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School of Engineering and Computing Sciences (ECS)

Profile

Professor Janusz Bialek, MEng, PhD, CEng, Fellow IEEE

Chair of Electrical Power and Control in the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences
Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 42505
Room number: E373 (Higginson)

(email at janusz.bialek@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Professor Janusz Bialek received his MEng and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Warsaw University of Technology in 1977 and 1981, respectively. From 1981 to 1989 he was a lecturer at Warsaw University of Technology. In 1989 he moved to a lectureship in Durham University. From 2003 to 2009 he held Bert Whittington Chair of Electrical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh. He returned to Durham University in September 2009 to take up the Chair of Electrical Power and Control. He was also the Research Director of School of Engineering and Computing Sciences in 2009-2012. From June to December 2012 he was seconded to Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as DECC/EPSRC Science Policy Fellow. He was also a Visiting Professor at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in 2000, and at Hong Kong University in 2008.

Janusz is a member of the Dispute Resolution Panel for the Single Electricity Market Operator, Ireland, and Honorary Professor of Heriot-Watt University, UK. He was a former member of Advisory Board of Electricity Policy Research Group, Cambridge University. He has sat on Technical Committees of major power engineering conferences including Power System Computation Conference and IEEE PowerTech and IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Europe. He will be Technical Chair of 2014 Probablistic Methods Applied to Power Systems (PMAPS) conference to be held in Durham. He is a Guest Editor of a forthcoming Special Issue on "Large Scale Grid Integration and Regulatory Issues of Variable Power Generation", IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy. He was also a Guest Editor of a special issue "Risk and reliability modelling of energy systems", Journal of Risk and Reliability (Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers: Part O.

Generally, Janusz's research deals with achieving stable, secure, sustainable and economic supply of electricity while meeting the challenges of reducing CO2 emissions – please see his interview in 17 October 2011 edition of New Statesman. His particular expertise is in technical and economic integration of renewable generation in the power system, preventing electricity blackouts. He is also an expert on power system dynamics. His main engineering background is in electricity networks but his research is interdisciplinary in nature and he collaborates closely with economists, statisticians, mathematicians, social scientists and computer scientists. Although Janusz is mainly interested in tackling long-term fundamental research problems, and as such his research tends to be primarily funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), he also works regularly with transmission and distribution network operators, government agencies, and consultancies. In recognition of his research achievements, Janusz has been elected Fellow of IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) “for contributions to transmission pricing and power system dynamics”. IEEE is the world’s largest professional association for the advancement of technology.

Janusz has published 2 books, 2 chapters in books, 8 published reports and about 140 research papers including over 40 academic journal papers. The publications have attracted over 2,600 citations according to Google Scholar. His two seminal sole-authored papers on electricity tracing have attracted over 900 citations according to Google Scholar.

Janusz has been a consultant to the UK government, International Energy Agency, European Commission, Scottish Government, Elexon, Polish Power Grid Company, Scottish Power and Enron. Recently he has been involved in the following major research projects funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC):

  • Principle Investigator (PI) of "Preventing wide-area blackouts through adaptive islanding of transmission networks", 2009-2013. This £1.1M consortium involving also Edinburgh and Southampton is funded from EPSRC Energy Challenges in Complexity Science call
  • Co-Investigator (Co-I) of “Energy storage for low-carbon grids” (2012-2016) awarded in a prestigious Grand Challenges in Energy Storage call. This £5M interdisciplinary project led by Imperial College involves power engineers, economists, chemists and material scientists from 9 universities to address, in an integrated manner, all aspects of the Grand Challenge in Integrating Energy Storage into Future Energy Networks.
  • CoI of “The Autonomic Power System” project awarded in a prestigious EPSRC Grand Challenges in Networks call (2011-2015). This is a large (£3.4M) interdisciplinary project undertaken in collaboration with Strathclyde, Imperial College, Manchester, Cambridge and East Anglia
  • PI for Durham of “High Energy And Power Density (HEAPD) Solutions to Large Energy Deficits”, submitted in response to the India / UK Smart Grids Call, 2014-2018. The project involves collaboration with Bath (lead), Cardiff, and four Indian Institutes: Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IITR), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IITK), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT) Jaipur. 
  • Co-I of “Development and Evaluation of Sustainable Technologies for Flexible Operation of Conventional Power Plants”, 2013-2018. This £4.6M Durham-led consortium includes Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh and Leeds with the aim to accelerate progress towards achieving operational excellence for flexible, efficient, controllable, safe and environmentally sustainable thermal power plants.

