ICREGA 14 - Renewable Energy: Generation and Applications

This book collects the edited and reviewed contributions presented in the 3rd International Conference on Renewable Energy: Generation and Applications” ICREGA’14, organized by the UAE University in Al-Ain. This conference aims to disseminate knowledge on methods, policies and technologies related to renewable energy and it acknowledges the leadership of the UAE which committed to a 7% renewable energy target by 2020. The demands and developments in renewable energy generations and applications are rapidly growing and are facing many challenges on different levels such as basic science, engineering system design, energy policies and sustainable developments. This edition presents new contributions related to recent renewable energy case studies, developments in biofuel, energy storage, solar and wind energy, integrated systems and sustainable power production. In the spirit of the ICREGA’14, the volume has been produced after the conference so that the authors had the possibility to incorporate comments and discussions raised during the meeting. The contributions have been grouped in the following topics: - Efficient Energy Utilization - Electrical Energy Market, Management and Economics - Energy Storage Systems - Environmental Issues - Fuel Cells Systems - Green Buildings - Intelligent Energy/Power Transmission and Distribution - Solar Photovoltaic and Thermal Energy - Wind Energy Systems.

Dr. Mohammad O. Hamdan received his B.Sc. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan in 1997 and 1999 respectively. He then moved to the USA for postgraduate studies and received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio in 2003. After his graduation he worked for top companies in the US industry, e.g  for Honeywell International as Thermal Fatigue Analyst Engineer in Torrance, California and as a research scientist and lead engineer for General Electric Research Center in Niskayuna, New York. Currently, Dr Hamdan is working as an Associate Professor at the University of United Arab Emirates, Al-Ain, UAE.

Dr. Hassan A. N. Hejase (S'85-M'88) was born in Mexico on August 1959. He received the B.Sc. degree with honors in industrial electrical engineering from Laguna Institute of Technology, Mexico, in 1980. He completed the MSEE degree from Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico in 1982 and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY in 1987. From 1987 to 1993, he was an assistant professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Kentucky. From 1993 to 1995, he was a full-time associate professor of Electrical Engineering at Monterrey Institute of Technology, Mexico. From September 1995 to August 1996, he worked as a part-time lecturer at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. In August 1996, he joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the United Arab Emirates University where he is now an Associate Professor. He served as EE department chairman during 2000-2010. Dr. Hejase has authored and co-authored over 55 journal and conference papers. He is a registered engineer in Lebanon and Mexico. He is a member of the IEEE.

Hassan Noura is a Professor at the United Arab Emirates University, Department of Electrical Engineering since endAugust 2007. His research fields of interest are mainly, control systems, fault diagnosis and fault tolerant control. He received his Master and PhD Degrees in Automatic Control from the University Henri Poincaré, Nancy 1, France in 1990 and 1993. He obtained his Habilitation to supervise Researches in Automatic Control at University Henri Poincaré, Nancy1 in March 2002. He was Associate Professor in this University from 1994 to 2003. In September 2003, he joined University Paul Cézanne, Aix-Marseille III, France as a Professor in Control Systems.

He has supervised several Master degree students and twelve PhD students (seven completed). He had participated and led research projects in collaboration with industry in the fields of fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control. He has authored and co-authored one book, one book chapter, and over 100 journal and conference papers. He is a co-author of the Springer book “Fault Tolerant Control  Systems” (2009, ISBN 978-1-88482-652-6).

Abbas A. Fardoun received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston, in 1988, and his MS and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1990 and 1994, respectively. He worked with Advanced Energy Inc. from 1994-1996 where he was involved with high frequency power supply design and RF Tuner Analysis. From 1996 until 1998, he worked at Delphi on Electrical Power Steering. From 1998 until 2006, Dr. Fardoun has been with TRW Automotive where he held several Engineering positions within TRW Automotive. Dr. Fardoun is currently serving as an associate professor at the Electrical Engineering Department of the United Arab University where he has been Since 2006.

Dr. Fardoun main research area has been with energy efficient systems. Dr. Fardoun holds 7 awarded patents. He developed a new system approach for EPS that was adopted globally within the TRW community. While at UAEU, Dr. Fardoun has been coordinatinga vibrant Renewable energy group. He has been very active member to the IEEE Industrial Application Society where, he organized, chaired sessions at the annual IAS meeting. He was elected as a senior IEEE member in 2005.

Dr. Fardoun received the Hariri Foundation distinguished graduate award in 1994. He received TRW distinguished patent award in 1999. His main interests are AC-DC converters, AC drives, DC-DC power supplies for renewable energy applications.