Event Review | University of Birmingham Student Paper Competition & Open Presentation Competition 2022

The University of Birmingham Student Paper Competition & Open Presentation Competition 2022 was held on the 23rd November at the School of Engineering, University of Birmingham.

This event was organised by the University of Birmingham IEEE Student Branch (PES) and consisted of two sessions. The first was the Student Paper Contest (SPC) which was open to IEEE student members and graduates who have not started their PhD study, and IEEE graduate student members in the local student branch. Session two was the Open Presentation Competition (OPC), aimed at all undergraduate and graduate students in the power and energy fields. Six competitors participated in this event and a total of 18 academic staff and students attended.

To start the event, Dr Nan Chen, the Chair of the UoB IEEE Student Branch, welcomed everyone and gave a brief introduction to the event. Mr Zixuan Jia, the Secretary of the student branch, then introduced the agenda and hosted the following two sessions.

In the SPC session, Mr Binxin Wu, an MSc student in electrical power systems, gave the first presentation with the topic of “Stability Improvement of Micro-grids with hydrogen-based Fuel Cell Generation”. During this presentation, Binxin described the application of fuel cells in microgrids, which could be a key component in transitioning to future energy solutions and topologies.

The second speaker, Mr Ziyi Han, was also an MSc student in electrical power systems. His presentation focused on “Control Strategies for Wind Power-Based Microgrid”. During this presentation, he explained in detail the optimization of wind power-based microgrids by utilizing improved control strategies.

Each presentation was approximately 15 minutes and followed by a 10-minute Q&A session. Members of the audience were clearly engaged in the Q&A session, and both the speakers and the audience benefited from the discussions on the presentations.

At the end of the SPC session, the assessors provided valuable comments on the papers as well as the oral presentations. After counting the marks, the scores of the two speakers were very close. In second place was Mr Ziyi Han and in first place was Mr Binxin Wu for the SPC session.  Congratulations to both!

During the second OPC session, four speakers presented their research work, including one MSc Research student and three PhD students, namely Miss Yixin Li, Mr Shuailong Dai, Mr Jiashuo Hu and Mr Suhan Zhang.

Miss Yixin Li firstly gave a presentation with the topic of “An Improved Hybrid PSO-TS Algorithm for Solving Nonlinear Equations of SHEPWM in Multilevel Inverters”. She proposed the hybrid Particle Swarm Optimization – Tabu Search (PSO-TS) algorithm to realise better convergence ability and higher accuracy in the harmonic elimination for MMC inverters.

Mr Shuailong Dai introduced “The Battery Active Balancing Technology: A Review.” During his presentation, the current battery active balancing technologies were systematically reviewed and summarised and the future research directions were suggested.

Mr Jiashuo Hu’s presentation was about “Analysis of Fault Generated Travelling Wave Signals for Low Inertia Power System Protection”. By analysing different cases, he described how the TW changed with different Renewable Energy System penetrations. He also mentioned that future work will include establishing the relay logic to determine the fault types as well as improving the simulation power system model.

In the end, Mr Suhan Zhang completed a fabulous presentation. His presentation topic was “Multi-Energy Integration in Power Systems: An Introduction”. He introduced the background, contradiction and unitary of multi-energy integration, followed by the Multi-Energy Networks and device models in power system. He showed the audience a comprehensive understanding of the Multi-Energy Flow Transmission and how to explore its complementary characteristics.

Each presentation was followed by a 10-minute Q&A session in this OPC session. All the speakers dealt with the questions very well and the discussions were thought-provoking.

At the end of this session, the oral presentations were assessed and marked. As a result, the first place winner was Ms. Yixin Li, the second place winner was Mr Suhan Zhang, and the third and fourth place winners were Mr Shuailong Dai and Mr Jiashuo Hu, respectively.

Finally, the winners’ certificates as well as the gift cards were awarded to the winners. Dr Daniel Donaldson, the advisor of the UoB IEEE student Branch PES chapter thanked all the participants and praised the performance of the speakers. This event ended with social networking and refreshments.

We would like to thank the three assessors, Professor Xiao-Ping Zhang, the counsellor of the UoB IEEE Student Branch, Dr Daniel Donaldson and Dr Nan Chen, for their valuable comments and support.

Meanwhile, thanks to the UoB IEEE Student Branch (PES) officers and members for their help and support in organising this event. We sincerely thank the IEEE Region 8 (SAC) and IEEE PES UK&I Chapter for their sponsorship and support.