Manchester Energy and Electrical Power System Workshop (MEEPS) 2019 – Event Report

On Friday, 1st Nov 2019, the IEEE PES Student Branch Chapter at UoM hosted their biggest annual event, MEEPS. The event attracted 79 attendees (31 IEEE members and 10 PES members), including researchers from 12 universities across UK, as well as sponsor representatives and guests from industry/academia.

The event, themed ‘A Journey Towards a Future Power Grid’ this year, aimed at identifying the current developments made and possible innovations to lessen the burden and improve the sustainability of power systems in the future.

The event was opened by Dr Diptargha Chakravarty from TNEI services. He gave an excellent speech addressing three mostly discussed topics in the energy and power system field: Uncertainty, Flexibility and Resilience. Following the opening speech, the first oral presentation session focused on the Operation, Planning and Analysis of Future Energy Networks and the keynote speaker, Dr Greg Dujon from EA Technology, shared his own vision. Then, five PhD students from different universities showcased their research work with well-participated Q&A.

– Invited Speakers and Student Presenters –

After the first oral presentation session, all guest speakers were invited to sit in the panel session, where all panellists firstly share their visions of two most important features power system should have in 2030 and then discussed the pre-prepared questions collected from the attendees beforehand. After that, on-the-spot questions were asked and every speaker shared their thoughts. Heated debate and discussion lasted during the well-served lunch, after which the poster session was held.

– Discussion during the panel session –

The poster session was split into two sub-sessions, and totally 18 posters were presented, representing the state-of-art research of the attending universities. In the beginning of each session, each presenter was scheduled to give a “2-minute pitch” to introduce their work before walking around to see individual posters.

– Discussion during the poster session –

In the afternoon session, the oral presentations focused on the applications of advanced technologies in the future power systems. Dr Petros Aristidou from the University of Leeds gave the keynote speech highlighting the data-driven methods in the design of future distribution networks, and another five student presenters performed their presentation.

– The audience attracted by the oral presentations –

After Dr Andrea Ballanti from Electricity North West gave closing remarks on the technical sessions of the day, prizes were awarded to the winners. The event was a huge success and well received. The IEEE PES SBC at the University would like to thank every participant for attending the event and special thanks again to all the sponsors and invited speakers.

– Prize winners with invited guests –