Past Seminars

Title: Adequacy assessment and capacity mechanisms - where maths meets policy

Speaker: Prof. Chris Dent

Date: 20/07/2020

Adequacy assessment and capacity procurement is a very prominent issue in industry and government. It is also an area where practice needs to be guided closely by the mathematical structure of the underlying probabilistic risk calculations – doing in an important practical application something which is mathematically unnatural is asking for trouble. This talk will cover a number of areas market design must be informed by how the modelling can reflect the interests of decision makers, including: design of capacity markets to include all technologies on a common basis; the extent to which standard risk-neutral expected value match policy or societal interests; and the role of probabilistic and other quantifications of uncertainty. This will be a talk about mathematics, rather than one which requires a deep knowledge of technical mathematics to follow.

Video

Title: Julia for the working scientist & engineer

Speaker: Mathieu Besançon

Date: 15/06/2020

A brief introduction to JuMP algebraic modelling language and structured constrained optimisation.

Jupyter Notebook

Title: Julia for the working scientist & engineer

Speaker: Mathieu Besançon

Date: 08/06/2020

A brief introduction to scientific computing and the Julia programming language.

Jupyter Notebook

Title: Energy Options

Speaker: Tim Schulze

Date: 01/06/2020

After a brief introduction of the Structuring and Valuation team at Vattenfall, a few examples of popular options and other structured products which are routinely traded on the European Energy markets will be presented. Some of these can be valued and hedged using standard option valuation methodology, but others require Monte-Carlo simulation: an approach which combines price simulation and optimal dispatch models. An overview of the different valuation approaches will be presented and some considerations when implementing and using them will be also discussed.

Document

Title: Benefits of transmission switching and energy storage in power systems

Speaker: Peker Sarhan Meltem

Date: 18/05/2020

Increasing penetration of renewable energy sources in power systems can lead to high variability and uncertainty in electricity generation as these sources are intermittent and dependent on atmospheric conditions and spatial locations. Thus, integrating these resources into the grid can impose new challenges around power system reliability and stability. To continue using these clean resources without endangering power systems, utilities can implement various control mechanisms, such as energy storage systems, demand-side management, renewable energy curtailment and transmission switching. In this study, a two- stage stochastic programming model that co-optimizes investments decisions and transmission switching operations subject to limitations on load shedding and curtailment amounts is developed. The effect of transmission switching on other control mechanisms, total investment and operational costs, siting and sizing decisions of energy storage systems, and load shedding and renewable energy curtailment amounts are discussed on a power system with high renewable penetration.

Title: Building energy modelling: the good, the bad and the useful

Speaker: Jenkins David

Date: 27/04/2020

For decades, building energy modelling has been a cornerstone of energy policy in the built environment, particularly that relating to Energy Performance Certificates. However, we are entering an age where improvements in data availability, modelling capabilities, and general understanding of building performance should be making us question some assumptions behind traditional energy modelling, and the policy that is aligned to it. This becomes even more the case when we consider that the things we need to do with such modelling is changing, and the targets (particularly relating to carbon emissions) all the more challenging. This talk will overview some examples of good and bad practice modelling in the built environment, whilst hinting at different directions we could take in the near future, as guided by some current research projects.

Title: Spatially resolved urban energy systems optimisation models for studying heat decarbonisation pathways

Speaker: Jalil-Vega Francisca

Date: 13/04/2020

Climate change is currently one of the most pressing challenges many regions are facing around the world. Among energy service demands, heat demand has arisen as one of the most urgent and yet difficult to decarbonise across sectors. This is because deep infrastructural and technological changes would be required to move away from its historical provision reliant on fossil fuels. Some alternatives suggested in the literature are, for example, the construction of heat networks supplied by low-carbon technologies; fuel switching to hydrogen networks and hydrogen supply chains; and heat electrification via heat pumps, combined with a decarbonised and reinforced electricity grid. This work presents the HIT model, a spatially-resolved optimisation model of energy supply, network infrastructure, and district and end-use technologies, to study cost-effective heat decarbonisation pathways in urban areas. An application of this model will be presented for the case study of the city of Bristol, for finding heat decarbonisation pathways when including the possibility of introducing both high or medium temperature heat networks.

Title: Keeping the lights on in a renewable energy based future

Speaker: MOULI-Castillo Julien

Date: 06/04/2020

To meet decarbonisation targets it is vital to decarbonise the energy system. Geosciences can contribute to this endeavour by offering large scale underground energy storage to provide the flexibility an energy system based on renewable energy would need. This talk will present two types of energy storage: Underground Hydrogen Storage, and Compressed Air Energy Storage in porous rocks. Hydrogen is being proposed as an energy vector which could play an important role in the decarbonisation of heat, and potentially transport. Compressed Air Energy Storage has the potential to offer efficient, long term and large scale energy storage for renewable electricity. Developing these technologies will require a different take on the conventional Oil & Gas production regimes, and offers many challenges and opportunities in terms of planning and operation.

Title: Space Ships or Wave Energy Converters? A method for Geometry Optimisation

Speaker: GARCIA-Teruel Anna

Date: 30/03/2020

Many different types of wave energy systems have been developed in the past years, with the goal of finding an economically competitive design, which at the same time enables maximal annual energy production. Various studies show that the biggest cost reduction potential is associated with the device’s structure. It is therefore important to include geometry optimization of the device’s shape in the early stages of the design process. Different approaches with various simplifications have been used, where costs have been represented through proxies such as device size or weight. The resulting shapes might just be optimal for very specific sea conditions, and device designs or not cost-effective to manufacture. It is, therefore, important to be able to generate a diverse range of improved WEC hull shapes to explore more of the design space and identify promising solutions - while simultaneously considering costs and avoiding space ship-like designs. A B-spline surface based geometry representation and meta-heuristic algorithms are combined into an optimization framework capable of generating novel and improved wave energy converter designs.