Thaiyal Naayagi Ramasamy

Associate Professor,
Newcastle University, Singapore

“Renewable Energy Harvesting and Control of Distributed Renewable Energy Generation”

About the Speaker

Dr Thaiyal Naayagi Ramasamy M’12–SM’15) received the bachelor’s (Hons.) degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India, in 2000, the master’s degree in information technology from Alagappa University, Karaikudi, India, in 2003, the master’s (Hons.) degree in power electronics and drives from Anna University, Chennai, India, in 2005, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and electronic engineering from the University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K., in 2010.

She held various roles as a Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Professor in various institutions in India and the U.K., from 2000 to 2006 and from 2010 to 2014. Since July 2014, she has been with Newcastle University, Singapore, where she is currently an Associate Professor in electrical power engineering. Her re-search interests include power electronics for aerospace, electric vehicle applications, lowcarbon electrical energy systems, and power electronic solutions to sustainability.

Dr Naayagi has received several merit certificates for her academic proficiency, including the Best Outgoing Female Graduate Award during her bachelors and the Outstanding Masters Student Award. She received the Dorothy Hodgkin Postgraduate Award from the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Manchester, for her Ph.D. research, jointly sponsored by Rolls-Royce Plc and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, U.K. She is a recipient of the IET Woman Engineer Award from the Young Professionals Section Chennai, Institution of Engineering and Technology, U.K., in 2012 and the Newcastle University Teaching Award in 2016. She was awarded Fellow status of the Higher Education Academy, U.K., in 2016. She is a member of the Diversity Working Group and Academic Lead for Athena SWAN Bronze Award application at Newcastle University and has been organizing many events to promote young professionals especially young women in engineering and technology. She is an Associate Editor for the IET Power Electronics journal. She is a Senior Member of IEEE and Reviewer for the IEEE, IET and many other international journals and conferences. She is the Treasurer of the IEEE Power and Energy Society, Singapore Chapter.

About the Tutorial

The electric power system is being modernized to enable a sustainable energy system. New developments include possibilities and challenges with generation, delivery and usage of electricity as an integrated part of the energy system. This involves new forms of usage of electricity, e.g. for transportation and demand response, and to the updating of existing electricity infrastructures. For electricity generation the trend is toward new large-scale developments, like offshore wind farms, as well as small-scale developments like rooftop solar energy. At the same time, digitalization of society is creating new opportunities for control and automation as well as new business models and energy related services. The overall trend for technology developments is new possibilities for measurement and control. An example is Phasor Measurements Units (PMUs), generally located in the transmission network, which provide measurements of voltage and current up to 30-120 times per second. Smart Meters placed with the end consumer, which enables integration of private small-scale electricity production from solar cells, or energy storage from electric vehicles and general distributed control of energy use, are others. Another trend is the development of diagnostic measurement techniques for assessing the insulation condition and prediction of lifetime of physical assets, and new methods for condition monitoring. These different trends have in common an overall development towards access to large volumes of data for handling and analysis, and another concept growing in interest are referred as Big Data, which provides new means for infrastructure asset management (AM).

This Tutorial will include two parts; firstly a thoroughly introduction to AM providing definitions, terminology, and basic theories, and secondly, a comprehensive set of examples from a wide range of applications for the electric power system and its components. A main focus will be on input data and the use of condition monitoring techniques.