INESC TEC researcher receives award
Diogo Varajão, researcher at INESC TEC’s Power Systems Unit (USE), received an award from the ABB Portugal, a company that develops power and automation technology. The researcher received the 2013 ABB Award for his MSc dissertation, titled "Carregador Bidirecional para Veículos Elétricos Baseado em Andar de Conversão Matricial" (Bidirectional Charger for Electric Vehicles Based on a Matrix Converter), for which he received the highest score (20 out of 20).
04th December 2013
Under the theme ‘Smart Grids’, the goal with the dissertation was to explore the concept of Vehicle-to-Grid for electric vehicles. As part of this work, a solution was developed for the EV battery charger that makes it possible to inject power into the grid, thus taking advantage of the storage capacity of these vehicles.
“I was very honoured to receive this award, especially because of ABB’s global dimension. This award was recognition of my work, and for me it is an additional motivation to continue working on this research topic as part of my PhD”, the USE researcher revealed.
Diogo Varajão concluded his Master’s Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2011/2012, under the supervision of Rui Esteves Araújo, also researcher at USE, to whom Diogo Varajão expresses a “special thank you for his mastery supervising the dissertation”.
This award, promoted as part of an agreement between the ABB and the Faculty of
Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), is given annually to the student
with the best MSc dissertation related to one of the three areas of expertise
of the ABB Group: renewable energies, including smart-grids, industrial automation
and robotics. The researcher received the award in the public ceremony “Novos
Mestres” at FEUP, on 19 October.
The INESC TEC researchers mentioned in this article are associated with the following partner institution: INESC Porto and FEUP.
Photo credits: Grupo ABB
INESC TEC, November 2013