Dr Mousa Marzband

I obtained a Ph.D. in power system engineering from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain, in 2014 under PhD scholarship from Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC). During the PhD period, I have been involved as researcher in several projects namely KIC-ASS (2014), and EVCITY (282011-IP24-EVCity), supported by EIT and KIC-InnoEnergy, and funded by European Regional Development. I gained knowledge on a spectrum of optimal energy management systems, demand response, mechanism design for residential home micro-grids, and local energy markets. Key outcomes of my work consist of the detailed mechanism design for optimal energy management (consistent with third work-package of this proposal) and demand response schemes for residential home micro-grids, and local energy markets.

Afterward, I started a post doctorate fellowship in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Manchester (UoM) in which I was responsible to establish a new research direction on market coalition formation among multiple home Micro-grids based on game theory approaches. I was a research associate (RA) in smart grid energy sector and conducting research in my first post-doctorate project namely COOPERaTE FP7. This project focused on identifying potential new activities and responsibilities necessary to allow successful optimal operation of the distributed energy resources and consumers in the distribution system including renewable based generation resources considering the possibility of coalition formation based on game theory and optimization algorithms with increasing demand side participation in the neighbourhood/local electricity systems within smart cities. In this project, a general framework for implementing a retail energy market based on the cooperative/non-cooperative game theory concepts was proposed as an electricity market structure with large distributed energy resources (DERs) penetration and demand side management (DSM) of consumers. In particular, I investigated the potential role of the future distributed system operator (DSO), both as an active distribution network manager (e.g. utilizing flexible demand, dispatching DSM, storage and generation, actively managing power flows) and as an ancillary service provider.

After 2016, I started to work on my second post-doctorate project namely NobelGrid, which the main objective of the project was focus on specifying the operating issues in terms of secure and stable operation in the future distribution networks, identifying the critical factors/behaviours that would affect the operation of networks, developing technical solutions to tackle/mitigate these operating issues by dynamically managing the assets/services (DGs, storages, demand-side-management services) in the network using the methodologies of central analysis/control rather than local control. The project has developed a market-based strategy, which takes the optimum solution based on the available means identified above and influence the actors’ behaviours in distribution networks via electricity markets. Through this, all actors’ assets/services can be managed indirectly via electricity markets, and the ultimate goal of providing secure, stable and cost-effective operation of the distribution networks can be achieved. In this project, all mathematical formulations and implementation of proposed idea were delegated to me.  Another project that I have developed as RA in Salford University was Design4Energy, funded by European Commission. It revolved around a novel approach for optimal energy management system for a community of home micro-grids and integrated multi-energy markets and the agent-based modelling. Simultaneously with this project, I supervised a PhD student, conducting research on Design4Energy project. Key outcomes of my work, during post-doctorate period, include developing the novel solutions for making the most of renewable resources including wind turbine and solar panel, designing appropriate scenarios for demand response, as well as whole rational beneficiaries somehow connected to the smart grid.

In May 2017, I started a new role as a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate (under EU H2020 Credence project with Dep. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University College Cork’s Environmental Research Institute and Marine and Renewable Energy (MaREI) Ireland Centre, Cork, Ireland. Key outcomes of my work consist of validating the proposed method regarding multi-energy modelling of flexible distributed energy resources, thermal inertia of home micro-grid components, and multi-criteria optimization in a low-voltage laboratory Micro-grid.

In the past two decades, I have a strong industrial background working as a senior electrical engineer in R&D division at Nouri Petrochemical Company (NPC) (2005-2010), MAPNA, TAVANIR, IREC and MaREI research centres. During this time, supervising several small-scale projects and 3 to12 engineers were delegated to me. Mainly, these projects revolved around the load flow of a power network in different regions, short-term and long-term planning, and optimal energy management system for smart buildings. Gradually, I was vested in the medium and large-sized projects, which all revolved around monitoring and handling the demand and generation side management, load forecasting, dynamic pricing, sensitivity analysis, and market mechanism design.      

Currently, I am a member of IET and Chartered Engineer (CEng), a Senior Member of the Technical Committee of Renewable Energy Systems and also the IEEE Task Force on Micro-grids Stability, Analysis, and Modelling. I have recently been appointed as an honorary distinguished adjunct professor by King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (judged to be the best university in the Arab World by THE in 2019). The reason behind this is that I am highly Cited Researcher in 2019. I am nominated in 2018 and 2019 by Thomson Reuters to be the world's top 1% researchers in engineering. My research findings have been published in two books entitled “Optimal energy management algorithms for Micro-grid applications” and “Electrical Power Quality Analysis in Distribution Systems” and more than 50 top field journals and over 40 proceedings of the international conferences.

Moreover, I am a member of the Electrical Power & Control Systems (EPCS) group at Northumbria University supervising 10 Ph.D. students and more that 40 master students in this field. Recently, as a co-investigator, I helped to secure the UK-India grant (£185K), funded by Britich Council and started in May 2019, to develop the power electronics schemes for a smart micro grid with high penetration of PV generation and electric vehicles. I have extensive research experience mainly in the area of mathematical modelling, nonlinear control and observer design, game theory applications in smart grid, and multi-carrier energy systems with application to various engineering disciplines and in particular to Micro-grids, which is the underlying topic of this research proposal.