Power network stability with grid scale storage (2014-2017): His research is conducted in strategic partnership with ABB, SIEMENS, GE Grid Solutions, UK, and National Grid, UK. UK Power Networks. SIEMENS R&D collaborated with him to develop fast power flow and volt-var control tools in Spectrum Power, an advanced module for distribution management system solution from SIEMENS. This is now commissioned in distribution control centres in Columbia, Bosnia Norway and Azerbaijan serving 15 million customers in these countries. GE commissioned sequel of projects with him to analyse and solve wind farm HVDC grid interaction problems (2013-2019). Prof Pal was the chief technical consultant for a panel of experts appointed by the UNFCCC CDM (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Clean Development Mechanism). He has offered trainings in Chile, Qatar, UAE, Malaysia and India in power system protections, stability and control topics. He has developed and validated a prize winning 68-bus power system model, which now forms a part of IEEE Benchmark Systems as a standard for researchers to validate their innovations in stability analysis and control design. He was the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy (2012-2017) and Editor-in-Chief of IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution (2005-2012). He is Vice President, PES Publications (2019-2023). In 2016, his research team won the President’s outstanding research team award at Imperial College London (ICL). He is Fellow of IEEE for his contribution to power system stability and control. He is Fellow of The Royal Academy of engineering, UK for the impact of his contribution to the field. He is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer in Power distribution system estimation and control. He has published about 125 papers in IEEE Transactions and authored four books in power system modelling, dynamics, estimations and control. He was Otto Monsted Professor at Denmark Technical University (DTU) (2019) and Mercator Professor sponsored by German Research Foundation (DFG) at University of Duisburg-Essen in 2011.
Vladimir Terzija
Title:
From Sensors to High-Impact Applications supporting Net-Zero Transition
Abstract:
The 4th Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0, is significantly changing the shape of Critical Infrastructure Systems and societies in 21st century. Through introduction of smart technologies, involving smart sensors, cyber-secure communication infrastructure, supercomputers, application of AI/ML and big-data paradigm, doors for designing and implementing smart solutions contributing to security, dependability, stability, flexibility and resilience of modern energy systems, are widely opened. They are considered as one of the most important factors leading to low-carbon economies and supporting the net-zero transition. Newly designed concept of “digital substations”, supported by cyber secure communication channels, are enabling a rapid and efficient transfer of information from the actual electricity network to hierarchically higher centers in which information is processed to derive decisions of different nature. Through application of data science-based solutions, integration of renewable energy sources is maximized, different energy vectors are integrated into single multi-energy systems, optimizing processes, making them more efficient and contributing to a smooth transformation of the existing energy systems to a sustainable and low carbon systems. The abovementioned topics will be discussed from the new technology perspective, expected benefits and its impact to new solutions/applications, e.g. ancillary services, measures supporting the system integration after large-scale perturbations, or design and operation of customized autonomous net-zero microgrids. To support better understanding of the lecture, two representative high TRL projects, VISOR and EFCC, will be described.
Bio:
Vladimir Terzija received the Dipl-Ing., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Belgrade, Serbia. Currently he is a Professor of Energy Systems & Networks at the Newcastle University, UK. He is also a Distinguished Professor at Shandong University, China, as well as a Gest Professor at the Technical University of Munich, Germany and the University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. In the past, he has been with the University of Belgrade (Serbia), ABB (Germany), The University of Manchester (UK) and Skoltech (Moscow, Russian Federation). His research interests include smart grid applications; WAMPAC; power system protection; transient processes; data analytics and digital signal processing applications in electrical power and energy systems. Prof. Terzija is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems, Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, IEEE Fellow, 1000 Talents Awardee (Shandong University, Jinan, China) and the recipient of the National Friendship Award (China).