On behalf of the Partner Organizations (EnDev, GIZ, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT, REPIC, Siemens Stiftung, SNV and WISE) and the Scientific Committee, we are pleased to invite you to join the third International Conference on Solar Technologies and Hybrid Mini-Grids to improve energy access, at the Unversitat de les Illes Balears in Palma, Spain on April 1-3, 2020.

The main objective of the conference is to provide an opportunity for an exchange between practitioners from the industry,…

Ontario Power Generation (OPG), in collaboration with MaRS Discovery District, has recently launched the Generate Innovation Challenge to help identify new technologies that drive innovative, future-looking solutions impacting the Canadian energy landscape.

This crowd-sourced competition calls on startups, scaleups, entrepreneurs, academics, scientists and researchers from across Canada to submit ideas, technologies or solutions to four core issues (workforce and planning; inspection automation;…

The battery in an electric vehicle (EV) faces serious performance demands every time the driver steps on the accelerator or the brake. So after a number of years, when its capacity has dropped 20 to 30 per cent, it gets replaced.

But that retired battery can still function well in less demanding applications — like stationary energy storage systems of microgrids — where the fluctuations in power/energy and charge are much smaller.

Because the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always…

Some municipalities take a greener approach. Some burn the methane to produce electricity, but that’s an expensive process. Others use anaerobic digestion to break down food waste, but the value of the resulting compost isn’t high. 

Hyung-Sool Lee, director of the Waterloo…

Producing food consumes a lot of energy — and, as a result, creates a significant proportion of the world’s greenhouse gases. As the global population grows and the planet continues to heat up, it becomes more important than ever to produce food efficiently.

That’s why WISE member Keith Hipel, along with colleagues at York University and Queen’s University, recently scrutinized five different agricultural systems in coastal Bangladesh to compare energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions.

Trad…

An engineering professor at the University of Waterloo with a lifelong interest in environmental protection has won a prestigious national award for scholars.

Keith Hipel, a professor of systems design engineering who earned his three degrees as a student at Waterloo, was named today as one of five winners of 2019 Killam Prizes through the Canada Council for the Arts.

Given annually to eminent, active scholars in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences and engineering,…

Waterloo researcher is helping families adopt smart technology and smart practices for sustainable living

By Sam Toman, University Relations

Originally posted here: https://uwaterloo.ca/global-impact/smart-home-technology-needs-smart-people 

The key to any healthy relationship is communication. The same can be said about our relationship to home energy use.

That makes Bronwyn Lazowski a kind of therapist for our dysfunctional home energy patterns. She studies everyday energy consumer patterns…

The Energy Council of Canada Energy Policy Research Fellowship will provide $500,000 over 10 years to graduate students engaged in energy policy research. Annual fellowships valued at $15,000 for Master's students and $25,000 for Doctoral students will be awarded to eligible full-time graduate students registered at the University of Waterloo. Students must demonstrate interest in energy policy research defined annually by the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) in conjunction with…

Authors:

Hassan Shavandia, Department of Industrial Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran,
Mehrdad Pirnia, WISE Member/Department of Management Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada
J. David Fuller, Department of Management Sciences, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

Abstract:

This paper finds near equilibrium prices for electricity markets with non-convexities due to binary variables, in order to reduce the market participants’ opportunity costs, such as…