Manchester Energy and Electrical Power Systems (MEEPS) Symposium 2022
Organised by the IEEE PES SBC at the University of Manchester (UoM)
On Friday 11th November 2022 from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, the IEEE PES Student Branch Chapter (SBC) at the University of Manchester (UoM) hosted their biggest annual event – MEEPS 2022, the Manchester Energy and Electrical Power Systems Symposium, at the Core Technology Facility, Manchester, UK. This in-person event attracted over 60 attendees (of which 47 were IEEE members) from 13 universities all over the UK and beyond, with delegates arriving from universities as far as Sweden and India. Most of the attendees were students and independent researchers, sponsor representatives and guests from industry and academia.
Figure 1 Poster (L) and Programme Cover (R)
MEEPS 2022 was themed ‘Towards a Sustainable Energy Future’ – to provide an avenue to discuss opportunities and possible solutions to energy challenges, in attaining a more sustainable energy future. The event program consists of three keynote speeches from delegates, two Women-in-Power talks and MEEPS research competition – 7 Oral and 13 Poster presentations.
The event kickstarted with an opening address given by Prof. Mike Barnes, who happens to be the Head of the Power and Energy division, University of Manchester. He shared insights on the UK’s Integrated Grid 2050 plans, inspiring young researchers on finding solutions to his highlighted challenges of a Supergrid.
The first of the three keynote speeches was delivered by Dr Diptargha Chakravorty, a Principal Consultant with TNEI Services. His speech on the topic –- ‘Advanced Planning Tool for Future Systems’ provided us with an overview of TNEI’s technical operations and their unique solution in probabilistically assessing stability constraints on power networks. Afterwards, the MEEPS Oral presentation kickstarted with the first five of seven researchers from different universities sharing their works, with replies to questions asked by the audience.
Figure 2: Snapshots of a researcher’s Oral presentation (L) and cross-section of attendees during a tea break/networking session (R)
Following the morning talk session and a short tea break was a special IEEE Women-in-Power (WiP) session themed; “Cross-cutting Technologies Towards a Net-Zero World”. Our guest speaker – Siva Kaviya, Trichy Siva Raman, from TNEI Services shared her work on the development of IPSA: Common Information Model solution– while our second guest speaker – Dr Angeliki Loukatou from National Grid ESO talked about her career path and lessons learnt from her dealings with energy storage projects. Following this session, some student researchers from different universities shared their research findings and solutions as regards attaining a more sustainable energy future via a Poster presentation format.
Figure 3: Snapshots of a MEEPS Poster presentation session.
The last lap of the program began with a second keynote speech by Mr David Botterill, General Manager at Weidmann Whiteley Ltd. He spoke about the MEEPS theme and how this applies to Weidmann as a company. He then presented the benefits of Weidmann’s unique insulation paper solution in making distribution transformers more sustainable and efficient. The third keynote was a speech by Dr Pablo Briff, the R&D Manager at GE Renewable Energy. He focused his presentation on HVDC VSC: Station Operations and Control. He discussed the advancement of using High-Voltage Direct-Current (HVDC) to integrate offshore wind into the AC grid, with a few illustrations of the latest development in the industry.
The remaining two researchers under the Oral presentation format shared their research works, with well-participated Q&A. Dr Robin Preece who is the SBC’s academic advisor, rounded up the program with general closing remarks on the event and about the student branch chapter. The awards of the best Oral, Research for Industry (ROI) and IEEE Region 8 Local Poster Contest (LPC) award were announced by guests in conjunction with the SBC chair, Mr Omoniyi Akinpelumi.
Figure 4: Best Poster presentation prize awardee (L), IEEE Region 8 LPC presentation prize awardee (C) and cross-section of MEEPS 2022 attendees (R).
It is our delight to announce that Miss Alice Jansson, from the University of Lund (Sweden) won the Best Oral presentation, Miss Kathleen Davies, from the University of Strathclyde (Scotland) won the Best Poster and the Best ROI awards, Mr Zaichun Zhang and Miss Chen Gong from the University of Manchester, won the IEEE Region 8 LPC and Best Essay award.
We would sincerely like to appreciate the kind support of our sponsors (General Electric, TNEI, Weidmann, IEEE Region 8 and the University of Manchester) and our partners (IEEE Women-in-Power (WiP) UK&I, IET, IEEE PES and IEEE UK&I) made this event a success. Special thanks go to the passionate and hard-working student branch committee members and also student volunteers from the University of Manchester.
According to the feedback we collected after the event, the majority of the attendees expressed they strongly agreed that they are glad to have attended MEEPS 2022. Many mentioned that this event was “well-organised” with “a good variety of presentations”.
The IEEE PES SBC at UoM would like to thank all participants for attending the event and special thanks again to all the sponsors and guests.
For more information about MEEPS 2022 and IEEE PES SBC UoM, please visit: http://www.ieee-manchester.org.uk/
Editors:
Omoniyi Akinpelumi (Chair)
Wenzhu Li (Vice-Chair)
Airam Perez Guillen (Treasurer & Event Coordinator)
Past MEEPS:
Check below for photos and snippets of all MEEPS editions.