Super session

Moderator:

Dr. Mladen Kezunovic

Super session title:

“Massive electrification for achieving NetZero Grid: Challenges and Opportunities”.

Super session summary:

In the European Union (EU), the “clean energy for all Europeans” package in 2016 and the REPowerEU in 2022 aim to accelerate the transition to clean energy and enhance energy efficiency. This effort comprises several key directives and regulations (e.g., Renewable Energy Directive – 2018/2001/EU, Energy Efficiency Directive – 2018/2002/EU, Electricity Market design – 2019/943/EU), investments, and partnerships. Key objectives were increasing the share of renewable energy source (RES) to at least 32% by 2030, improving energy efficiency to reduce energy consumption by 32.5% by 2030, enhancing consumer rights and protections in the energy market, and promoting greater integration and competition in the electricity market.

The leading experts in the power systems will elaborate on how the massive electrification expected in the future may impact the NetZero goals, and how such goals were achieved in the different regions around the world. The examples and expertise will illustrate possible ways how the different countries in the Mediterranean Region may approach the NetZero goals.

Dr. Mladen Kezunovic has been with Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA for over 35 years, where he holds titles of University Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor, Eugene E. Webb Professor, and Site Director of “Power Engineering Research Center” consortium. He is also the Principal of XpertPowerTM Associates, a consulting firm specializing in power system modeling and data analytics for the last 30 years. His expertise is in protective relaying, fault modeling, automated power system disturbance analysis, computational intelligence, data analytics, and smart grids. He has authored/co-authored over 600 papers and 11 books/book chapters, given over 120 seminars, invited lectures, and short courses, and consulted for over 55 companies worldwide. Dr. Kezunovic is an IEEE Life Fellow, and a CIGRE Fellow, Honorary and Distinguished Member. He is a Registered Professional Engineer in Texas. Dr. Kezunovic is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

Honorary Participants:

Dr. Shay Bahramirad

Dr. Shay Bahramirad is the Vice President of Transmission and Distribution Engineering, Pacific Gas and Electric Company. She has held several positions in the sector including Vice President of Climate and Resilience at Quanta Technology, where she was responsible for assisting cities and utilities with climate change risk assessments for their assets, operations, and services and for developing investment strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Prior to that, she was Vice President of Engineering and Smart Grid at ComEd, the electric utility serving Chicago and Northern Illinois, where she had led efforts to demonstrate and deploy technologies to ensure that the distribution system would meet strategic goals related to reliability, resiliency and sustainability, while developing and implementing a broader community of the future vision including a focus on industry-informed STEM education for underrepresented communities in the industry including girls. She has been an expert witness testifying in US Congress and several state and commonwealth regulatory agencies regarding disaster recovery, reconstruction of power grid, microgrids, energy storage, investment strategies, and the interconnection of distributed energy resources.

Dr. Bahramirad is a leading figure in the industry. She is the President of IEEE Power and Energy Society, an editorial board member of the Electricity Journal, US CIGRE Executive member, an adjunct professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, board member of Mercy Home for Boys and Girls and the founder of IEEE Women in Power.

Dr. Bahramirad completed her PhD in electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and has published more than 100 academic articles, as well as being the recipient of multiple US patents.

Dr. Andreas Poullikkas

Dr. Andreas Poullikkas holds a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng.) degree in mechanical engineering, a Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) degree in nuclear safety and turbomachinery, a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in numerical analysis and a Doctor of Technology (D.Tech.) higher doctorate degree in energy policy and energy systems optimization from Loughborough University, U.K. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET). Dr. Andreas Poullikkas is currently the Chairman of the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority (CERA) and he was for several years the Chairman of the Cyprus Energy Strategy Council (both appointments by the President of Cyprus). In his professional career he has worked for academic institutions and for the industry, such as, a Visiting Faculty at Harvard University, USA, the Cyprus University of Technology (Professor of Power Systems and Chair of the Department of Electrical Engineering) and the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (founder and director of the Research and Development Department). He is the Associate Editor of the journal Discover Energy (Springer Nature) and of the Journal of Power Technologies, member of the Editorial Board of the journal Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments and the author of various peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals, book chapters, conference proceedings and the author of ten books.

Dr. Pantelis Capros

Pantelis Capros, Professor (Emeritus) of Energy Economics and Operation Research at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). As a Professor since 1988, he taught energy economics, mathematical programming and economic analysis courses at the NTUA and has founded the E3MLab, specialised in modelling energy-economy-environment interactions, having delivered the widely renowned models PRIMES, PRIMES-TREMOVE, Prometheus and GEM-E3. He holds an engineering degree from NTUA, three Master's Degrees in Economics, Informatics and Operations Research and a Doctorat d'Etat (PhD) in Mathematical Economics from the University of Paris, France.

Prof. Capros was the first Chairman of the Regulatory Authority for Energy in Greece (2000-2005), a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Power Corporation for several years and a Professor at the University of Paris Sorbonne until 2000. He is a founding member of the European Energy Institute.

The E3MLab has developed since 1990 energy-economy modelling, scenario building and impact assessment studies for the European Commission, several governments and large utilities. Indicative studies are the Reference energy-transport projections book of the European Commission (published every two years), and the modelling of staff reports of the European Commission for most of the energy-related legislative reforms, including the Electricity Directives, the 20-20-20 package (2007), the Low Carbon Roadmaps (2011-2012), the Winter package (2016), the Long-Term Strategy (2018), the Green Deal (2020), the Fit-for-55, the RepowerEU and others Directives.

Dr. Vera Silva

Vera Silva graduated from Imperial College of London with a PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 2010. While at Imperial she was involved in the language exchange, helping students with English and Portuguese.

Prior to her role as Chief Technology Officer GE Grid Solutions, Vera was program director for electricity systems and markets and senior R&D engineer at Electricité de France (EDF). Vera was recognised as “Engineer of the Year” in 2016 by the IEEE Power and Energy Society.

Antonio Iliceto

Antonio Iliceto is a senior expert on energy transition and innovation in power systems.

Recent fields of activities: Sector Coupling, Hydrogen and EV impact on power grids, Electrification of Industrial processes and Built Environment, Interconnections and Global Grids, Flexibility & Resilience studies, Energy Scenarios and Projects’ Economic Assessments, European Innovation Roadmaps.

Employed in Terna Group (Italian Transmission System Operator) since 23 years in International Operations within Strategy, Planning and Despatching Dept; previously positions  in international business development, interconnection projects, investment planning, technical innovation deployment, electricity market set-up and evolution.

Previously engaged 10 years in ENI, Italian major in Oil & Gas sector, engaged in strategic development, investment appraisal, international operations, merging&acquisitions.

Current roles in International Organisations: CIGRE, ENTSO-E, MedTSO, ETIP SNET, ISGAN,  IEC, IEA, WEF Dii Desert Energy.   

Dr. Antonello Monti

Antonello Monti received his  Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 1994. He started his career with Ansaldo Industria and then held different academic positions in Italy and USA. Since 2008, he has been the Director of the Institute for Automation of Complex Power System, E.ON Energy Research Center, RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Since 2019 he also has a joined appointment at Fraunhofer FIT, Center for Digital Energy Aachen. Prof. Monti is the coordinator of relevant European projects such as OneNet, TwinEU and IntNet.