Network Structure

During its five year term, NSMG-Net brought together researchers at universities across Canada with specialist partners from industry and government. The network was managed by a board of directors, who received recommendations from the scientific committee, the outreach committee and the independent advisory committee.

Governance

Board of Directors

Dr. John MacDonald (Chair) Retired (formerly Day4Energy)
Mr. Chuck Filewych Smart Grid Canada
Mr. Jack Li Retired (formerly Enmax Power Corp)
Mr. Richard Wunderlich Siemens
Mr Andreas Athienitis Concordia University
Dr. Liuchen Chang University of New Brunswick
Dr. Paul Fortier University of Laval
Mr. Nat Gosman (Non Voting) BC Ministry of Energy
Ms. Alison Janidlo (Non-Voting) NSERC
Dr. Gilles Jean (Non-Voting) NRCan
Mr. Paul Ohrt (Non-Voting) Dept of National Defense
Ms. Heather Quinn (Non-Voting) Government of New Brunswick
Dr. Hassan Farhangi (Non-Voting, Scientific Leader) BCIT and NSMG-Net
Mr. Neil Salmond (Non-Voting, Network Manager) NSMG-Net neilsalmond@smart-microgrid.ca

Scientific committee

Dr. Hassan Farhangi (Chair) BCIT and NSMG-Net
Dr. Reza Iravani University of Toronto and NSMG-Net
Dr. Geza Joos McGill University and NSMG-Net
Dr. Julian Meng University of New Brunswick and NSMG-Net
Mr. Giuseppe Stanciulescu BC Hydro
Mr. Anand Srinivasan Eion Wireless
Dr. Chad Abbey Hydro Quebec
Mr. Ravi Seethapathy Hydro One
Dr. Lisa Dignard CanmetENERGY, NRCan
Mr. Tony Gray Schneider Electric Canada

Outreach committee

Dr. Geza Joos McGill University and NSMG-Net
Dr. Steven Wong CanmetENERGY, NRCan

Independent Advisory committee

Mr Mark McGranaghan EPRI (USA)
Mr Robert Uluski EPRI (USA)
Mr Ben Kroposki NREL (USA)
Dr. Jaeho Choi Chungbuk National University (Korea)
Dr Johan Driesen K.U. Leuven (Belgium)
Dr Nikos Hatziargyriou PPC/NTUA (Greece)

Researchers

NSMG-Net researchers are at the forefront of Canadian microgrid research and expertise. If you would like to discuss their work (for potential collaboration or technology opportunity) please contact the researcher directly, copying the Network Manager.

Hassan Farhangi (Network Leader, Scientific Director, Principal Investigator and Leader of Project 3.4 ) is the Director of the Group for Advanced Information Technology (GAIT) within the Technology Centre of British Columbia Institute of Technology in Burnaby, BC. Dr. Farhangi has more than 25 years of experience in R&D for Consumer Electronics, Utility and Telecom markets. Dr. Farhangi’s academic experience includes various teaching, consulting and adjunct appointments with UBC, SFU, Royal Roads University, National University of Singapore, & Nanyang Technological University. Dr. Farhangi is a member of Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia (APEG), and a senior member of Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

Reza Iravani (Theme 1 Leader, and Project 1.2 and Project 2.2 researcher) holds the L. Lau Chair in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Toronto. He is a pioneer in the field of Microgrids and an internationally recognized leader in electric power systems with more 150 journal publications in the field. He is founder and coordinator of the Centre for Applied Power Electronics (CAPE) at the University of Toronto with focuses on RD&D of Microgrids and Distributed Energy Resources. He is an IEEE fellow and Editorial-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery.

Geza Joós (Theme 2 Leader, and Project 1.4 and Project 2.1 researcher) is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, and holds the NSERC/Hydro-Quebec Industrial Research Chair on the Integration of Renewable Energies and Distributed Generation into the Electric Distribution Grid and the Canada Research Chair in Powering Information Technologies (Tier 1) at McGill University. He has been also been involved in industrial consulting and in industry R&D management as technology coordinator for the Power System Planning and Operation Interest Group at CEATI International. His expertise is in power electronics, with applications to power systems and energy conversion. Recent projects have dealt with integration of renewable energy, mainly wind, and distributed generation. He has published numerous journal and conference papers and presented tutorials at international conferences on these subjects. He is active in several IEEE Power Engineering Society and CIGRE working groups dealing with these issues. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Julian Meng (Theme 3 Leader and Project 3.3 researcher) is a professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of New Brunswick. He has expertise in the area of communications and signal processing and currently holds research grants from NSERC, CFI and AIF. Currently, Dr. Meng is part of the Sustainable Power Group at UNB that has extensive expertise in power electronics and embedded system design.

