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Overview

Alex Aguilar Celis

Research Postgraduate – Electrical Power Node


Affiliations
Affiliation
Research Postgraduate – Electrical Power Node in the Department of Engineering

Biography

In 2018 I graduated from Mechatronics Engineering at Universidad Politecnica de Sinaloa. Then I started my masters degree at Durham University in New and Renewable Energy where I graduated in 2020. My research project was in conjunction with the company American Air Filters, where I developed an automation software for their industrial air filters products. 

Afterwards, I co-funded a software start-up in Mexico, also working at Continental Automotive as R&D Software engineer at the time. Then decided to change my career path as I wanted to pursue a career in the scientific area. 

Finally, got awarded with Durham University-ReNU CDT scholarship and moved to Durham again. My project is focused on developing a virtual power plant for improving the power system security. Using new renewable energy advances such as new PV and batteries technologies. There’s a focus on coordinating renewable energy with energy storage exploiting sensor data using machine learning techniques. 

Research project

Decentralised Integration of Renewable Energy sources through smart grid Technologies (DIRECT)

The purpose of DIRECT is to examine the impact of new PV materials and technologies on the power grid, e.g., considering different PV yield in low light conditions and Tandem/hybrid cells (organic, inorganic or hybrid) expecting a change in behaviour leading to a better power grid stability.

This project will make usage of Durham Smart Grid Laboratory which has two real-time digital simulators (RTDS) and renewable energy emulators (wind/solar emulators). We will be using energy network existing data and focus on coordinating renewable energy with energy storage taking advantage of recorded sensor data. This includes the usage of machine learning techniques to have a better understating of the virtual power plants implications and results.