Keynotes

Siaw-Kiang Chou
Professor, National University of Singapore (NUS)
Executive Director, Energy Studies Institute
Title: East Asia Energy Policy: Research & Outlook
Due to increases in population and sustained industrialization, urbanization and motorization that come with economic growth, the East Asian region is estimated to double its primary energy demand between 2013 and 2040. This increase in energy demand has implications on countries’ energy security and efforts in mitigating climate change. There is a need to rapidly develop and deploy energy efficient technologies, phase-out the use of fossil fuel in the power generation sectors and proactively increase the share of renewables in the energy mix. In view of this, it is important to understand the future trajectory of energy demand growth with respect to economic development, future energy choice, and the subsequent investment requirements and research needs to better prepare for the future.
S.K. Chou is a Fellow and Past President of the Institution of Engineers (IES), Singapore, and a Fellow of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. He is a Fellow of the Singapore Academy of Engineering, the ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology, the Energy Institute, UK, and the ASEAN Federation of Engineering Organisations. He chairs the Advisory Committee of the School of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering of Singapore Polytechnic, and is co-Chairman of the Technical Evaluation Panel on the Grant for Energy Efficiency Technology (GREET) of the National Environment Agency, Singapore. Up till March 2016, he was Chairman of the Advisory Board of the ASEAN Plan of Action on Science and Technology and was a member of the International Advisory Board of the APEC Center for Technology Fore-sighting. He is a national representative on the Board of Advisers, ASEAN Committee on Science and Technology (COST). He is credited with the formulation of the Envelope Thermal Transfer Value (ETTV) and the Residential Envelope Transmittance Value (RETV) energy standards used in the Singapore Green Mark Incentive Scheme. He is presently an editor of the Elsevier journal, Applied Energy, and serves on the editorial boards of a number of other energy related journals.

Suresh Garimella
Goodson Distinguished Professor, Purdue University
Director, National Science Foundation Cooling Technologies Research Center
Title: Energy Use in Information and Communications Technologies: The Role of Thermal Management
Data centers account for a significant and growing fraction of the worldwide electricity demand, owing to the rapid proliferation of electronics devices and associated digital data generation. Despite this rapid growth in total energy consumption, the largely ad hoc approaches to space conditioning in large data centers and server farms have led to unconscionable inefficiencies that are driving information technology companies to lower their overall energy footprint. The sheer magnitude of heat dissipation in these large-scale computing facilities is staggering, and calls for urgent improvement of data center cooling strategies, which consume a significant fraction of the total energy used at the facility level. In particular, technologies that allow for increases in the data center operating temperature have the potential to eliminate energy-intensive air-conditioning systems and enable year-round rejection of waste heat to the ambient. Liquid cooling offers a low-thermal-resistance thermal transport mechanism that may enable such operation without increasing the temperature of the electronic devices. Embedding liquid coolant channels directly in electronic devices offers further potential improvement in efficiency and performance scaling by enabling dramatic changes in the system architecture, such as 3D chip stacking. This talk will review key challenges encountered in the thermal management of information technology equipment at different scales, from data centers down to small-scale portable electronics, as well as recent technological developments related to embedded liquid-cooling strategies that may enable significant energy savings and performance gains.
Suresh Garimella is Purdue University’s Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships, and the Goodson Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He is also Director of the National Science Foundation Cooling Technologies Research Center. He previously served as Purdue’s Chief Global Affairs Officer (2013-2014), and as Associate Vice President for Engagement (2011-2013). He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1989, his MS from The Ohio State University in 1986, and his Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1985.
Dr. Garimella’s research group has made seminal contributions in micro- and nano-scale thermal and fluidic engineering, novel materials for thermal management, materials processing and manufacturing, and renewable energy. He has supervised over 90 PhD and MS students, and co-authored 500 refereed journal and conference publications and 12 issued patents. Over twenty alumni from his research group are now faculty members in prestigious universities around the world. Dr. Garimella serves on the Board of Directors of Modine Manufacturing Company.
