The Changing Energy Mix, Implications of the Shale Gas Boom for the Electric Power Sector

Description: Summary: Transitioning to a sustainable low-carbon energy system poses one of the great challenges of the 21st century. The Energy Innovation Series brings leaders from government, law, finance, industry, and academia to discuss key aspects of this challenge and some of the innovative approaches and solutions being fashioned across a range of sectors. During academic year 2012-13, the series will focus on the changing energy mix in the United States and abroad, the implications of shale gas on the electric power sector, financing for energy innovation, the changing utility business model, and pathways to scale for renewable energy. This half-day conference will explore some of the dramatic changes taking place in the energy sector, with particular attentions to the U.S. electric power sector. « Hide Authors: Lance Astrella, William Boyd, Jeff Logan, John Mork

Energy Efficiency In Buildings And Heat Supply Solutions: A German Perspective For The Nuclear Shutdown

Description: Beginning with some background information on the unique German position regarding the energy supply eliminating any nuclear power by 2022 but enforcing the use of renewable energy sources, the challenges for both the building and the power generation sector will be highlighted. The talk will introduce opportunities to improve energy performance of buildings by new and innovative HVAC concepts as well as for increasing the penetration of renewable and environmental energy sources for heat and power supply in cities. That is also why a particular focus will be on other relevant aspects as multi-level district heating, combined heat and power generation and the proper balance between large-scale energy generation in heat and power plants and distributed small-scale heat and power generation in buildings in terms of a global optimum in energy use and emissions. Currently ongoing research projects at the Technical University of Dresden will be presented. « Hide Authors: Clemens Felsmann

Modeling, Monitoring and Control of Wind Turbine Drive-trains

Summary: The wind turbine drive‐train is an integral part of the turbine that converts rotational kinetic energy from the wind to electrical energy. Ensuring reliable and robust operation of the drive‐train necessitates developing an accurate dynamic response model that includes its aero‐dynamic interaction with the wind, torsional and translational responses of its mechanical components, as well as electro‐mechanical interaction at the generator. This presentation will describe a high‐fidelity lumped mass model of the wind turbine drive‐train, which is integrated with FAST, an openly available aero‐elastic code developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Jaspreet Singh Dhupia is an Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore since July 2008. Prior to that, Prof. Dhupia graduated with a PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a B.Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. His doctoral research was carried out at the Center for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems funded by National Science Foundation. Currently, his research activities are funded by several government and industrial organizations in Singapore, which include the Ministry of Education, Maritime Port Authority, Rolls-Royce Singapore Pte. Ltd., and ABB Singapore Pte. Ltd. His research focuses on drive-train controls, monitoring, and modeling for different applications, such as ships, aircraft, and wind turbines.

High-altitude Wind Energy Generation

Sustainable energy generation is one of the most urgent challenges that mankind is facing nowadays. Many countries have set ambitious objectives to increase the share of energy produced from clean and renewable sources. Unfortunately, the actual renewables are still not competitive with respect to fossil fuels, due to the high costs of the related technologies, their variable and non-uniform availability and their low power density per unit area. Lorenzo Fagiano, Ph.D. Lorenzo Fagiano received the Master's degree in Automotive Engineering in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in Information and System Engineering in 2009 from Politecnico di Torino, Italy. In 2005 he worked for Fiat Research Centre, Italy, in the field of active vehicle systems. In 2007 he spent a three-months visiting period in the Optimization for Engineering Center (OPTEC) of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Lorenzo Fagiano is currently a Marie Curie fellow at Politecnico di Torino and a visiting researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His main research interests include high-altitude wind energy generation using controlled tethered wings, constrained robust and nonlinear control, set membership theory for control purposes and automotive control systems. Lorenzo Fagiano is co-author of about 50 papers published in international journals, conference proceedings and book chapters. He is recipient of the ENI award "Debut in Research" prize 2010, of the Maffezzoni prize 2009 and of a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship.

Control of Power Inverters in Renewable Energy and Smart Grid Integration

Dr. Qing-Chang Zhong Qing-Chang Zhong received the Ph.D. degree in control theory and engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, in 1999, and the Ph.D. degree in control and power engineering (awarded the Best Doctoral Thesis Prize) from Imperial College London, London, U.K., in 2004. He holds the Chair Professor in Control and Systems Engineering at the Dept of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, the University of Sheffield. He is a Fellow of IET (2010) and a Senior Member of IEEE (2004). He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics and of the Conference Editorial Board of IEEE Control Systems Society. He is a Vice Chair of IFAC TC 6.3 (Power and Energy Systems) and IFAC TC 2.2 (Linear Control Systems), and has been on the Program Committees of many international conferences. He was awarded one of the seven Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowships in 2009 by the Royal Academy of Engineering, UK. He has attracted over £2M research funding from EPSRC, RAEng, TSB, and industrial companies etc during the last five years. His current research focuses on advanced control theory, power electronics, renewable energy, smart grid integration, electrical vehicles and control applications in other industrial sectors. The details of some of his projects can be found from http://zhongqc.staff.shef.ac.uk.