Prof. Pierluigi Mancarella of University of Melbourne - Melbourne Energy Institute

LECTURE ABSTRACT

This Lecture will explore the key principles of multi-energy systems (MES), where electricity merges with other sectors like heating, cooling, and transport. It will highlight how distributed MES can aid in decarbonizing the energy system through sector coupling, offering flexibility and grid services essential to the Smart Grid. We'll examine use cases from recent projects in the UK, Europe, and Australia, involving collaborations with system operators and regulators, to demonstrate how MES can facilitate cost-effective, reliable, and resilient low-carbon electricity and gas networks with a high share of renewable energy integration. Discussions will also extend to future scenarios envisioning electricity-hydrogen systems with extremely high renewable energy contributions.

Biography:

Personal Statement: 

My research interests, experience and expertise span various aspects of techno-economic modelling of power and energy systems and risk and resilience assessment of future grids. In about two decades of research in different parts of the globe I have always been motivated by the concept of ”impact”, with the aim of translating advanced research into real-world applications and informing industry and governments with my activities and research outcomes. Looking at energy system evolution in the coming years, I intend to focus my research on understanding how large-scale energy systems need to be planned and operated in an economic, reliable and resilient way, particularly looking at sector coupling and electrification of other energy sectors (e.g., heating and transport) and interactions of a renewables-rich electricity grid with new energy vectors (e.g., hydrogen). I will thus be looking forward to giving a lecture on “Clean Multi-Energy Systems: An introduction to the Smart Grid beyond electricity” within the Lecture Series on Enabling Technologies for Clean Energy Transition and actively engaging in the relevant discussions with academic and industrial stakeholders.

Personal details:

I am the Chair Professor of Electrical Power Systems at The University of Melbourne (Australia) and Professor of Smart Energy Systems at The University of Manchester (UK). I obtained my MSc (2002) and PhD (2006) degrees in Power Systems from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, and before joining the University of Manchester in 2011, and then the University of Melbourne in 2016, I was a Research Associate at Imperial College London, UK (2008-2011). I have been an Invited Visiting Professor in several institutions including Ecole Centrale de Lille, France, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile, and Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, as well as a Visiting Researcher at Sintef/NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, and at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. I am involved as an Editor in several international journals and regularly contribute with my research and consultancy activities to practical industry and government initiatives and developments.

Key outputs, contributions, and achievements:

My key contributions are in the areas of energy system integration and power system resilience, for which I was also recently elevated to IEEE Fellow (2023). More specifically, I have since my PhD pioneered the concept of ”multi-energy systems”, also informing practical industry developments (for example in Australia, recently, on multi-energy virtual power plants, for which in 2017 I obtained the veski Innovation Fellowship from the Victorian Government). I also carried out early and innovative research on power system resilience and worked more broadly on infastructure planning under large-scale uncertainty, and the methodologies I developed have been used for market reforms in Australia and for transmission system planning in the UK, Australia and Chile. With regards to the latter, my research on power system resilience against earthquakes with applications to the Chilean system was awarded a prestigious international Newton Prize in 2018.

Email:

Address:Grattan Street, Parkville, , Victoria, Australia, 3010