Kankar Bhattacharya (Project 2.3 ) is a Professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, and his research interests include power system operations, planning and economics- particularly in the context of power industry restructuring and emerging issues in power sector such as penetration effects of renewable energy sources into distribution networks and Smart Grids. Dr. Bhattacharya’s recent research projects include design of reactive power ancillary service provisions for power system operators, distribution systems planning and operation in the context of penetration of DG sources, electricity market price forecasting, integration of solar photovoltaic generation to power grids, and development of customer-end energy management models to facilitate Smart Grids. He is part of two major OCE funded research projects on Energy Hub Management Systems and Large-Scale Solar PV Integration in T&D Networks. He also has current ongoing research projects with MITACS Canada and ABB-CRC USA on DG operations and planning. Dr Bhattacharya has published extensively in the above areas. He is the Editor of IEEE Transactions on Power Systems and IEEE Power Engineering Letters.

Ani Gole (Project 2.4 ) is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Manitoba. In 2005 he was appointed as the NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Power Systems Simulation. He is an expert in the area of Simulation of Power Systems, with particular emphasis on HVDC and FACTS apparatus. He has participated in the design of several simulation based benchmark systems for power electronic applications in Power Systems. Through his long involvement with the development of the widely used PSCAD/EMTDC simulation program, he has introduced several important innovations that facilitate the computer modeling of FACTS and other Power Electronic Equipment in Power Systems. He is the year 2007 recipient and to date the only Canadian to be awarded the IEEE Power Engineering Society’s Nari Hingorani FACTS Award.

Fabrice Labeau (Project 3.1 researcher) is an associate professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is the holder of the NSERC/Hydro-Québec Industrial Research Chair in Interactive Information Infrastructure for the Power Grid.He received the Electrical Engineer degree in 1995 from Université catholique de Louvain,Belgium, and the Diplôme d’études spécialisées en Sciences Appliquées, orientationTélécommunications also from UCL in 1996. From 1996 to 2000, he was with the Communications and Remote Sensing Laboratory of UCL. From January to March 1999, he was a visiting scientist to the Signal and Image Departement (TSI) of ENST Paris. He received a Ph.D. degree in September 2000 from UCL.

Tho Le-Ngoc (Project 3.2 ) has been working in the areas of Adaptive Transmission and Dynamic Resource Allocation Techniques in Communications Networks and Systems for 25 years, and has collaborated with industry in various projects in wireline, wireless and satellite broadband access communications and their applications. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the EIC and a Fellow of the CAE. He was the Recipient of the 2004 Canadian Award in Telecommunications Research and the of the IEEE Canada Fessenden Award 2005. He currently holds a Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Broadband Access Communications, and an NSERC/Bell Canada Industrial Research Chair in Performance & Resource Management In Broadband xDSL Access Networks.

Wilsun Xu (Project 1.3 ) currently holds the position of Senior NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Power Quality at the University of Alberta. He is an internationally recognized expert on power quality, an IEEE fellow and power quality editor for three international journals. Dr. Xu has conducted research on the power quality impact of integrating distributed, renewal resource into power systems. He has active collaboration with Canadian power industry and has served on various power quality committees of the IEEE Power & Energy Society.

Amirnaser Yazdani (Project 1.1 ) is an Associate Professor with Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario. From 2006 to 2011, he was an Assistant Professor with the University of Western Ontario (UWO). Prior to his academic employment at UWO, he was with Digital Predictive Systems (DPS) Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, engaged in Research and Development activities in the area of power electronic converters for wind energy systems. At UWO, he conducted a number of provincially/federally funded research projects in the areas of power electronics and power systems with applications in wind energy, Photovoltaic (PV) solar energy, and Microgrids. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery and the Chairman of the IEEE Task Force on modeling of electronically-coupled Distributed Resource (DR) systems. Dr. Yazdani is an IEEE Senior Member.