He has been also involved in the following projects funded by the industry and governments:

  • Co-I on £54M “Customer-led Network Revolution” project awarded by Ofgem in Low Carbon Network Fund initiative (2011-2014). The UK’s biggest smart grid project is in the forefront of the move towards a low-carbon economy. 14,000 homes and businesses, mostly in the North East and Yorkshire, is involved in this innovative £54 million project, helping us to find ways for customers to reduce both their energy costs and carbon emissions in the years to come.
  • Co-I of "Investigating the Role of Energy Storage Systems in Smart Grids" project awarded in 2010 by Electricity North West
  • Co-I of “Risk Limiting Dispatch” funded by Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), USA, 2009-2011. The aim was to develop an integrated scheduling system that accommodates the new information capabilities of Smart Grids. The project involved Professor Felix Wu of Hong Kong University and Professor Pravin Varaya of University of California, Berkeley.
  • Co-I of “Matching Renewable Electricity Generation with Demand", 2004-5. The study was commissioned by the Scottish Government to determine whether Scotland could meet its target for electricity being supplied from renewable resources. The study involved comprehensive survey of on- and off-shore wind, wave and tidal resources in Scotland
  • PI of “Identification of parameters of synchronous machine”, funded by EPRI, 2001-2
  • PI of “Real and Reactive Power Tracking: Proof of Concept and Feasibility Study”, funded by EPRI, 1999
  • PI of “Decentralized Damping of Power Swings: Feasibility Study”, funded by EPRI, 1999

Since 2003, Janusz has attracted about £3.2M as PI and about £5M as Co-I. Altogether, he has participated in consortia of the combined value of £68M.

Research Highlights

Examples of Janusz’s major research achievements include:

· A mathematical framework for a transmission pricing methodology based on the concept of tracing how electrical power flows from individual generators to individual loads. His two seminal papers on the subject (IEE Proc. Gen. Transm. Distrib., 1996; IEEE Trans. Power Systems 1996) have attracted over 900 citations according to Google Scholar. Tracing was used in Northeast China electricity market for transmission loss allocation and was considered in Europe (under the name of average participations) as a candidate for Inter Transmission System Operator Compensations (ITC) due to cross-border trades between countries. It is also being considered for implementation in New Zealand.

 · A closed-form solution to the problem of optimal bidding of wind power generators in forward markets (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2011). An anonymous reviewer wrote in the review: “This is ground breaking research...”.

· Risk-based dispatch in the presence of stochastic renewable generation. The research was published as an invited paper in the world’s most prestigious electrical engineering journal: Proceedings of IEEE, 2011.

 A methodology for dynamic generation investment modelling using control feedback framework (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2012). The methodology can be used to investigate the need for a capacity mechanism to attract peaking generators in an electricity market.

· Stochastic modelling of intermittent renewable energy resources, network/generation capacity and risk evaluation tools and power system risk assessment in the presence of renewable generation (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2010)

· A congestion management mechanism to manage voltage constraints due to renewable generators in distribution networks (IET Proc. Gen. Transm.and Distrib, 2007)

· A controller that compensates for wind farm power fluctuations (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2007)

· Strategies to maximise absorption of renewable generation in transmission and distribution networks (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2005, 2006)

· A model of the European interconnected network developed using publicly-available information (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2005). The model is widely used by other researchers and agencies world-wide.

· Analysis of power system blackouts in Europe and US/Canada in 2003, 2006 and 2008 (EPRG, 2004).

· A closed-form formula to analyse incentives to "game" the electricity market (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2002)

· A robust decentralised power system stabiliser using a non-linear system model and Lyapunov direct method (IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2000)

Research Groups

Research Interests

  • Electricity markets
  • Grid integration of renewable generation
  • Power system dynamics and stability
  • Security of supply and power blackouts
  • Smart grids
  • Sustainable energy systems

Selected Publications

Books: authored

  • Machowski, j., Bialek, J.W. & Bumby, J.R. (2008). Power system dynamics: stability and control. Oxford: J.Wiley&Sons.
  • Bialek, J.W., Machowski, J. & Bumby, J.R. (1997). Power system dynamics and stability. J.Wiley & Sons.

Books: sections

  • Bialek, J.W. (2010). Critical Interrelations Between ICT and Electricity System. In Securing Electricity Supply in the Cyber Age Exploring the Risks of Information and Communication Technology in Tomorrow's Electricity Infrastructure. Lukszo, Z., Deconinck, G. & Weijnen, M. P. C, Springer. Topics in safety, risk, reliability and quality, vol. 15.: 53-70.
  • Pollit, M. & Bialek, J.W. (2008). Electricity Network Investment and Regulation for a Low Carbon Future. In Delivering a low carbon electricity system technologies, economics and policy. Grubb, M., Jamasb, T. & Pollitt, M. G. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Department of Applied Economics occasional papers, no. 68.: 183-207.
  • Bialek, J.W. & Ziemianek, S. (2002). Problems in Electric Power Systems. In Problems in Electric Power Systems. Polish Academy of Science.

