When Geert Vergoosen and Muhammad Hafeez Saeed started a demand response project in their first year of the MSc in Smart Cities programme, they didn’t realize it would lead them to present a research paper on stage at the European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (ERSCP) event. Geert and Hafeez happily share their experiences in bringing this idea from an EIT InnoEnergy Master School project to a published paper – with the message that anything is possible if you are willing to put in the work!
New demand response strategies
The research paper, co-authored with Nikita Stepanyuk, Jamie Zouras, Saga Carle, and KTH researcher Anders Nilsson, provides a conceptual framework to implement demand response strategies using household characteristics. Geert explains, “It helps the policymakers, researchers, and technology implementers to identify areas that are suitable for upscaling demand response programmes. Furthermore, it would act as a tool to help tailor-make demand response programmes according to the household characteristics of individual neighbourhoods, thereby optimising the possible flexibility of demand in specific areas.” Hafeez clarifies why this fresh approach is so important: “The previous research in this area focuses on the how, what, and when of implementing demand response strategies. Whereas our research answers the important question of where to implement them subject to socio-economic and dwelling characteristics of different neighbourhoods in cities.”
Conference highlights
The two were excited to present at the acclaimed ERSCP conference in early September in Graz, Austria which invites researchers from all around the world to submit their innovative research work on sustainability, climate protection, food wastes, and clean energy. Hafeez says, “Our paper was accepted under the category of Advanced Energy Systems and was given a high ranking in all the evaluation categories by the jury. It was also great to attend the conference physically, meeting with researchers from around the globe. It was a true pleasure to see each researcher contributing in a unique way towards a more sustainable energy future.” Geert shares his impression: “There were interesting presentations, breakout sessions, entertainment, and just the ambience of the conference made it an unforgettable experience! Really, the people made the conference and inspired me to continue working in the field of sustainability and energy.”
Innovative courses bring innovative ideas!
The Master’s Energy for Smart Cities programme helps students explore how to create more intelligent, sustainable, and resource-efficient communities – and the graduates’ new demand response strategy is an excellent example! Hafeez explains how the project started: “Mainly our paper was inspired by our supervisor from the ‘Smart Cities and Climate Change Mitigation Strategies’ course at KTH during our 1st year. We worked on a semester project that focused on identifying household characteristics that affect the effectiveness of home energy management devices, an instrument to realise demand response in homes. Due to achieving important outcomes from the project, our supervisor Anders Nilsson motivated us to write a research paper on it.” Geert continues, “We are quite grateful to EIT InnoEnergy for designing such an innovative course that has allowed us to unlock our potential and do some significant work out of it. We now have had a great experience publishing a paper and learned a tremendous number of things during our journey. Moreover, for Hafeez, it gives him a head start to publishing research work as he is going to start his PhD soon!”
Inspiring takeaway
As the excitement from the conference winds down and they focus on what’s next, Hafeez – who recently completed his 2nd year of the MSc in Energy for Smart Cities programme at INP Grenoble, France – is ready to start his PhD at KU Leuven soon. He would be researching on control paradigms that can realise Energy Positive Districts (EPD). Geert, who is presently part of the National ThinkTank in the Netherlands working to mitigate inequality and improve the quality of the education system, will be starting his career soon as Senior Solution Analyst at McKinsey on the Global Energy Perspective team. They both want to share some final words of inspiration for young MSc students who might think writing a research paper is too difficult: “We literally started our work with a course project. Because we took the project seriously and had some fruitful results, it was easy for us to further the work and convert our findings into a research publication. We are proud of the team and the hard work we have put into it and fascinated by the fact that results from small-scale course projects can turn into a fruitful scientific contribution!”