Event Review | 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 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.
This in-person event attracted over 60 attendees 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.
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, Head of the Power and Energy division, University of Manchester. He shared insights on the UK’s Integrated Grid 2050 plans, inspiring young researchers to find 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 presentation ‘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.
Finally, the MEEPS oral presentations were held, with the first five of seven researchers from different universities sharing their works, and including a Q&A with audience members.
Following the morning session, a special IEEE Women-in-Power (WiP) session entitled; “Cross-cutting Technologies Towards a Net-Zero World” took place. The first guest speaker was Siva Kaviya, Trichy Siva Raman from TNEI Services who 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 for attaining a more sustainable energy future in a poster presentation format.
The last part 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 delivered by Dr Pablo Briff, the R&D Manager at GE Renewable Energy. He focused 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 shared their research works, with a very interactive Q&A.
Dr Robin Preece, SBC’s Academic Advisor, rounded up the program with closing remarks on the event and on 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.
We are delighted 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), the best Poster and the ROI awards and
- Mr Zaichun Zhang, from the University of Manchester, the IEEE Region 8 LPC 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 – who 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.
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: https://www.ieee-manchester.org.uk/
Omoniyi Akinpelumi, Chair
Wenzhu Li, Vice-Chair
Airam Perez Guillen, Treasurer & Event Coordinator
