Prof. Pierluigi Mancarella, The University of Melbourne, Australia, and The University of Manchester, UK
IEEE Fellow, IEEE Power and Energy Society Distinguished Lecturer
Speech Title: Flexibility from the Grid Edge: Distributed Energy Resources and Multi-Energy Systems
Pierluigi Mancarella is the Chair Professor of Electrical Power Systems at The University of Melbourne, Australia, and Professor of Smart Energy Systems at The University of Manchester, UK. He received his MSc (2002) and PhD (2006) degrees from the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, worked as a post-doc at Imperial College London, UK, and has held visiting positions in the US (NREL), France (Ecole Centrale de Lille), Chile (University of Chile), and China (Tsinghua University). Pierluigi’s research interests include techno-economic modelling of low-carbon grids, multi-energy systems, energy system planning under uncertainty, and reliability and resilience of future networks. He has been involved in/led more than 80 research projects worldwide and actively engaged with energy policy in the UK, Europe and Australia, and is author of several books and of over 400 research publications and reports. Pierluigi is a Fellow of the IEEE; an IEEE Power and Energy Society Distinguished Lecturer; a Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and of the Oxford Open Energy journal; an Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Energy Markets, Policy and Regulation; the Convenor of the Cigre C6/C2.34 Working Group on “Flexibility provision from distributed energy resources”; and the inaugural Chair of the Working Group on Energy of the IEEE European Public Policy Initiative. He was awarded the 2017 veski Innovation Fellowship by the Victorian Government for his “FlexCity” project on multi-energy urban virtual power plants, and an international Newton Prize 2018 for his UK-Chile Newton-Picarte project on power system resilience.
Prof. Eric Cheng, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Fellow of IEEE, HKIE, and IET
Speech Title: Electric Vehicle Energy Saving Technology
Prof. Eric Cheng obtained his BSc and PhD degrees both from the University of Bath in 1987 and 1990 respectively. Before he joined the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1997, he was with Lucas Aerospace, United Kingdom as a Principal Engineer and led a number of power electronics projects. He is the pioneer for 1st commercial electric vehicle in Hong Kong. He is also the designer of the 1st charging network in Hong Kong. He received numerous awards related to electrical engineering, energy, and automotive. He has published over 500 papers and 7 books. He has over 100 interviews with the media on his research and development. He is now the professor and director of the Power Electronics Research Centre of the university. His research interests are all aspects of power electronics, Power Quality, Renewable energy, Motor drives, Energy Saving, EMI, Electric Vessels, Electric Vehicles, and Automotive advanced components. He is the recipient of the international award at the Seoul International Invention Fair 2015 Gold prize for his contribution to super-capacitor to electric vehicles, the 2016 iCAN Gold Medal for his contribution to active suspension, and the Gold Award of Hong Kong Innovation and Technology in 2017, Geneva’s Invention Expo Silver Award for his contribution in the antilock braking system in 2021, and TechConnect Innovation Award for the contribution of Ammonia Powered Fuel-cell-based Electric Vehicles in 2023. Prof. Cheng is a chartered engineer, and a fellow of IEEE, HKIE, and IET.
Prof. Guan-Jun Zhang Xi'an Jiaotong University, China
Distinguished Young Scholar of NSFC
Guan-Jun Zhang was born in Weifang, Shandong, China in 1970. He received B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU), Xi’an, China, in 1991, 1994 and 2001, respectively. He is currently a leading-scholar professor at School of Electrical Engineering, XJTU, China, and the director of Center for Advanced High Voltage and Plasma Technology. His main interests cover high voltage insulation and discharge characteristics, fault diagnosis and condition maintenance for power equipment, discharge plasmas and multi-disciplinary applications, etc. He has been visiting researcher at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), visiting scientist at Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University (USA), JSPS fellow at Saitama University (Japan), and visiting professor at University of Southampton (UK). He has published 300 papers and held 30+ patents. Prof. Zhang received Distinguished Young Scholar of NSFC, IEEE ISDEIV Chatterton Young Investigator, Fok Ying Tong Research Award for University Young Teachers, and National Top 100 Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award of China, etc.
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