Electrical Energy Systems

Grid Components and Diagnostics (Peter Wouters)

Knowledge on the reliability and optimal operation of current and future grid components in their application in current and future grids. Development of techniques and tools to assess and safeguard reliability of electricity grid components.

Competences:

• Failure mechanisms
• Diagnostics
• Reliability assessment
• High-voltage technology

Power Quality and EMC (Vladimir Cuk, Ramiro Serra, Anne Roc’h)

To understand, predict, analyze and mitigate unwanted electromagnetic and power quality effects. By means of empirical and analytical modelling and advanced measurement techniques we seek safe and reliable operation of electrical equipment, devices, systems and networks.

(Pulsed) Power Conversion (Tom Huiskamp, Wilfred Hoeben, Guus Pemen)

Driving electrification.

Competences:

• Pulsed power technology - advanced repetitive and nanosecond pulsed-power methods for the generation and tuning of pre-defined transient plasmas for various target processes
• (Medium voltage) power electronics
• Transient plasma

The digital Power & Energy Systems (digi-PES) Lab (Phuong Nguyen)

The digi-PES lab aims to enable the energy transition from micro energy grids towards the future integrated energy system. The laboratory environment is a cyber-physical ecosystem for students and researchers to explore innovations in various energy-related aspects of (but not limited to) nano/micro-grids, local energy communities, local flexibility/energy markets, optimal power/energy flow, or congestion management, hand-in-hand with emerging (big) data and Internet-of-Things (IoT) domains to lay a foundation for comprehensive data-drive and inter-dependencies models of energy system integration.

Power System Optimization and Electricity Markets (Nikos Paterakis)

To facilitate Reliable Information Driven (Control & Coordination) Electrical Power systems.

Research topics:

• Multi-scale modeling approaches to study power systems, taking into account their growing complexity, the underlying uncertainty and risk factors, as well as the need for greater interaction between the different levels (transmission, distribution, etc.) and stakeholders, in the context of both wholesale and emerging local electricity markets. This comprises new methodologies and value-based mechanisms to integrate renewable energy and storage systems, as well as other flexibility resources (e.g. electric vehicles, demand response) at different spatial scales (buildings, neighborhoods, cities)
• Methodologies and tools capable of exploiting in an intelligent and cost effective way large amounts of data; this is a priority in the emerging context of the  ‘digitalization of energy’ for applications such as market participation strategies, demand modeling and forecasting. In this regard, the application of machine learning techniques and the exploitation of cloud-based systems is crucial
• Approaches to evaluate and enhance the reliability of the power system in the light of disruptive technology shifts that may be adopted by end-users and utilities in the near future. This comprises cases of increased reliance on energy that is locally available, new market structures and grid architectures to facilitate energy trading (e.g. meshed grids at lower voltage levels to facilitate peer-to-peer energy trading) and emerging business models such as the ones based on the principles of sharing economy

Smart grid planning, operation and optimization

Supporting planning and operation of future power systems, with increasing amounts of fluctuating renewable energy generation, storage techniques and flexible demand.

Competencies:

• Working principles and modeling of distributed generation technologies
• Modeling and simulation of electricity grids
• Principles of network components and architecture
• Economic principles of power systems and energy markets
• Computing fundamentals: mathematical and heuristic/meta-heuristic optimization, data science (including machine learning), statistics, systems control theory

Research topics:

• Computation tools for long-term network planning
• Multi-energy systems planning and optimization
• Monitoring and control of distribution system operations
• TSO-DSO interaction in an operational framework
• Decentralized optimization and control of smart grids
• Islanded operation of active distribution grids/micro-grids
• Application of demand flexibility and storage in power system operation