Abstract: The great increase in the world’s population along with the improvement in life standards of poorer countries will imply a rapidly growing energy demand in the next few decades. Possible scenarios foresee an increase of as much as 100% in global energy demand from the present to 2050, mainly concentrated in Asian countries as China, India, Indonesia, and in southern Africa. In this situation, there will be two main challenges to face: on the one hand, to find and ensure the energy resources necessary to support both the continuing growth of industrialised countries, and the rising demands of developing countries; on the other hand, to mitigate the already occurring climate changes and assure environment safeguard. In order to meet these crucial requirements, innovation and new technologies will play a fundamental role in our future. New, enlightened policies can effectively establish important opportunities for countries willing to face the challenge. From this point of view, Germany and Spain have already undertaken the path of renewable energy since a few years ago; the UK has recently announced the development of a new, important research project aimed at CO2 reduction. Moreover, both the European Union and the U.S.A. have recently enacted a number of directives that clearly point in this direction. As regards this global competition, the present lecture will mainly discuss the combined role of the following topics: the development of renewable energy sources, the efficiency in energy end-uses, and frontier technologies in electric power engineering. In this context, emphasis will be given also to smart-grids and distributed generation for an innovative, effective and comprehensive system of electric energy production and distribution.
 

Brief Biography of the Speaker:

Francesco Muzi is a professor of Power Systems at the University of L’Aquila, Italy, where he has also the scientific responsibility for the Power System Group. His main research interests concern Power systems transients and dynamics, Power quality in distribution systems, Power system reliability, Electromagnetic analysis, and Power systems diagnostics and protection. In these fields, he authored or co-authored over 100 scientific papers published in reviewed journals or presented at international conferences.
For his contribution on Lightning Induced Overvoltages, he received a mention in the book of P. Chowdhuri “Electromagnetic Transients in Power Systems”, John Wiley & Sons, New York and participated to the outline of the “IEEE Guide for improving the lightning performance of electric lines”, IEEE Standards Department, New York. He has also a patent for an industrial invention, namely “Power system controlled by a microprocessor”.
He is a regional chairman of the Italian National Lighting Society and was a chairman or keynote lecturer in a number of international conferences organized by ISSAT (International Society of Science and Applied Technologies) and WSEAS.
He is a technical reviewer for the following international journals: IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, Electric Power Systems Research by Elsevier Science, IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution.