Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/10/2014
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Location
Room 156, UCD Engineering

Multi-Energy Systems:
Challenges and opportunities in the Smart Grid beyond electricity

Pierluigi Mancarella, PhD
Reader at the University of Manchester, UK
p.mancarella@manchester.ac.uk

While the Smart Grid is a key concept to move towards a sustainable power system, decarbonisation of the whole energy sector requires rethinking the role of electricity in a wider context. This refers in particular to the interaction with the heating, cooling and transport sectors (which contribute substantially to greenhouse gas emissions) on the end-use side, and with various types of fuels (and natural gas in particular) on the supply-side. In this respect, emerging concepts such as energy systems integration can increase the overall system’s economic and environmental performance from both operation and planning perspectives. More specifically, such a Smart Multi-Energy System thinking, which also entail Smart Communities and Smart Cities, has the potential to unlock value somehow hidden when considering only electricity and to access new forms of flexibility that may be essential in future networks. On the other hand, significant challenges also arise in terms of the complexity of modelling and then operating and planning such an integrated system.
The aim of this talk is to present some of the research activities that are going on for a few years at the University of Manchester on this topic, including: multi-energy load modelling; integrated load flow analysis and district energy system design; operational optimization and flexible expansion planning of distributed multi-energy systems; demand response and business cases for smart communities; and integrated electricity and gas transmission operation.

Biography
Pierluigi Mancarella is a Reader in Future Energy Networks in the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Manchester, UK.
He received his MSc and PhD degrees from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, in 2002 and 2006, respectively, and was a Visiting Researcher at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway, in 2004, a Post-doc Research Fellow at the Politecnico di Torino in 2006 and 2007, and a research Associate at Imperial College London, UK, from 2008 to 2011. He then joined the Electrical Energy and Power Systems group at the University of Manchester, where he currently teaches “Power System Operation and Economics” and “Smart Grids and Sustainable Electricity Systems”. Pierluigi was also a Visiting Professor at Ecole Centrale de Lille, France, in June 2013 and April 2014.
Pierluigi’s areas of expertise and interests include techno-economic and environmental modelling of multi-energy systems; integration of low carbon technologies into power systems and distribution networks; planning of integrated energy infrastructure under uncertainty; and business models for smart technologies.
He is involved in and leads a number of research projects in the areas of sustainable development of smart energy systems and infrastructure planning under uncertainty, sponsored by the UK Research Council, the European Commission, and various industrial companies.
Pierluigi is author of two books, five book chapters, and around 100 research papers.
He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Systems Journal and Chair of the IEEE Europe Working Group on Energy.