Event Review | IEEE Power and Energy Society UK and Ireland Chapter Distinguished Lecture – The Future of DER Hosting Capacity and DER Orchestration by Prof Luis (Nando) Ochoa
On Wednesday, 13th November 2024, the IEEE PES SBC and IEEE IAS SBC at the University of Manchester hosted Professor Luis (Nando) Ochoa from the University of Melbourne for a distinguished lecture on “The Future of DER Hosting Capacity and DER Orchestration.” The lecture was held at 14:00 (UK time), both in person at the Nancy Rothwell Building and online for participants around the world, and proved to be an insightful and thought-provoking event.
Luis (Nando) Ochoa is a Professor of Smart Grids and Power Systems at The University of Melbourne, Australia, and Chief Scientist and Co-Founder at VoltMind. He is an IEEE PES Distinguished Lecturer, an IEEE Senior Member, and a past Editorial Board Member of the IEEE Power and Energy Magazine. His expertise is in network integration of distributed energy resources (DER) and smart grids, and his extensive portfolio of industrial and academic projects have led to 220+ research papers, 90+ technical reports, and two patents.
From 2011 to 2021, he was full and part-time with The University of Manchester, UK. From 2007 to 2010, he was a Research Fellow in Energy Systems at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from UNI (Peru), and a Research MSc and a PhD in Electrical Power Engineering from UNESP Ilha Solteira (Brazil).
Costa Onoufriou, Chair of the IEEE IAS SBC, led the event with a short presentation on IEEE SBCs at the University of Manchester before introducing the guest speaker and distinguished lecturer, Professor Luis (Nando) Ochoa.
Professor Ochoa’s presentation provided a detailed look at the existing methods for determining distributed energy resource (DER) hosting capacity in low voltage networks and his group’s novel approach for doing so without the traditional reliance on power flow methods. With a clear review of how voltages are traditionally calculated to determine hosting capacity in low voltage networks, Professor Ochoa described a system in which electrical network models are vital. Professor Ochoa went on to explain his group’s novel model-free approach to calculating network voltages using a neural network trained with historical smart meter data. He concluded the talk with an explanation of the benefits of the model-free approach, including its speed and the elimination of the need for low voltage electrical models, and case studies validating the efficacy of the approach’s results.
Costa Onoufriou introducing IEEE at the University of Manchester and Professor Ochoa
Professor Ochoa’s lecture attracted 78 attendees over the course of the event, with 22 attending in-person and 56 tuning in online. Following the lecture, an extensive Q&A session saw Professor Ochoa fielding questions from attendees in the room and online, demonstrating the engaging and thought-provoking nature of his talk.
Professor Ochoa fielding questions during the Q&A session
The University of Manchester IEEE PES and IAS SBCs are sincerely grateful to Professor Ochoa for his visit to the University of Manchester and his engaging lecture that invited ample discussion on innovation in modelling and power system analysis. For additional information, including the biography of Professor Ochoa and the abstract of his lecture, please visit the Manchester PES SBC website.
Elizabeth Michalenko
Chair, IEEE PES SBC at The University of Manchester