Keynotes


Prof. Dr. Birol Kılkış
Ostim Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
(Life Member and Fellow ASHRAE)

Biography: Dr. Birol Kilkis was born in 1949 in Ankara. He graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Department of Middle East Technical University with high honors in 1970. After completing his innovative research on heat transfer in fluidized beds, he was awarded the diploma with honors by the von Karman Institute in Belgium after completing his studies on fluid dynamics and aeronautics. Dr. Kilkis received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering with high honors from the Middle East Technical University. As a recipient of the TUBITAK Encouragement Award in 1981, he continued his academic career at the Middle East Technical University between 1972 and 1990, as an assistant, instructor, Asst. Prof., Assoc. Prof, and Professor, also at capacities of Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and Assistant Director of the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, member of Energy Group. His overseas activities covered two interim periods, namely as the Director of Research and Development at the Heatway Company (Later Watts Radiant) in Missouri, USA, and as a contracting researcher for the US Department of Energy (USDOE), at the Morgantown Energy Technology Center. He was also an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri Rolla, He acted as the project principal for snow melting systems for US Air Force bases, heat tracing of fighter jet aircraft during freezing periods, and snow/ice melting of helicopter pads on Navy Vessels. He taught at Gannon University also as the director of Computer Graphics between 1981 and 1983. Dr. Kilkis has been working on heat transfer, unified heat transfer theory, high-performance buildings, quantum mechanics, fluid dynamics, heat pumps, energy strategies, hydrogen energy with renewable energy resources, hydrogen cities, 5th generation, nearly-zero-exergy cities, district energy systems, aerodynamics, exergy analysis, hydrogen cities, combined heat and power, tri-generation, green airports, sustainable aviation, integrated solar PV systems, and energy simulations. He is the co-author of the most recent book on Cogeneration with Renewables. In total, he has published more than 600 papers in several journals and proceedings on a large variety of topics. Since 1972, he has been the principal investigator of several industrial projects, including a NATO Science for Stability project on a de-centralized, co-generating 1.5 MW fluidized-bed power plant. Before joining OSTIM Technical University as a professor in 2020, he taught for 10 years at Baskent University in Ankara, also at the capacity of the chair of the Energy Engineering Graduate Program. Currently, he is the vice-chair, and WP 1 Leader in ETIP Renewable Heating and Cooling (RHC) Platform of the European Union, Brussels. He jointly holds three patents on operative temperature sensing, next-generation solar and wind energy systems. He is a Fellow of ASHRAE, recipient of ASHRAE Distinguished Service and ASHRAE Exceptional Service Awards, after acting as the Section 6 Head and founder of TC 7.4 on Exergy Analysis in Buildings. Dr. Kilkis became the President of the Turkish Society of HVAC and Sanitary Engineers (TTMD) between 2017 and 2019.

Title: CLIMATE EMERGENCY-FOCUSED ECONOMIC MODEL: Current Economic Rules Does Not Respond To Paris Agreement

Abstract: This presentation focuses on the primary goals of the Paris agreement to sustainably resolve the global crisis with CO2 emissions reduction and argues that current economic rules cannot sustainably solve the crisis. An example is discussed concerning the aged the Pareto principle, which is shown that it may only be compatible with the 1st Law of Thermodynamics (Quantity of Energy) if and only if energy is kept in the limited economy boundary as economists insist. For example, fuel is treated as an economic entity subject to market rules rather than an environmental parameter.





Prof. Dr. Jose Manuel Lopez-Guede
University of the Basque Country, Spain

Biography: Jose Manuel Lopez-Guede received the M.Sc. degree in 1999 and the Ph.D. degree in 2012, both in Computer Engineering at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. He got 3 investigation grants, and from 2000 to 2004 he worked at an Industrial Informatics company. Since 2004 he is working at University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Spain. His current position is Assoc. Prof. with the Systems Engineering and Automatic Control Department at the Faculty of Engineering Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. From 2010 to 2018, he has been the Coordinator of the Bachelor in Industrial Electronic Engineering and Automatics degree of the Basque Country University, and Vicedean from January 2018 to January 2020. He also was advisor at the National Distance Education University of Spain. His teaching areas are Electronics and Computer Science, and he has been the Coordinator of 3 granted Projects in Educational Innovation and participad as collaborator in 2 more projects. He participated in an Erasmus KA2 project from 2015 to 2018 as coordinator in Spain. He has participated in Erasmus actions (2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017) and has been investigator in 25 competitive projects. He is coauthor of more than >290 papers, >30 in the field of Educational Innovation and the remaining in specific research areas: he has >60 SCI JCR publications, >40 other journals and >150 chapters and conferences, >10 invited talks and >15 plenary talks. He as belonged to >15 organizing committees of several international conferences and to more than 15 scientific committees. His research interests are robotics and computational intelligence techniques applied to different areas as Energy, Robotics, etc.

