The digitalisation of electricity grids:
current research and prospects

Dialogue between students and professionals in Quebec’s electrical industry

To consult the complete program: https://aieq.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Programme-Forum_vf_vfr.pdf

Animators:

Student presentations

Distributed Energy Management and Conversion

Mohammad Babaie, École de technologie supérieure

MOHAMMAD BABAIE (Graduate Student Member, IEEE) was born in Dorud, Iran, in January 1992. He received the B.Sc. degree in electronic engineering from Sepahan Science and Technology Higher Education Institute, Isfahan, Iran, in 2013, and the M.Sc. degree in control engineering from Babol Noshirvani University of Technology, Babol, Iran, in 2016. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in power electrical engineering with the École de Technologie Supérieure, University of Quebec, Montreal, QC, Canada.

He is also a member of the Groupe de Recherche en Électronique de Puissance et Commande Industrielle, University of Quebec.

He has authored or co-authored several journal and conference papers in the field of control and power electronics and holds five patents. His research interests include developing variable structure control theory, modeling, and control of power electronic converters using robust, adaptive, and intelligent control techniques, applications of the classical and metaheuristic optimization algorithms in the control theory and the power systems, developing artificial neural network training strategies with application in the power systems, and real-time control based on the FPGA and 32-bit MCUs for power electronic converters.

Camille-Laurie Normandeau, École de technologie supérieure

Camille-Laurie Normandeau obtained her B.Eng. degree in electrical engineering from ÉTS in 2020. During her studies in 2019, she joined Prof. Kamal Al-Haddad in his laboratory at GREPCI and worked with a master’s student on multilevel converters. Since then, she began her master’s degree (M.Sc.A) under Prof. Al-Haddad for a collaborative project between ÉTS, OPAL-RT, and IREQ. His research focuses on modeling, optimisation, and control of grid-connected distributed energy resources (DERs), including photovoltaic panels, energy storage systems, and electric vehicle chargers.

Gabriel Broday, Concordia University

Gabriel Renan Broday was born in Ponta Grossa, Brazil, in 1992. He received the B. S. degree in Electronics Engineering, and the M. S. degree in Electrical Engineering, both from the Federal University of Technology of Parana, Ponta Grossa, Brazil, in 2014 and 2016, respectively. He is currently working towards the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Transactional Energy Management

David Toquica, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

David Toquica received the B.S. degrees in electronic and electrical engineering from the Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito, Bogota, Colombia, in 2014 and 2015, and the master’s degree in electronic engineering from the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia, in 2018. He is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering with the Smart Energy Research and Innovation Laboratory, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada. His research interests include energy markets, artificial intelligence applications for smarts grids, micro-grids integration, renewable energies, and energy utility theory.

Ali Alizadeh, Université Laval

Controlling energy demand

Mozaffar Etezadifar, Polytechnique Montréal

During his bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering, he obtained a minor degree in Economics and Management. It led Mozaffar to establish his first startup with his co-founders in 2013. He continued his Master’s in power management. This program revealed the considerable market value of the energy optimization industry, so he decided to get involved in this field practically, by working in a well-known measurement and instrumentation company. After two years, he joined the biggest industrial startup accelerator in Iran as the development manager. He connected many tech startups in the field of energy to the firms and industries that were dealing with energy efficiency problems.

Now, Mozaffar is in his third year of studies toward a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal. He wants to turn his Ph.D. thesis into a Canadian startup that facilitates energy optimization in power grids by using artificial intelligence.

Abtahi Morning, Concordia University

My research focuses on the use of machine learning techniques for enhanced cost optimality, energy flexibility and resilience in residential sector with integrated renewable technologies. I process sensor data and use them not only to develop and calibrate control-oriented models of buildings’ HVAC consumption, but also to investigate different model-based control strategies.