Keynotes

Keynote 1: Floating Photovoltaic Systems: Innovations and Integration

Abstract: Floating photovoltaic systems are emerging as a promising alternative to traditional ground-based solar power plants. While ground-based PV has been a cornerstone of renewable energy generation, floating PV offers several advantages, including reduced land use requirements, improved energy yield due to cooler water temperatures, and potential benefits for water bodies.
Our research at the Enel innovation hub & lab in Passo Martino (Catania, Italy) has focused on understanding the unique characteristics and performance of floating PV systems. By comparing floating PV to traditional ground-based PV, we have identified key areas where floating systems can excel. For example, floating PV can be particularly advantageous in regions with limited land availability or where water bodies can be repurposed for energy production.
This presentation will delve into the latest advancements in floating PV technology, highlighting its potential to contribute significantly to a sustainable energy future. We will discuss the benefits, challenges, and future prospects of floating PV systems, providing valuable insights for policymakers, investors, and industry professionals.
Biograhy: Giuseppe Marco Tina earned his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Catania, Italy, in 1988 and 1992, respectively. After honing his expertise at Agip Refineries and ST Microelectronics, Catania, as an Electrical Engineer from 1993 to 1997, he joined the Department of Electrical, Electronics, and Informatics Engineering at the University of Catania. He now serves as a full Professor, leading the Power System Research group and Laboratory. His cutting-edge research focuses on the transformative impact of renewable generation systems on power grids, with a particular emphasis on the advanced numerical and experimental analysis of floating, agrivoltaic, and PV/T systems. In 2023 as a coauthor of the paper “Techno-economic potential and perspectives of floating photovoltaics in Europe”, he has been awarded by Solar Energy Journal Best Paper Award 2023, in the Solar Systems Integration category by Solar Energy Society (ISES). Author of 300 scientific papers: International journals (130), conference proceedings (153) and chapter of books (15), mainly on analysis and modelling of Wind and Photovoltaic generation systems, DGSs (Dispersed Generation Systems), Energy and Ancillary Services Markets, Stationary applications of Hydrogen Technology, photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) systems, monitoring and diagnostic of photovoltaic systems. Co-Author of the book « Submerged and Floating Photovoltaic Systems: Modelling, Design and Case Studies », Academic Press, 2017. Co-editor of the book “Floating PV Plants”, Elsevier Science Publishing Co Inc, 2020.

Keynote 2: Artificial Intelligence-based Models and Applications for a Sustainable and Efficient Energy Future

Abstract: The energy industry has been experiencing huge changes driven by the need for a more sustainable energy future. The significant increase in the use of renewable energy sources, the trend towards increased electrification in mobility and building climatization, and power and energy systems increased distributed nature, with distributed generation, active consumers, electric vehicles, and distributed storage are important aspects of the energy sector evolution. New planning and operation methods are needed to address the new challenges. Artificial Intelligence models are needed to enable the energy transition process, ensuring not only adequate approaches for efficient energy use but also bringing a human centric paradigm to the energy business. Artificial Intelligence concepts and methods have a huge potential to bring effective solutions ensuring efficient and sustainable solutions as well as the fair and efficient participation of all the involved actors, from small consumers and energy communities to large utilities. Data driven and knowledge-based approaches can ensure the required distributed decision support, planning, and management of the energy resources in the frame of competitive wholesale and local electricity markets. The new approaches must be trusted by their users making explainability and semantics key aspects of Artificial Intelligence-based models and applications to ensure a sustainable and efficient energy future.
Biograhy: Zita Vale, IEEE Senior Member, graduated in Electrical Engineering in 1986, received the PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1993, and the Agregação title (Habilitation) in 2003 from the University of Porto, Portugal. She is Full Professor in the School of Engineering, Polytechnic of Porto. She is a member of the Coordination Board of LASI – The Associated Lab on Intelligent System and leads the research activities on Intelligent Power and Energy Systems at GECAD – Research Group on Intelligent Engineering and Computing for Advanced Innovation and Development. She has been involved in more than 60 R&D projects and published more than 200 papers in international scientific journals. Her scientific research activities mainly focus on Power and Energy Systems Operation, Electricity Markets, Demand Response, Renewables, Electric Vehicles, and Distributed Generation and Storage. She has been developing Artificial Intelligence-based models, methods and applications for Power and Energy, using Agents and Multi-Agent systems, Knowledge-Based systems, Semantics, Machine Learning, Data Mining, and Evolutionary Computation. Zita Vale actively participates in several technical working groups and committees. She is the IEEE PES (Power and Energy Society) Technical Committee Program Chair (TCPC) for Analytic Methods for Power Systems (AMPS) Committee, Chair of the IEEE PES Intelligent Data Analysis and Mining (IDMA) Working Group and of the Open Data Sets (ODS) Task Force. She is the Chair of the Board of Directors of ISAP – Intelligent Systems Application to Power Systems. She is Editor-in-Chief of Applied Energy journal (Elsevier) and is involved in edition activities for different journals and books. She has regular activity as reviewer and evaluator for papers and for project proposals and monitoring, from different funding agencies around the world.

