RAP Sessions

Title: Efficient Green Hydrogen Production with Power Electronic

Prof. Dr. Saad Mekhilef is an IEEE and IET Fellow. He is a Distinguished Professor at the School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne,  Australia, and an Honorary Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Malaya. He authored and co-authored more than 500 academic journals and proceedings publications, five books with more than 40,000 citations, and more than 70 Ph.D. students who graduated under his supervision. He serves as an editorial board member for many top journals, such as IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics, IEEE Open Journal of Industrial Electronics, IET Renewable Power Generation, Journal of Power Electronics, and International Journal of Circuit Theory and Applications. 

Prof. Mekhilef has been listed by Thomson Reuters (Clarivate Analytics) as one of the world's Highly Cited (World's Top 1%) engineering researchers. His research interests include Power Conversion Techniques, Control of Power Converters, Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT), Renewable Energy, and Energy Efficiency. He is actively involved in industrial consultancy for major corporations in the Power Electronics and Renewable Energy projects.

Title: Challenges facing Hydrogen Production and Transportation

• Vice Chairman of the Energy Transition & Sustainability Department at the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS).

• Former Vice Chairman of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC).

• Former Director of Technical Affairs of the Arab Center of Energy Studies at the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) in the State of Kuwait. 

Professor Mawby joined the University of Warwick having spent 19 years at the University of Wales, Swansea. He has built an international reputation in the area of power electronics and power device research. His main interests are materials for new power devices, modelling of power devices and circuits, power integrated circuits. He has also worked extensively on development of device simulation algorithms, as well as optoelectronic and quantum-based device structures. Professor Mawby graduated from the University of Leeds, and obtained his PhD from the same institution in 1986, where he studied GaAs/AlGaAs Heterojunction bipolar transistors for high power radio frequency applications in conjunction co-workers at the GEC Hirst Research Centre in Wembley. Whilst in Swansea Professor Mawby established the Power Electronics Design Centre, and held the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair for Power Electronics. In 2005, he joined the University of Warwick where he is now Head of Electronics Power and Microsystems at the School of Engineering. He is also head of the PEATER (Power Electronics Applications and Technology in Energy Research) group he founded in 2005 to establish a world-class centre for research into power electronics, power semiconductor devices and applications in power systems, and power conversion. Professor Mawby is on many international conference committees including, ISPSD, EPE, BCTM and ESSDERC. He is Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the IET, and a Fellow of the Institute Physics as well as a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has authored or co-authored over 200 Journal and conference papers, and is a distinguished lecturer for the IEEE Electron devices society. 

Jose Rodriguez (M´81-SM´94-F´10-LF´20) received the Engineer degree in electrical engineering from the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1977 and the Dr.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany, in 1985. He has been with the Department of Electronics Engineering, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria, since 1977, where he was full Professor and President. Since 2015 to 2019 he was the President of Universidad Andres Bello in Santiago, Chile. Since 2022 he is President of Universidad San Sebastian in Santiago, Chile. He has coauthored two books, several book chapters and more than 700 journal and conference papers. His main research interests include multilevel inverters, new converter topologies, control of power converters, and adjustable-speed drives. He has received a number of best paper awards from journals of the IEEE. Dr. Rodriguez is member of the Chilean Academy of Engineering. In 2014 he received the National Award of Applied Sciences and Technology from the government of Chile. In 2015 he received the Eugene Mittelmann Award from the Industrial Electronics Society of the IEEE. In years 2014 to 2021 he has been included in the list of Highly Cited Researchers published by Web of Science.

Ralph Kennel (Senior Member, IEEE) was born in Kaiserslautern, Germany, in 1955. He received the Diploma and the Dr.-Ing. (Ph.D.) degrees from the University of Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany, in 1979 and 1984, respectively, and the Doctoral degree honoris causa from Universitatea Stefan cel Mare, Suceava, Romania, in 2018.

From 1983 to 1999, he worked on several positions with Robert BOSCH GmbH (Germany). Until 1997, he was responsible for the development of servo drives. He was one of the main supporters of VECON and SERCOS interface, two multi-company development projects for a microcontroller and a digital interface especially dedicated to servo drives. Furthermore, he took actively part in the definition and release of new standards with respect to CE marking for servo drives. Between 1997 and 1999, he was responsible for “Advanced and Product Development of Fractional Horsepower Motors” in automotive applications. His main activity was preparing the introduction of brushless drive concepts to the automotive market. From 1994 to 1999, he was appointed as a Visiting Professor with the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, U.K. From 1999 to 2008, he was a Professor of electrical machines and drives with Wuppertal University, Germany. Since 2008, he has been a Professor of electrical drive systems and power electronics with Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany. His main interests include sensorless control of AC drives, predictive control of power electronics, and hardware-in-the-loop systems. Dr. Kennel is a Fellow of IET and a Chartered Engineer in the U.K. Within IEEE, he is a Treasurer of the Germany Section. He was a recipient of the Harry Owen Distinguished Service Award from IEEE-PELS, in 2013, the EPE Association Distinguished Service Award in 2015 as well as the 2019 EPE Outstanding Achievement Award. He was appointed “Extraordinary Professor” by the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) from 2016 to 2019 and as “Visiting Professor” with the Haixi Institute by the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2016 to 2021. There he was appointed as “Jiaxi Lu Overseas Guest Professor” in 2017. In 2018, Dr. Kennel was appointed Guest Professor at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Harbin, China. Dr. Kennel was appointed Honorary Chair Professor (distinguished visiting professor) at Shandong University in Jinan, China.

Mohamed Abdelrahem was born in Assiut, Egypt, in 1985. He received the B.Sc. (Hons.) and M.Sc. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Assiut University, Assiut in 2007 and 2011, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree (Hons.) in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany, in 2020. Since 2019, he is the head of the research group ``Renewable Energy Systems'' at the Institute of High-Power Converter Systems (HLU), TUM. Since 2020, he is an Assistant Professor at the Electrical Engineering Department, Assiut University, Egypt. In 2020, Dr. Abdelrahem received Walter Gademann prize from faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, TUM, in recognition of his excellent PhD dissertation entitled ``Predictive Control and Finite-Set Observers for Variable-Speed Wind Generators''. Furthermore, he has received a number of best paper awards from high prestigious international conferences of the IEEE. Dr. Abdelrahem is recorded in the world's top 2% scientist's list by Stanford University. He is a senior member of the IEEE.  His research interests include power electronics, predictive and encoderless control of variable-speed wind generators, photovoltaic energy systems, and energy storage systems