REN award distinguishes three papers in the field of energy

Pedro Saraiva de Carvalho Morais de Castro, a student at FEUP (Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto - Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto), won the 2016 REN Award for his thesis 'Participation of Wind Generation in Balancing Reserve Markets'. The REN Award prize-giving ceremony took place on the 10th in Lisbon and was attended by Manuel Heitor, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education, Jorge Seguro Sanches, Secretary of State for Energy, and Dominique Ristori, Director General for Energy at the European Commission.

Dominique Ristori was the guest speaker at the conference entitled 'Energy: new European challenges', held as part of the REN Award; among the topics he mentioned was the role of energy interconnections in bringing European States and their populations together.

Created in 1996, the REN Award is a prize for the best master's theses in the field of energy written by students of engineering, economics, mathematics, physics, chemistry, information systems and computer science.

Second place was awarded to FEUP student Jorge Miguel Pérola Filipe for his paper entitled 'Optimization Strategies for Pump-Hydro Storage and Wind Farm Coordination Including Wind Power Uncertainty'. André Carvalho da Silva, also a FEUP student, won third place for his work on 'The Use of Energy Storage Systems to Improve the Stability of Isolated Networks'.

The judging panel, chaired by FEUP professor João Peças Lopes, also awarded three honourable mentions to Renata Filipa Morais Martins, a student at UBI (Universidade da Beira Interior - University of Beira Interior), Miguel Fontes Medeiros, also from UBI, and FEUP student José Miguel Rodrigues Gouveia.

Winning theses in each of the 21 editions of the REN Award have followed defining changes and developments in the energy sector, anticipated challenges, identified problems, and put forward innovative solutions.