Keynote 3: Building and systems performance enhancement using latent Energy Storage : A holistic approach

Abstract: Hybrid systems combined with passive techniques, energy production and storage techniques can highly help create comfortable indoor environments at the lowest energy cost and with a very low impact on the environment. To do so, the building design and operation should be anticipated within a holistic approach and optimal management process. In particular, when dealing with Phase Change Materials (PCMs) as thermal Energy storage (TES), the holistic approach becomes essential in order to correlate energy production and consumption of the building. This keynote summarizes the numerical and experimental work performed at ENTPE-LTDS laboratory during 10 years in order to design and numerically and experimentally characterize innovative prototypes aiming optimally to integrate a large panel of PCMs ( 6°C to 45 °C) based TES to different part of building and the systemic and holistic approach adopted.
Biograhy: EL MANKIBI Mohamed is a Research Director/Professor at ENTPE/university of Lyon (France) member of LTDS Laboratory (CNRS UMR5513). He has a PhD degree (Hybrid Ventilation control strategies design and assessment), the accreditation to direct and manage research and qualified as international expert by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition. He is the manager and Supervisor of building-related courses of ENTPE and Co-creator and Co-manager of several Master degrees related to “Green Building”. Highly evolved in Green and Low Impact Buildings design and optimization programs, he has two major fields of research: one is related to the dynamic simulation of thermal and aeraulic phenomena in buildings, the other is related to the multi-objective optimization of HVAC systems and renewable energy while studying occupants behavior integration . El Mankibi has been involved in many tasks of the International Energy Agency (ECES and ECBCS programs). He has taken part to several national research projects as coordinator or partner as well as European/International projects. He has developed several original models and experimental devices and initiated and led partnerships with the building industry. He has been invited as professor/researcher by the University of Colorado at Boulder, Concordia University of Montreal, Hunan university and Green Energy Park (Morocco) as well as Rabat School of Mines.

Keynote 4: Towards a sustainable aviation: the role of chemical processes in the production of advanced bio jet-fuels

Abstract: Efforts in decarbonizing the global economy are contributing to accelerating the expansion of sustainable energy solutions. Particularly worrisome is the transportation sector, as it plays a key role in the increase of energy demand all over the world, being today responsible for around 25% of the energy-related carbon emissions. In this field, a relevant challenge is the development of a sustainable alternative for powering the fast-growing aviation sector, where electric or hydrogen-based technologies are not as mature as in ground or maritime sectors. The so-called Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) are proposed as the solution to ameliorate the carbon footprint of the aviation sector in the coming decades. As a leading milestone, the ambitious European Union’s Refuel Aviation regulation (approved in 2023) obliges to gradually increase the blending of SAF components in commercial jet-fuel from 2 % in 2025 up to 70 % in 2050. However, the availability of sustainable biomass as feedstock for the production of SAFS remains a limiting factor for a large-scale deployment of this solution. Current technologies allow to produce bio-jet fuels from different raw materials such as oleaginous and lignocellulosic biomass residues. However, unlike oleaginous feedstock, lignocellulosic biomass benefits from low cost and a much higher worldwide availability. Its conversion into liquid fuels has been extensively studied through different routes: biotechnological, hydrothermal, thermochemical (gasification, pyrolysis) and catalytic. The presentation will discuss the most recent research being developed at ITPS-URJC regarding the use of a combination of biotechnological and catalytic processes to obtain advanced drop-in biofuels completely compatible with current kerosene and aircraft infrastructures.
Biograhy: Dr. Gabriel Morales, full professor of Chemical Engineering at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (URJC, Madrid, Spain). He obtained BSc and MSc degrees in Chemical Engineering at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1995-2000) and received his PhD in 2005 at URJC working on the synthesis, characterization and application of sulfonic acid-functionalized mesostructured materials. He has been visiting researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara (USA) in 2004 and 2006, under the supervision of Prof. Brad Chmelka; and at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow) in 2007 under the supervision of Prof. Peter Cormack. His main research lines have been focused on the synthesis, characterization and catalytic application of zeolites and mesoporous materials, especially organically functionalized mesostructured materials, enzyme immobilization, valorization of glycerol to obtain oxygenated additives for fuel applications, production of biodiesel over heterogeneous acid catalysts, and, during the last 15 years, the catalytic valorization of lignocellulosic biomass. He is founding member of the High-Performance Chemical and Environmental Engineering Research Group at URJC. His recent scientific achievements have been focused on the design of catalysts with enhanced properties and their application in the development of sustainable chemical processes for the valorization of biomass towards the production of biofuels and added-value bio-products. During all his research career, he has published around 90 JCR-indexed documents with high impact in the field of Chemical and Environmental Engineering. Moreover, he has published 7 book chapters and edited one book (related with biomass valorization). Regarding the participation in scientific conferences, he has been involved in over 125 contributions, most of them in high-impact international events. To support this scientific career, he has participated with a prominent role in a high number of R&D projects with public competitive national and European funding (20 projects). Also, he has been involved in 20 research and service contracts with companies. He is currently director of the URJC laboratory specialized in the preparation of catalysts (LABCAT) at URJC. Director of the Industrial Engineering Master at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos since 2021. Member of the Engineering & Architecture Commission at URJC. Academic Director of Innovation and Technology Transfer in 2018-2021, with responsibilities in the relationship with external companies and firms, and the development of public-private research and service contracts. Responsibilities in the Energy Sustainability program at URJC, collaborating with the Unit of Energy Efficiency in several projects applied to URJC buildings and campuses. Co-director of Smart-E2 institutional Chair at URJC, dedicated to the integration of Smart City solutions to enhance energy efficiency in buildings, with contracts with multiple companies (like Alai Secure, Signify, Getronics, Schneider Electric, IBM, etc.). Member of the EURACE Label Committee in the European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE) in 2023-24.