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UQ Researcher and CIGRE NGN member Wins Prestigious International IEEE-PES award

By anc, 19 August 2015

Nahid-Al-Masood, a PHD researcher at University of Queensland and CIGRE NGN member has won first prize at the IEEE-PES conference in Denver, Colorado for his investigations into power system security risks as wind-power penetrations increase and potential innovative mitigation measures.

The IEEE-PES General Meeting is the world’s largest annual gathering of international experts in electric power and energy systems and was held in July 2015 in Denver, Colorado. It attracted 3,300 power system experts from industry and research organisations from around the globe including over a thousand researchers.

PHD researchers in electric power systems presented technical papers on their research projects which were summarised in posters and an expert judging panel selected the most outstanding entrant.  This year this contest was won by an Australian researcher, Nahid-Al-Masood from the University of Queensland for his work into “Declining frequency response with increasing wind-power penetration and innovative solutions using synchronous condensers”.

The findings of his research included that, following a rare, severe contingency, the frequency response and under-frequency load shedding would become a more significant issue as wind-power penetration increases and as conventional power generation is further displaced.   Nahid investigated innovative solutions that could mitigate these adverse outcomes such as the installation of new synchronous condensers in the affected region, and found that this would significantly alleviate both the frequency response and the extent of under-frequency load shedding.

Nahid acknowledged the support of his thesis supervisors, Prof Tapan Saha, Dr Richard Yan and industry collaborator Dr. Nilesh Modi from AEMO, as well as the funding and collaboration provided by the Australian Research Council, Hydro Tasmania, AGL, TRUenergy, Vestas, Suzlon and the Clean Energy Council.  

Prof Saha, head of the Power and Energy systems group at the University of Queensland said that he is proud of Nahid’s achievements which demonstrate the benefits of having a strong power system research group that works closely with industry to delivers outcomes that help solve the challenges facing the Australian power industry.

Nahid is a member of CIGRE Australia’s Next Generation Network (NGN) which encourages the next generation of power engineers to learn from industry experts, network with other like-minded young professionals and contribute to CIGRE conferences and workshops.

Click here to view Nahid's award winning poster. and click here to view the paper supporting the poster.