Dr. Garimella has also served as Jefferson Science Fellow at the U.S. Department of State, where he explored pathways to a clean energy future, analyzing cross-cutting issues at the intersection of energy security and climate change. He also served a five-year term (2011-16) as Senior Fellow of the State Department’s Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), a regional partnership announced by President Obama at the 2009 Summit of the Americas to promote clean energy, advance energy security, fight energy poverty, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, support strategies for sustainable landscapes and build capacity for climate change adaptation. Dr. Garimella serves in editorial roles with several leading journals. He is Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). His efforts in research and engineering education have been recognized with the 2014 ASME Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award, 2011 NSF Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize for Technological Innovation, 2010 ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, 2010 Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Madras, 2009 ASME Allan Kraus Thermal Management Award, and 2004 ASME Gustus L. Larson Memorial Award, among others.

Roland Span
Professor, Ruhr-University Bochum
Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts
Title: Closed Carbon Cycle Economy
In 2015 the delegates at COP 21 in Paris expressed the political will to effectively mitigate climate change, but society still has a long way to go to rid itself of CO2 emissions. How to accomplish this task? In the long term, problems due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions can only be resolved by restructuring entire social and economic systems to employ closed carbon cycles. Carbon utilization is unavoidable but its net impact on the environment can be minimized through holistic consideration of cyclic processes that offer opportunities to offset emissions. Beyond designing new technologies lies the even broader idea of a closed carbon cycle economy. This approach integrates the technical and social aspects of long-term transitions from current structures for supplying society with power, fuel, and resources to those based on closed carbon cycles. This leads to a large number of fundamental and application-oriented challenges relating to engineering and natural sciences, whilst raising just as many questions in the fields of humanities and social sciences.
In 2015 the Closed Carbon Cycle Economy Research Department was founded at Ruhr- University Bochum. Researchers from the fields of engineering, natural sciences, humanities and social sciences collaborate in an interdisciplinary environment. Based on experiences from German efforts to mitigate climate change, the lecture will address lessons learned, visions for future developments, and – most importantly – the need for interdisciplinary cooperation.
Prof. Span studied mechanical engineering at Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB) from 1983 to 1988. In 1992 he completed his Ph.D. with a thesis introducing a new reference equation of state for carbon dioxide. His work was supervised by Prof. W. Wagner. In 1999 he completed his habilitation with a thesis entitled “Multiparameter Equations of State – An Accurate Source of Thermodynamic Property Data”. At ALSTOM Power Technologies in Switzerland he worked on gas-turbine related topics, including humidified gas-turbines and CCS. In 2002 he became chair of Thermodynamics and Energy Technologies at University of Paderborn. In 2006 he changed to RUB, where he is chair of Thermodynamics, leading an institute with about 25 scientific co-workers and 25 student co-workers. Prof. Span has published highly cited scientific papers dealing mostly with experimental and theoretical work on thermodynamic properties and the application of corresponding models to process simulations in energy technologies. He is member of several scientific committees, including editorial boards and working groups of international unions like IAPWS. He is dean of the faculty of mechanical engineering, one of three speakers of the Research Department Closed Carbon Cycle Economy at RUB and member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.

John Loughhead
Chief Scientific Adviser, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Title: Future trends in UK energy – what are major development areas for future UK system?
Professor John Loughhead is Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Prior to this, he was the Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). He has held several prominent roles in the UK and internationally including Executive Director at the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) and Corporate Vice-President of Technology and Intellectual Property at Alstom. John’s professional career has been predominantly in industrial research and development for the electronics and electrical power industries, including advanced high power industrial gas turbines, new energy conversion systems, spacecraft thermal management, electrical and materials development for electricity generation and transmission equipment and electronic control systems. He is a Chartered Engineer, graduating in Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Queen Mary University of London as well as both the UK and Australian national Academies of Engineering.
Panel sessions
Panel Session name: Grid Integration of Renewable Energy Systems using DC Technologies
Chair: Dr Carlos Ugalde-Loo
Short description: Replacement of conventional synchronous generation with low-carbon technologies has been accelerated over the last years to reduce gas emissions and mitigate climate change. This Special Session will focus on the grid integration of renewable energy systems using enabling technologies based on DC systems. A number of academic stakeholders from international institutions will provide a unique perspective on the state-of-the-art aspects related to the session. The attendees of the session will benefit from the opportunity to learn about relevant outputs of large research projects such as BEST PATHS, PROMOTioN and ANGLE DC.
