I am an electrical power engineer by training, holding the Personal Chair of Agile Energy Systems at the School of Engineering of the University of Edinburgh.

Administration

I am Director of Internationalisation - Students, responsible for the strategic development and delivery of the School's international academic partnerships. I am also the founding Programme Director of the MSc in Electrical Power Engineering and the 2-year MSc in Advanced Power Engineering.

Research Leadership

As a member of the Institute for Energy Systems I lead the Agile Energy Systems Research Group, conducting interdisciplinary research in the areas of renewable energy conversion and integration, smart grids, and robotics and smart materials for energy applications. Our group currently comprises 9 Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers and has already graduated an additional 10 PhDs. Our research has generated ~100 peer-reviewed publications. 

Research Grants

I have been the Principal Investigator of the £2.5M EPSRC Centre for Advanced Materials for Renewable Energy Generation (CAMREG), the £160k UKIERI-DST funded Data-Driven Intelligent Energy Management for Environmentally Sustainable Energy Access (D-DIEM) project, and the Edinburgh PI for the EPSRC DESIMAX project. Additionally, I am investigator and work package leader in several large collaborative UK and EU research projects such as the EPSRC Decarbonisation Pathways for Cooling and Heating (DISPATCH) project, the EPSRC Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI) as well as the £36M ORCA Hub, looking into the development of autonomous, artificially intelligent robots for offshore energy applications. In the past I was co-investigator in numerous projects, notably the EPSRC Centre for Marine Energy Research (UKCMER), the FP7 DTOCEAN, the FP7 ITN ADVANTAGE  and the FP7 PolyWEC projects.

Teaching

My teaching includes courses on renewable energy, power and control engineering and research methods. I have a strong track record in developing and delivering courses and programme curricula at both under- and postgraduate levels. 

Contribution to the Engineering Community and External Recognition

Since 2018 I have been a Visiting Professor at the China-UK Low Carbon College of the Shanghai Jiao-Tong University, China. I am currently Associate Editor of the IET Smart Grid Journal and Member of the Editorial Board of the MDPI Energies Journal. I have also been Guest Editor for the Special Issue on Marine Energy, the Special Issue on Data-Driven Methods in Modern Power Engineering and the Special Issue on Advances in Electrical Power Conversion for Energy, Transportation and Industry Applications of the MDPI Energies Journal.

I am a Senior Member of the IEEE and Member of the IET. I am also an active STEM Ambassador for East Scotland, having organised several events promoting Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics to the public and especially primary and high school children, specifically in the areas of renewable energy and robotics.

Control & Instrumentation Engineering 3
Course Organiser
3rd Year Mechanical Engineering / Electrical Engineering

Solar Energy & Photovoltaic Systems
Course Organiser
MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems / Electrical & Advanced Power Engineering

Solar Energy Conversion 5
Course Organiser
5th Year MEng Undergraduate Programmes

Engineering Research Methods with Grand Challenge
Course Organiser (2018-2021)
Core course for all Engineering MScs

PhD & EngD Students as Principal Supervisor

- Current students (6)

Marcelo Salgado Bravo
Providing Flexibility to Electricity Supply through Decentralized Transactive Energy Management (Joint PhD with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago)

Mousa Zerai
Intelligent Sustainable Heat Transformation: Developing Virtual Heat Plants to decarbonise the heat sector in the UK

Huma Iqbal
Multi-level domestic energy management using second-life battery storage and PV distributed generation

Sohail Sarwar
Optimized load management and power stability model for hybrid AC/DC micro grid

Androniki Papathanasi
An interdisciplinary energy analysis and modelling towards decarbonising Scotland’s building sector in a virtual multi-vector energy plant model

Weizhe Qin
Dynamic Mapping of the Flexibility of Multi-Vector Energy Systems

 - Completed PhDs/EngDs (13)

George Tsagarakis (PhD awarded in 2015)
Thesis title: 'Domestic Demand and Network Management in a User-Inclusive Electrical Load Modelling Framework' link

Siraj Sabihuddin (PhD awarded in 2017)
Thesis title: 'An Investigation of Diamagnetic Bearings & Electrical Machine Materials for Flywheel Energy Storage Applications' link

Gautham Krishnadas (Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher, Flexitricity Ltd.) (PhD awarded 2018)
Thesis title: 'Data-Driven Modelling for Demand response from Large Consumer Energy Assets' link

Sara Lupo (PhD awarded in 2018)
Thesis title: 'Impact of Low Carbon Technologies on the Wholesale Prices of the UK Electricity Market' link

Rentao Wu (PhD awarded in 2018)
Thesis title: 'Integration of Electric Vehicles in a Flexible Electricity Demand Side Management Framework' link

Obinna Unigwe (PhD awarded in 2020)
Thesis title: 'Coordination of Distributed Battery Energy Storage Systems in Networks with High Penetration of Photovoltaics' link

Simon Reynolds (EngD awarded in 2020)
Thesis title: 'Independent Speed Control of Tidal Turbine Rotors in an Array' link

Dahunsi Okekunle (PhD awarded in 2020)
Thesis title: 'Design of a Wide-Area Voltage Controller Using Synchrophasors and Predictive Control' link 

Alexandros Kleidaras (Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher) (PhD awarded in 2021)
Thesis title: 'Analysis, Modelling and State Estimation for Large Scale Electric Demand Response' link

Mingyue Wei (PhD awarded in 2021)
Thesis title: 'Multi-Objective Optimisation of Highly Distributed Power System Management' link

Yuanda Gao (PhD awarded in 2022)
Thesis title: 'Data-Driven Short-Term Load Forecast Method and Demand Side Management for Distribution Network' link

Desen Kirli (PhD awarded 2022)
Thesis title: 'Impact of Peer-to-Peer Trading and Flexibility on Local Energy Systems' link

Maximilian Parzen (viva voce exam passed Aug. 2023)
Energy Storage Design and Integration in Power Systems by System-Value Optimisation

ADVANTAGE Workshop Lecture

Power Systems Aspects of Smart Grids

Dr Aristides Kiprakis, Lecturer in Power Systems in the Institute for Energy Systems at the University of Edinburgh, presents a talk on the Power Aspects of Smart Grids. This presentation was given at the ITN-ADVANTAGE Workshop in November 2014.

YouTube video