Seminar: Elizabeth Ratnam, Fri Nov 1st, 2p

When: Fri Nov 1st 2019, 2:00p

Where: Rose St Building Seminar Area

Speaker: Elizabeth Ratnam, ANU

Title: Creating a resilient carbon-neutral electricity grid

Abstract: In recent years, a dramatic increase in electrical power generation from renewable energy sources has been observed in many countries. The grid-integration of customer-owned solar photovoltaics (PV) has been driven by government incentives and renewable energy rebates, including residential feed-in tariffs and the financial policy of net metering. However, new challenges arise in balancing the generation of electricity with variable demand at all times as traditional fossil fuel-fired generators are retired and replaced with intermittent renewable electricity sources.This presentation considers ways to integrate residential-scale battery storage co-located with solar PV, with a view of creating a resilient carbon neutral electricity grid. 

Bio: Dr Ratnam earned the BEng (Hons I) degree in Electrical Engineering in 2006, and the PhD degree in Electrical Engineering in 2016, from the University of Newcastle, Australia. She subsequently held postdoctoral research positions with the Center for Energy Research at the University of California San Diego, and at the University of California Berkeley in the California Institute for Energy and Environment. During 2001–2012 she held various positions at Ausgrid, a utility that operates one of the largest electricity distribution networks in Australia. Dr Ratnam currently holds a Future Engineering Research Leader (FERL) Fellowship from the Australian National University (ANU) and she joined the Research School of Engineering at ANU as a research fellow and lecturer in 2018. Her research interests are in developing new and revolutionary approaches to control distribution networks with a strong focus on creating a resiliant carbon neutral power grid.