APREN awards four academic works of excellence in the field of renewables
The APREN Award ceremony took place in Lisbon, in a session that included a debate on synergies between APREN, INEGI, INESC TEC and LNEG. The closing ceremony was in charge of MEP Maria da Graça Carvalho, President of the Jury of the initiative.
The APREN Award, an initiative from APREN – Portuguese Renewable Energy, has distinguished four doctoral and master's academic works on electricity from renewable sources, in a ceremony that took place on February 23, at the EPIC SANA Marquês hotel, in Lisbon.
The 1st place, in the PhD Category, was won by António Coelho, from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, with the dissertation “Network security participation of aggregators of multi-energy systems in multi energy markets”.
The 2nd place went to Luís Barros, from the University of Minho, for the work entitled “Smart Power Conditioners for Electric Railway Power Grids”.
In the Master's category, the 1st place of the award was awarded to Leonardo Vidas, from Instituto Superior Técnico, author of the thesis on “Optimal sizing of solar/wind-to-hydrogen systems in a suitable selection geospatial framework – the case of Italy and Portugal”.
The 2nd place, in this category, was awarded to Luís Rodrigues, from FEUP, with the work “Techno-Economic Feasibility Analysis of a Hydrogen Power Plant in a Market Environment”.
The event also included a debate dedicated to the theme "The importance of synergies between Academia and the Energy Sector for the Energy Transition". It was moderated by the Coordinator of Policies and Market Intelligence, Susana Serôdio, and had the participation of Pedro Amaral Jorge, president of the APREN board; Sofia Simões, from the National Laboratory of Energy and Geology (LNEG); Luís Seca, Executive Director of INESC TEC, and José Carlos Matos, Head of Wind Energy Group at INEGI.
The closing ceremony was ensured by the MEP and Full Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico, Maria da Graça Carvalho, who is also president of the APREN Award Jury. In addition to talking about the importance of the topic renewables, and her work in the creation of legislation at European level for the European electricity market, the MEP also highlighted the great quality of all the candidate theses in the initiative.
The jury panel is composed of six other university professors from various branches of energy and renewables: Jorge Maia Alves, from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon; Edgar Fernandes and Pedro Carvalho, from Instituto Superior Técnico; Sofia Simões, from LNEG; Patrícia Fortes, from the Faculty of Science and Technology of the New University of Lisbon; and Bernardo Silva, from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto.
In 2023, the APREN Award returned with a renewed and more comprehensive jury and with a dedicated event. Until now, the awards were presented at APREN's annual conference, the “Portugal Renewable Energy Summit”. The growing interest in the sector, the increase in its area of coverage and the desire to strengthen ties with the academic universe dictated the creation of a specific event for this initiative.
Since 2015, APREN has distinguished the best master's and doctoral dissertations about electricity from renewable sources, carried out in higher education institutions in Portugal. Over the last few years, several dozen academic theses in the area of renewables have been distinguished.
The theme of the academic dissertations submitted to the APREN award, which can be written in Portuguese or English, must be related to direct and indirect electrification based on renewable resources, namely in the areas of their production, distribution, management and regulation, market, and consumption, covering scientific, technological, financial, economic, and other aspects that promote decarbonization in a sustainable way.
The choice of papers considers the potential and relevance of the theme, the technical and scientific robustness, but also the quality of the document, the presentation submitted and the oral presentation, to which the candidates will be submitted in a final phase.
The prize for the best PhD thesis is €2,000. The author of the second-best thesis receives €1,000. The winning master's thesis has an associated prize of €1,500 and the second-best dissertation gives access to a value of €750.