Communications & Public Affairs -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 1/21/2005
Last Visited: 5/27/2005
In his inaugural address as Bert Whittington Chair of Electrical Engineering, Professor Janusz Bialek will discuss the lessons to be learned from the blackouts in America, Scandinavia, Italy and the United Kingdom, and examine how secure electricity supply in the UK actually is.Professor Bialek will also assess how the UK's ageing power network is coping with modern demands, examine how the current 'dash' for renewables is impacting on supply, and question Britain's reliance on a market mechanism to build its new power plants.
Professor Bialek joined the University of Edinburgh in 2003, having spent 22 years in various research and lecturing roles in universities and research institutes, including Warsaw University of Technology and the University of Durham.His research, which is interdisciplinary in nature, links power engineering and economics and deals with some of the most important challenges facing power engineering today.His research concentrates on a diverse range of related issues, including the Liberalisation of Electricity Markets, Renewables, Transmission Pricing, Modelling Electricity Markets, Congestion Management and Power System Dynamics.
Professor Janusz Bialek will deliver his inaugural lecture, Power Blackouts: Are There More to Come? in the Swann Lecture Theatre at the University of Edinburgh's King's Buildings campus (enter gateway four) at 5.15pm on Monday, 24 January.