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About

About

João A. Peças Lopes (PhD) is Full Professor (Professor Catedrático) at the Faculty of Engineering of Porto University, where he teaches in the graduation and post-graduation areas.

Was for 7 years Director of the Sustainable Energy Systems PhD program at FEUP and Director of Advanced course on Sustainable Energy Systems also at FEUP.
He is Director/Member of the Board of INESC TEC.

He is Vice-Presidente of the board of the Portuguese Association for Electric Vehicles.

Prof. Peças Lopes was responsible by INESC Porto activities in several EU financed research projects, namely the project - MICROGRIDS - Large Scale Integration of Micro Generation to Low Voltage Grids  and MORE_MICROGRIDS -  Advanced Architectures and Control Concepts for More Microgrids and MERGE - Mobile Energy Resources for Grids of Electricity.

He supervised several consulting projects related with the impact analysis of the connection of wind parks in the electrical grids of Madeira, Azores,  Sal, S. Vicente and S. Tiago, in the Republic of Cabo Verde. He was the responsible for several consultancy projects related with the electrical grid impact resulting from the connection of large wind parks in Portugal.

He was also responsible for the definition of technical rules for the integration of wind power in Brazil. He coordinated also consultancy studies for the Hungarian Regulator regarding the evaluation of the integration of wind power in Hungary. He coordinates the participation of INESC Porto in the InovGrid project.

He was also the Chair of the Selection Committee of the public tender that decided about the integration of 1800 MW of wind generation in Portugal, launched by the Portuguese government in 2005.

He was member of the Executive board of the EES/UETP consortium and Chair of its course program committee.

He has served as research project evaluator for the European Commission and for governmental science organizations in Portugal, France, Italy, Greece, Finland, Danemark and Ireland.

He was for more than 4 years one of the coordinators of INESC Porto Power System Unit.

He is co-editor of the (SEGAN) Sustainable Energy Grids and Networks journal.

His main domains of research are presently related with large scale integration of renewable power sources in power systems (namely wind generation), power system dynamics, microgrids, smartmetering and integration of electric vehicles in electrical grids.

In 2012 he received the CIGRE Technical Committee Award in recogmition of his outstanding contribution to the work of the Study Committee C6 – Distribution Systems and Dispersed Generation.

Prof. Peças Lopes is an IEEE Fellow
He is member of the Power Systems Dynamic Performance Committee of the IEEE PES.

Details

Details

  • Name

    João Peças Lopes
  • Role

    TEC4 Coordinator
  • Since

    01st March 1989
134
Publications

2025

Location of grid forming converters when dealing with multi-class stability problems

Authors
Fernandes, F; Lopes, JP; Moreira, C;

Publication
IET GENERATION TRANSMISSION & DISTRIBUTION

Abstract
This work proposes an innovative methodology for the optimal placement of grid-forming converters (GFM) in converter-dominated grids while accounting for multiple stability classes. A heuristic-based methodology is proposed to solve an optimisation problem whose objective function encompasses up to 4 stability indices obtained through the simulation of a shortlist of disturbances. The proposed methodology was employed in a modified version of the 39-bus test system, using DigSILENT Power Factory as the simulation engine. First, the GFM placement problem is solved individually for the different stability classes to highlight the underlying physical phenomena that explain the optimality of the solutions and evidence the need for a multi-class approach. Second, a multi-class approach that combines the different stability indices through linear scalarisation (weights), using the normalised distance of each index to its limit as a way to define its importance, is adopted. For all the proposed fitness function formulations, the method successfully converged to a balanced solution among the various stability classes, thereby enhancing overall system stability.

2025

Evolving Symbolic Model for Dynamic Security Assessment in Power Systems

Authors
Fernandes, FS; Bessa, RJ; Lopes, JP;

Publication
JOURNAL OF MODERN POWER SYSTEMS AND CLEAN ENERGY

Abstract
In a high-risk sector, such as power system, transparency and interpretability are key principles for effectively deploying artificial intelligence (AI) in control rooms. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel methodology, the evolving symbolic model (ESM), which is dedicated to generating highly interpretable data-driven models for dynamic security assessment (DSA), namely in system security classification (SC) and the definition of preventive control actions. The ESM uses simulated annealing for a data-driven evolution of a symbolic model template, enabling different cooperative learning schemes between humans and AI. The Madeira Island power system is used to validate the application of the ESM for DSA. The results show that the ESM has a classification accuracy comparable to pruned decision trees (DTs) while boasting higher global inter-pretability. Moreover, the ESM outperforms an operator-defined expert system and an artificial neural network in defining preventive control actions.

