Report Title:  Optimal Operation and Control Strategies for Large-scale Energy Storage System

Prof. Zechun Hu received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Department of Electrical Engineering, Xi'an Jiao Tong University, Xi'an, China. He worked in Shanghai Jiao Tong University after graduation and also worked in University of Bath as a research officer from 2009 to 2010. He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University in 2010 where he is now a full professor. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and two books. He served/serves as an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification, IET Smart Grid, and Energy Conversion and Economics. His major research interests include vehicle to grid techniques, application of energy storage systems, optimal planning and operation of power systems, and electricity markets

Abstract: Driven by both technological advances and policy support, the total installed capacity of energy storage systems is increasing very fast. Against the backdrop of power market development and electricity pricing reform, the share of installed capacity of energy storage on the power generation side and the power grid side has increased rapidly over the past two years. This talk will focus on the primary application scenarios of energy storage on the power generation and grid sides, explore the joint frequency regulation of energy storage with thermal generating units, the coordinated operation of energy storage with renewable power plant, and the operation and control strategies of independent energy storage power stations, so as to enhance the overall revenue from installed energy storage systems. Finally, the report will provide an outlook on the challenges and trends in the application of energy storage in China's power systems.

Report Title: Intelligent State Estimation and Control of Battery Storage Systems to Support Transport Decarbonization

Prof Kang Li holds the Chair of Smart Energy Systems and the Director of the Institute of Communication and Power Networks at School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, University of Leeds. A control engineer by training, Kang's work spans many research topics from control engineering to AI with substantial industrial applications in power and energy systems. His work on the development of minimal-invasive cloud-based energy consumption and process condition monitoring platform (Point Energy Technology) has been successfully adopted in food processing and polymer processing industries, winning 1015 Institute of Measurement and Control ICI Best Application prize, 2016 Northern Ireland INVENT  award and 2016 finalist of the Sustainable Energy Awards 2016 from Sustainable Energy Authority of Republic of Ireland. In battery research, he has proposed constrained multi-objective battery charging control strategies to replace conventional CCCV charging protocol for batteries and successfully adopted Fibre Bragg Grating sensor technologies for battery state monitoring and estimation to improve battery safety and state estimation accuracy. He is currently leading the innovation and technical development of the first ￡11M demonstrator of railway Energy Hubs in Scotland, a novel microgrid solution to revolutionize railway traction power supply and railway decarbonization, transforming the inflexible rail demand to flexible load, and providing flexibility and ancillary services to the power grid. Kang has published over 300 international journal papers and edited 19 international conference proceedings in his area, winning over 15 national and international prizes and awards, including 2019 Springer Nature ‘China New Development Award’ in recognition of the ‘exceptional contributions to the delivery of the UN Sustainable Development Goals'.

Abstract: The global economy will be greatly shaped by the transformed energy landscapes. Battery storage systems play a vital role in decarbonizing the whole energy chain from accepting renewable generations to electrification of transport and other sectors. The talk presents some recent studies in intelligent state estimation abd control of Li-ion battery systems and substantial engineering applications to support railway and road electrification/decarbonization.  

Report Title: High Energy Batteries Through Nanoscience

Prof. Yi Cui, Fortinet Founders Professor of Engineering in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Stanford University, also holds a joint appointment as Professor of Photon Science at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and serves as Co?Director of the DOE?funded Battery500 Consortium. Received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1998, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University in 2002, and completed a Miller Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley from 2003 to 2005. Appointed Assistant Professor at Stanford in 2005, promoted to Associate Professor in 2010, and to Full Professor in 2016.

Research interests center on nanomaterials for energy and environmental applications, including high?energy?density rechargeable batteries, efficient electrocatalysis, water purification, and smart functional textiles. Authored several hundred papers in leading journals such as Science and Nature, with a Google Scholar H?index of 300. Beyond academic work, founded Amprius Inc. and serves on its board of directors, and co?founded 4C Air Inc., bridging fundamental discoveries with commercial deployment.

Notable distinctions include election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (2022) and the European Academy of Engineering (2023); recipient of the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award (U.S. Department of Energy, 2020), the Materials Research Society Medal (2020), the Global Energy Prize (2021), and the Blavatnik National Award in Physical Sciences and Engineering (2017). Featured multiple times in Scientific American’s “Top 10 World Changing Ideas” list, and ranked No. 1 in materials science on Thomson Reuters’ list of “Hottest Researchers of Today” in 2014. Serves as Associate Editor of Nano Letters and on the editorial boards of several other international journals. Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Materials Research Society, the Electrochemical Society, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and other professional societies.