Title: Modeling photovoltaic elements

Abstract: Using accurate models of photovoltaic modules is of major importance to make realistic simulations of these systems in order to study their elements for a better performance. In the talk we will carry out a review of the major methods based on a theoretical approach, pointing out their more outstanding problems. We will also introduce the empirical approach, which is data driven. Once the general problem is stated, we will address the specific problem of the lack of a systematic procedure to obtain accurate empirical models in an unattended way with large datasets. We face this problem introducing a novel systematic procedure to carry out this task.




Dr. A. Rakesh Kumar
National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli, India

Biography: Dr. A. Rakesh Kumar (IEEE M’14, SM'21) completed his Bachelors in Engineering with a honors in "Electrical and Electronics Engineering" from Anna University, Chennai, India in 2011 and Masters in Engineering in "Power Electronics and Drives" from Anna University, Chennai, India in 2013. He worked as Assistant Professor with the Department of EEE, Rajalakshmi Engineering College, Chennai, India from 2013 to 2015. He then went on to join for a full time PhD with the School of Electrical Engineering (SELECT), Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) from 2015 to 2019. He was also serving as Teaching cum Research Assistant from 2015 to 2019 with the same. Currently, he is a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the Nano and Micro grid lab, Department of EEE, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India.
He is an IEEE Senior member and he is actively engaged with PELS, PES, IAS and IES societies of IEEE. He is a member of IEEE Technical Committee (TC 12) on Energy Access and Off-Grid System. He is also a member of the IEEE PELS Educational Videos Committee initiative chaired by Prof. Katherine Kim and mentored by Prof. Brad Lehman. He is responsible for the taking up the initiative of creating a promotional video and credits video for all the instructional videos from IEEE PELS Educational Videos Committee. His field of interest includes multilevel inverters, inverter modulation techniques, nanogrid and its applications.

Title: Energy Access and Off-Grid System: An Opportunity to Empower a Billion Lives!

Abstract: “Affordable and Clean Energy” is the objective of UN Sustainable Development Goal 7 where all the means and ways to achieve 100% electricity to all is being worked out. Renewable energy sources such as PV, Wind energy, hydro power is considered as clean energy. Power electronics can play a key role in integrating the various renewable energy sources to the point of load. It can be achieved through scaled down converter prototypes and distributed converter prototypes. IEEE Empower a Billion Lives is a global competition aimed at fostering innovation to develop solutions to electricity access. Empower a Billion Lives unleashes innovation through the development and demonstration of new regionally relevant, holistic, scalable, and economically viable solutions by leveraging 21st-century technologies that feature exponentially declining prices and have shown rapid global adoption.




Dr. Saeed Badshah
International Islamic University Islamabad, Pakistan

Biography: Dr. Saeed Badshah received his BSc Mechanical Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Taxila, MS Mechanical Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar and PhD (2011) from University of Technology Vienna. He served National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM), Air University Islamabad, and currently serving the Department of Mechanical Engineering (DME), Faculty of Engineering and Technology, International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) Pakistan. Besides teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, he looked after different administrative responsibilities like Chairman Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chairman Department of Civil Engineering (DCE), Chairman Board of Studies and Incharge Departmental Quality Assurance Committee DME, at IIUI -Pakistan.
He is member of several national and international committees and professional bodies. He has also a privilege of being on the technical/advisory panel of many international conferences and has organized several national and international conferences. He has been Keynote speaker and presenter of papers in many national and international conferences. Moreover, he is member of different national and international professional organizations/ associations in the field of Mechanical Engineering.
Dr. Saeed is active researcher and has supervised MS/Ph.D. level research in many areas of Engineering. He has more than 100 research publications in journals of repute and international conferences. His research interests include Finite Element Modeling, Fluid Structure Interaction, Experimental Modal testing and analysis, Structural dynamics, Structural optimization, Renewable Energy, and Tidal current turbines.

Title: Computational Modelling and Analysis of Tidal Current Turbines

Abstract: The global energy system is going through a transformation phase and renewables are replacing conventional fossil fuels based energy resources. Tidal current energy has the potential to provide a new renewable energy source to the world. Tidal current energy is a form of hydrokinetic energy extracted from the water flows in tidal channels. Such flows takes place due to the relative motion of the gravitational fields of the moon, sun and earth. Tidal energy technology has successfully gone through various development phases, with demonstration systems currently operating in relevant environments at pre-commercial scales.
In this talk, an overview will be presented on the ocean current energy and the devices for extraction of tides energy. Then a specific interest will be given to the computational modeling of tidal current turbines. Tidal Current Turbines (TCTs) often derive their design principals from wind turbine design. However, there are certain key differences that needs careful consideration. The proper understanding of device behavior is necessary to make this technology cost effective and reliable.
Different methods are used for simulation of performance parameters and wake of tidal current turbine to provides greater insight into flow-physics and unsteady loading. Although RANS CFD based numerical models can model the hydrodynamic behavior of a TCT but it has the limitation that it assumes the blades to be rigid. Numerical models capable of accounting for the Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) and hydroelastic behavior of the turbine blade can provide a better approximation of the turbine performance and near flow fields. Some FSI studies have already been conducted to gain an insight into the performance of tidal turbine. However, more such studies are still needed to further the understanding of the design and performance of turbine