Panelists: Prof. Bin Li (Tianjin University, China); Dr. Andrea Pitto (RSE S.p.A., Italy); Dr. Max Parker (University of Strathclyde, UK); Dr. Willem Leterme (KU Leuven, Belgium); Dr. Eduardo Prieto (UP Catalunva, Spain); Dr. Chao Long (Cardiff University, UK)
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Panel Session name: Applied Energy UNiLAB of Distributed Energy & Microgrid (DEM)
Chair: Prof. Hongjie Jia
Short description: UNiLAB of DEM is an international virtual lab of collective intelligence in Applied Energy, in order to enhance international collaboration for scientific excellence for science and engineering, and demonstrate technologies in analysis, control, operation, planning and other applications in DEM. This panel will discuss the latest development of DEM and a new initiative to establish a world-leading sustainable research ecosystem of multi-energy Microgrids. The research ecosystem will be built upon a 5-Dimentional Cloud-based platform of Campus Multi-Energy Microgrids. Research data, tools and even source code will be shared through the platform.
Panelists: Prof. Jinyue Yan (Royal Institute of Technology and Mälardalen University, Sweden); Prof. Jianzhong Wu (Cardiff University, UK);Dr. Yunfei Mu (Tianjin University, China)
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Panel Session name: Energy Systems Modelling: From Theory to Application
Chair: Dr. Meysam Qadrdan
Short description: The rapid transformation of energy systems is taking place in order to address the so-called energy trilemma which refers to improving security of supply, reducing emissions and ensuring that energy is affordable for consumers. Due to the complex nature of energy systems, and the interdependencies that exist between different energy vectors within energy systems, it is increasingly challenging to find cost-effective pathways to address the energy trilemma.
In order to unpack these complexities and better understand efficacy of decisions made in energy systems, numerous computer models were developed and yet new modelling tools are being produced to assist with studying the energy systems. The focus of this panel will be on different modelling approaches for studying various aspects of energy systems. The panelists will talk about specific modelling approaches and discuss a case study in which their proposed approaches were applied.
Panelists: Dr. Reza Fazeli (University of Iceland, Iceland); Dr. Sheila Samsatli (University of Bath, UK), Dr. Modassar Chaudry (Cardiff University, UK); Dr. Xin Zhang (National Grid, UK)
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Panel Session name: Applied Energy UNiLAB on Synergies between Energy Networks (SEN)
Chair: Prof. Jianzhong Wu
Short description: The vision and missions of Applied Energy UNiLAB on SEN include: 1) facilitating international collaboration for research & development in synergies between energy networks; 2) developing concepts and technologies for energy systems integration and demonstrate the techno-economic benefits; and 3) promoting whole systems approach to energy systems design and operation.
This panel will discuss the next generation integrated energy networks including the latest development of Energy Internet, Multi-Vector Energy Systems and Energy System Integration and the new initiatives that are being developed in UNiLAB SEM.
Panelists: Prof. Geert Deconinck (KU Leuven, Belgium), Prof. Henrik Madsen (DTU, Demark); Prof. Thomas Kolb (KIT Germany); Prof. Hongbin Sun (Tsinghua University, China), Prof. Hongjie Jia (Tianjin University, China)
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Panel Session name: Ammonia for Power
Chair: Dr. Agustin Valera Medina
Short description: A potential enabler of a low carbon economy is the energy vector hydrogen. However, issues associated with hydrogen storage and distribution are currently a barrier for its implementation. Hence, other indirect storage media such as ammonia and methanol can be considered. Of these, ammonia is a carbon free carrier which offers high energy density, even higher than compressed air and similar to some hydrocarbons. Hence, it is proposed that ammonia, with its established transportation network and high flexibility, could provide a practical next generation system for energy transportation, storage and use for power generation. Therefore, this panel will focus on discussions based on state of the art projects running across the world to enable ammonia as a fluid for power generation.
Panelists: Prof. Jim Kok (University of Twente, Netherlands), Prof. Edman Tsang (University of Oxford, UK); Dr. Zhaolin Wang (University of Xiamen, China); Prof. Gldeon Grader (Techion, Israel); Mr. Arik Karabeyoglu (Koc University)
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Panel Session name: Scientific publication
Chair: Mrs. Fernanda Ogochi
Short description: The goal of this panel session is to provide background information on academic publishing. It outlines the various important steps that an author needs to follow in preparing his manuscript for a successful publication in an international journal. This presentation will also give you an overview of the publishing market and ethics.
Panelists: Prof. J Yan (Editor-in-chief of Applied Energy); Prof. SK Chou (Editor-in-chief of Applied Energy); Prof. U Desideri (Editor-in-chief of Applied Energy)