Conference papers

Edited works: conference proceedings

  • Dent, C.J, Bialek, J.W., Hasche, B & Keane, A. (2010). Application of Wind Generation Capacity Credits In the Great Britain and Irish Systems. CIGRE General Meeting, Paris.
  • Olmos Aguirre, P.E., Dent, C.J. & Bialek, J.W. (2009). Realistic calculation of wind generation capacity cedits. CIGRE/IEEE PES Symposium on Integration of Wide-Scale Renewable Resources into Power Delivery System, Calgary, Canada.
  • McNabb, P., Bialek, J.W., Hay, J., Trehern, J. & Wilson, D. (2008). Dynamic Model Validation of a Power System using WAMS-based Measurement of Oscillatory Stability. 16th Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC'08), Glasgow, Scotland.
  • Imran, M. & Bialek, J.W. (2008). Effectivness of Zonal Congestion Management in the European Electricity Market. IEEE Power and Energy Conference, Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
  • Dent, C.J., Ochoa, L.F., Harrison, G.P. & Bialek, J.W. (2008). Efficient Secure AC OPF for Distributed Generation Uptake Maximisation. 16th Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC'08), Glagow, Scotland.
  • Bialek, J.W. & Ziemianek, S. (2008). Identification of circular flows in transmission networks using the electricity tracing methodology. 16th Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC'08), Glasgow, Scotland.
  • Wilson, D., Bialek, J.W., Hay, K., McNabb, P. & Jos, T. (2008). Identifying Sources of Damping Problems in Power Systems. 16th Powers Systems Computation Conference (PSCC'08), Glasgow, Scotland..
  • Keane, A., Bialek, J.W., O'Malley, M. & Zhou, Q. (2008). Minimum Cost Curtailment for Distributed Generation Voltage Management. 16th Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC'08), Glasgow, Scotland.
  • Bialek, J.W. & Zhou, Q. (2008). Simplified Calculation of Voltage and Loss Sensitivity Factors in Distribution Networks. 16th Power Systems Computation Conference (PSCC'08), Glasgow, Scotland.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2007). Why has it happened again? Comparison between the 2006 UCTE blackout and the blackouts of 2003. IEEE PowerTech Conference, Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • Bialek, J.W., Zhou, Q., Bronsdon, C. & Connor, G. (2006). Impact of GB Transmission Charging on renewable Electricity Generation. The 8th IEE Intern. Conference on AC and DC Transmission ACDC 2006, London, England.
  • Vovos, P. & Bialek, J.W. (2006). Optimal Power Flow as a Generation Expansion and Network Reinforcement Planning Tool. IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting, Montreal, Canada.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2005). Blackouts in the US/Canada and continental Europe in 2003: is liberistaion to blame?. IEEE PowerTech Conference, St. Petersburg, Russia.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2005). Blackouts in the US/Canada and continental Europe in the year 2003: Lessons to be learned. Energy 2020, Salzburg, Austria.
  • Machowski, J. & Bialek, J.W. (2005). Closed-Loop Stability-Enhancing Control of Shunt FACTS Devices Using Phasor Measurements. IEEE PowerTech Conference, St Petersburg, Russia.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2005). Recent backouts in US/Canada and continental Europe. IEE seminar: IT and power cuts, London, England.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2004). Recent Blackouts in US, Canada and Continental Europe: Is liberistaion to Blame?. ninth POWER Research Conference on Electricity Restructuring, Univeristy of California, Berkley.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2004). Recent Failures: International Perspective. IEE Seminar How Secure are Britain's Electricity Supplies:, London, England.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2004). Systemic reasons for cascading blackouts in interconnected systems. CMI-EnBW Electricty Conference, Berlin, Germany.

Journal papers: academic

Journal papers: professional

  • Wilson, D., Bialek, J.W. & Lubosny, Z. (2006). Banishing blackouts. IEE Power Engineering Journal
  • Bialek, J.W. (2005). Lights Out. IEE Power Engineering Journal
  • Bialek, J.W. (2004). Are blackouts contagious. IEE Power Engineer
  • Bialek, J.W., Hartley, M. & Topping, S. (2003). Average Zonal Transmission Losses. IEE Power Engineering

Reports: technical

  • Pollit, M. & Bialek, J.W. (2007). Electricity Network Investment and Regulation for a Low Carbon Future. Electricity Policy Research Group.
  • Boehme, T., Taylor, J., Wallace, A.R. & Bialek, J.W. (2006). Matching Renewab;e Electricity Generation with Demand. Scottish Executive..
  • OXERA (with J.W.Bialek) (2006). What are the costs and benefits of annual and seasonal scaled zonal loss charging? Department of Trade and Industry.
  • Bialek, J.W., Zhou, Q., Bronsdon, C., Connor, G., Neuhoff, K. & Snodin, H. (2005). Impact of GB Transmission Charging on Renewable Electricty Generation. Report to the Department of Trade and Industry. Department of Trade and Industry.
  • Bialek, J.W. (2004). Recent Backouts in US and Continental Europe: Is Liberisation to Blame? The Cambridge -MIT Institute.
  • OXERA (with J.W.Bialek) (2003). The Impact of Average Zonal Transmission Losses Applied Throughout Great Britain. Report to the Department of Trade and Industry. Department of Trade and Industry.

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Media Contacts

Available for media contact about:

  • Energy: Sustainable Energy Systems
  • Renewable energy: Sustainable Energy Systems
  • Engineering: Energy systems: Sustainable Energy Systems

Supervises