Vassilios G Agelidis - Electrical Engineering

Energy efficiency & smart electricity grids

Electricity grid infrastructure and energy generation will continue to underpin the growth and advancement of modern societies. Today, new generation semiconductors, and computer technologies are revolutionising how power infrastructure is designed, built and operated.

Professor Agelidis leads Australia's largest and most internationally recognised power engineering research group. Research areas include:

• Innovative and economical means to operate electricity infrastructure
• Advanced electronic control of electricity grids using utility power electronics
• Electrical energy generated with sustainable energy sources
• Increased efficiency of delivery and quality of electrical power
• New technologies that integrate telecommunication, computer and software systems with power system principles to deliver the intelligent grid of the future.

Agelidis's most significant research contributions so far have been in the field of power-electronic energy conversion, with the goal of achieving more efficient energy use through motor control and electrical energy processing. He has reported design methods of advanced equipment for electrical utilities able to support a ‘smarter’ grid infrastructure based on fast automated electronic control.

Agelidis has collaborated with companies, government organisations and universities worldwide. In 2004, he received, the advanced research fellowship from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the UK’s most prestigious research fellowship for a young researcher. In 2007, he received an Endeavour Executive Award from the Australian Government for a three-month visit to Seoul National University of Technology. In 2008-09, he spent three months as a VESTAS visiting research Professor at Aalborg University, Denmark working on high-voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnections of large offshore wind farms with the electricity grid.