SS16 Leading innovations and technological solutions for a sustainable future – TRANSIT project

ABSTRACT

The urgent goal of decarbonisation of the world’s economies involves a global shift of the energy sector from fossil fuel-based systems to renewable energy sources.
This energy transition requires societal awareness, but it also requires the development of new technologies that can speed up the process, as well as the necessary expertise and training to apply them. Such technologies include the development of more flexible systems, energy storage, the electrification of certain sectors or their digitalisation, for example. Furthermore, the environmental repercussions of such widespread use of new technologies must be considered. All these aspects will be addressed in this Special Session as part of the TRANSIT project’s activities.
TRANSIT (which stands for TRANSITion to sustainable future through training and education) is a project funded by the European Union and UKRI under the program Horizon Europe that aims to provide sustainable training and re-skilling programmes for current and future generations on a multidisciplinary approach in renewable energy. In achieving this, TRANSIT seeks to enable the societal changes that will encompass the high ambitions of deployment and transformation of the energy sector in the following decades through the design and delivering of an overall educational, retraining and social engagement programme covering different sectoral strategies and stakeholders.

CHAIR

Araceli Hernandez Bayo – Universidad Politecnica de Madrid

SPEAKERS

Brian Azzopardi, Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) | The Foundation for Innovation and Research Malta (FiR.mt)

Vladimir Shiljkut (Šiljkut), Public Enterprise Electric Power Industry of Serbia

Lidija M. Korunović, University of Niš, Faculty of Electronic Engineering (UNI-FEE)

Aleksandra Krkoleva Mateska, Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje (FEIT)

Lenos Hadjidemetriou, University of Cyprus, KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence

Pablo Rodríguez-Pajarón, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

SHORT BIO

	Dr Inġ. Brian Azzopardi (BA) is co-Founder and Chairman of The Foundation for Innovation and Research – Malta (FiR.mt), Senior Lecturer II at the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) and Visiting Senior Lecturer at the University of Malta (UM). Since 2011, he has held senior academic and research positions in the United Kingdom, Lithuania and Malta. He has also served the industry, government agencies and ministries and research centres since 1998. He is the Coordinator of the Horizon 2020 / Horizon Europe projects: JUMP2Excel (finalised), NEEMO (current), TRANSIT (launched in Oct 2022) and PROMISE (launched in Oct 2022) and contributed directly to over €10M to affiliated institutions on projects with over €30M budget over the past decade. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a member of The IET, EI, RSC and Chamber of Engineers. He is also the recipient of the MCST-JRC Young Scientist Award and 3rd Place in the STEM Young Researchers Award. In 2008 he received the Eur. Ing. title followed by the CEng and the EI Chartered Energy Engineer titles in 2012. In 2002, he received a BEng(Hons) from UM and a PhD from The University of Manchester in 2011. He also received teaching and pedological qualifications from MCAST (2008) and PGCHE from Oxford Brookes University (2012). Dr Inġ. Azzopardi is the editor and co-author of two books, 100+ research papers in peer-reviewed impact-listed journals and conferences, and invited speaker and the Chair of MEDPOWER2022 Conference. He has supervised over 10+ postgraduates Masters and Doctoral Candidates and Postdocs. brianazzopardi.eu | jump2excel.eu | neemo-project.eu | pvpromise.eu | transitproject.eu
	Vladimir Shiljkut earned his Dipl.Ing. and Ph.D. degrees at University of Belgrade – School of Electrical Engineering, Republic of Serbia. Since 2017 he is scientific associate, too. He had his entire career in electricity distribution and power industry. He is currently the Adviser for Business System of EPS General Manager. He is the author and co-author of more than 75 articles and papers, published in national (Serbian) publications, four in international journals, and in the proceedings of numerous national, regional and international conferences. These works deal with load forecasting methods, optimal network planning, power losses estimation, renewable energy sources, power transformers, metrology, demand response and demand side management, etc. He is also the co-author of one practical book in electricity distribution and retail, in Serbian language.
	Lidija M. Korunović received the Dipl.Ing., M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Niš, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, Niš, Republic of Serbia. She is currently Full Professor and Head of the Department of Power Engineering, Faculty of Electronic Engineering, University of Niš. She is the author/co-author of over hundred research papers, four books and two reports of CIGRE working groups. She participated in ten research projects and studies supported by the Ministry of Science of Serbia. Her research interests are distribution networks, load modelling, renewable energy sources and power quality. She is a Senior Member of IEEE, and a member of: CIGRE Serbia and CIRED Serbia.
	Aleksandra Krkoleva Mateska is associate professor at the Ss Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technologies (UKIM/FEIT). She works in the field of power systems, focusing on Smart Grids, renewable sources integration in distribution grids and Microgrids, electricity markets and regulation related to these areas. She has had a number of study visits to other universities, including at the University of Manchester, UK, University of Rostock, Germany, National Technical University in Athens, Greece. She is an author and co-author of more than sixty research papers. She has participated in several research projects financed by various programs of the European Commission as a member of the UKIM/FEIT team. She is a member of IEEE and CIGRE.
	Lenos Hadjidemetriou is currently a Research Lecturer at the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence, University of Cyprus. He received the Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2010 from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and his Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2016 from the University of Cyprus, Cyprus. His research interests include smart grids, grid integration of renewable energy systems, energy storage systems, control of power electronics, micro-grids, and cyber-security aspects in smart grids. Dr. Hadjidemetriou has published more than 95 papers in scientific journals and international conference proceedings.
	Pablo Rodríguez-Pajarón received the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, Spain, in 2022. He is now Lecturer at the Department of Automatics, Electrical and Electronics Engineering and Industrial Computing at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Madrid, Spain.