2024

A Novel Three-Phase Multiobjective Unified Power Quality Conditioner

Authors
Monteiro, V; Moreira, C; Lopes, JAP; Antunes, CH; Osório, GJ; Cataláo, JPS; Afonso, JL;

Publication
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS

Abstract
The decarbonization of the economy and the increasing integration of renewable energy sources into the generation mix are bringing new challenges, requiring novel technological solutions in the topic of smart grids, which include smart transformers and energy storage systems. Additionally, power quality is a vital concern for the future smart grids; therefore, the continuous development of power electronics solutions to overcome power quality problems is of the utmost importance. In this context, this article proposes a novel three-phase multiobjective unified power quality conditioner (MO-UPQC), considering interfaces for solar PV panels and for energy storage in batteries. The MO-UPQC is capable of compensating power quality problems in the voltages (at the load side) and in the currents (at the power grid side), while it enables injecting power into the grid (from the PV panels or batteries) or charging the batteries (from the PV panels or from the grid). Experimental results were obtained with a three-phase four-wire laboratory prototype, demonstrating the feasibility and the large range of applications of the proposed MO-UPQC.

2024

VPP Participation in the FCR Cooperation Considering Opportunity Costs

Authors
Ribeiro, FJ; Lopes, JAP; Soares, FJ; Madureira, AG;

Publication
APPLIED SCIENCES-BASEL

Abstract
Currently, the transmission system operators (TSOs) from Portugal and Spain do not procure a frequency containment reserve (FCR) through market mechanisms. In this context, a virtual power plant (VPP) that aggregates sources, such as wind and solar power and hydrogen electrolyzers (HEs), would benefit from future participation in this ancillary service market. The methodology proposed in this paper allows for quantifying the revenues of a VPP that aggregates wind and solar power and HEs, considering the opportunity costs of these units when reserving power for FCR participation. The results were produced using real data from past FCR market sessions. Using market data from 2022, a VPP that aggregates half of the HEs and is expected to be connected in the country by 2025 will have revenues over EUR 800k, of which EUR 90k will be HEs revenues.

2024

A novel TSO settlement scheme for the Frequency Containment Reserve Cooperation in Europe's integrated electricity market

Authors
Ribeiro, FJ; Lopes, JAP; Soares, FJ; Madureira, AG;

Publication
UTILITIES POLICY

Abstract
Frequency Containment Reserve (FCR) Cooperation is a European effort to integrate several countries in an integrated international electricity market platform for FCR procurement. In this market, Balancing Service Providers (BSPs) are on the supply side and Transmission System Operators (TSOs) on the demand side. This paper proposes a novel settlement scheme for sharing costs among TSOs; it proposes no changes to existing market clearing rules or to the existing settlement of the BSPs' revenues. It is shown that the current TSO settlement scheme is an inequitable mechanism that originates negative costs for some TSOs in specific conditions, which are extensively discussed. The proposed TSO settlement scheme overcomes these inequities. In the proposed scheme, TSOs begin paying the local BSPs for the cleared bids needed locally, and the remaining imports are calculated in a subsequent step. Doing so avoids using the so-called import/export costs, which are demonstrated to be the source of the inequities in the current scheme. It is shown that if the proposed pricing scheme had been adopted from July 2019 to December 2022, all TSOs would have been affected. Specifically, the most negatively impacted TSO would have its accumulated costs increased by 16% and the most positively impacted TSO would have its accumulated cost decreased by 32%. The inequities of the current mechanism amount to more than 50 Me or 7.4% of the total accumulated costs. Although the proposed mechanism is tested here under the FCR Cooperation, it can be applied to other markets where the rules allow different local settlement prices.

Supervised
thesis

2024

Spatial Distribution of Grid Forming Converters in Power Systens with High Renewable Penetration

Author
Francisco de Sousa Fernandes

Institution
UP-FEUP

2024

Black Start Capability of Offshore Wind Farms

Author
Prashanth Hebbal Prakash

Institution
UP-FEUP

2024

Ancillary services provision abilities of hydrogen electrolyzers

Author
Abdelrahman Muneer Mohammed Abdelrahman Elhawash

Institution
UP-FEUP

2023

Modeling energy sector integration using green hydrogen to define public policies and new regulatory support schemes to accelerate energy transition

Author
Bruno Henrique Martins Santos

Institution
UP-FEUP

2023

Real time activation of ancillary services in the transmission network: Enabling providers from the distribution system using a linear model predictive control

Author
Fernando José Moutinho Ribeiro

Institution
UP-FEUP