Baraa Mohandes

Baraa M Mohandes

Education

May. 2020        PhD in Interdisciplinary Engineering (Honors) – Khalifa University, Madsar Institute, UAE. GPA: 4.0/4.0
Thesis: Provision of Power System Flexibility for Higher Penetration of Renewable Energy in the Power System.

Dec. 2015         M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (Honors) - Khalifa University, the Petroleum Institute, UAE. GPA: 3.72/4.0
Thesis: PID Controller Optimization for Multiple Inputs Using Integral Performance Index Criteria.

Jun. 2010         B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering (Honors) - Khalifa University, The Petroleum Institute, UAE. GPA: 3.71/4.0
Graduation Project:
Solar Power Enhanced Electrical Wheelchair.
Full Tuition Support from the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Publications

M. I. Alizadeh, B. Mohandes, et. al. “A Tractable Sequential Linear Programming-based Approach to Coordinate TSO and DSO Operations”, submitted to IEEE Transactions of Power Systems. Under Review

B. Mohandes, et. al. “Enhancing the Efficiency of Flexibility Provision in Current TSO-DSO Coordination Mechanisms”, submitted to Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks. Incorporating Comments (R1)

M. Wahbah, B. Mohandes, et. al. “Unbiased cross-validation kernel density estimation for wind and PV probabilistic modelling”, in Energy Conversion and Management, 266, 115811, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2022.115811

K. Antoniadou-Plytaria, et. al, "Scenario-based Stochastic Optimization for Energy and Flexibility Dispatch of a Microgrid," in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, doi: 10.1109/TSG.2022.3175418.

H. Beder, B. Mohandes, et. al., "A New Communication-Free Dual Setting Protection Coordination of Microgrid," in IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, doi: 10.1109/TPWRD.2020.3041753.

B. Mohandes, M. S. El Moursi, N. Hatziargyriou and S. El Khatib, "Incentive based Demand Response Program for Power System Flexibility Enhancement," in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, doi: 10.1109/TSG.2020.3042847.

B. Mohandes, et. al, "Optimal Design of an Islanded Microgrid With Load Shifting Mechanism Between Electrical and Thermal Energy Storage Systems," in IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 35, no. 4, pp. 2642-2657, July 2020

B. Mohandes, et. al,, "Renewable Energy Management System: Optimum Design and Hourly Dispatch," in IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Energy, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 1615-1628, July 2021

B. Mohandes, M. S. E. Moursi, N. Hatziargyriou, and S. E. Khatib, “A review of power system flexibility with high penetration of renewables,” IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, vol. 34, pp. 3140–3155, July 2019.

B. Mohandes, Y. L. Abdelmagid, and I. Boiko, “Development of PSS tuning rules using multi-objective optimization,” International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, vol. 100, pp. 449 – 462, 2018

B. Mohandes, I. Boiko and Y. Abdel-Magid, "Control System Loop-Shaping as a Mathematical Optimization Problem: An Ensemble of Models," in IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 137185-137197, 2020,

B. Mohandes., El-Chaar, L., Lamont, L., “Application Study of 500W Photovoltaic (PV) System in the UAE,Applied Solar Energy Journal, Vol. 45, n. 4, pp. 242-247, December, 2009.

B. Mohandes, et. al, “Advancing cyber–physical sustainability through integrated analysis of smart power systems: A case study on electric vehicles”, I.J. of Critical Infrastructure Protection, Volume 23, 2018, Pages 33-48,

Al Shereiqi, A, B. Mohandes, et. al, “Co-optimisation of wind farm micro-siting and cabling layouts”. IET Renew. Power Gener. 2021; 15: 1848– 1860.

Other Publications

B. Mohandes, M. S. El Moursi and S. El Khatib, "A New Index of Power System Flexibility: Response Delay ( ) of Distributed Devices," 2019 International Conference on Smart Energy Systems and Technologies (SEST), Porto, Portugal, 2019, pp. 1-6. doi: 10.1109/SEST.2019.8849013

Usman, M., Mohandes, B., et. al, “Scalable uncertainty aware ancillary services procurement tool for active distribution systems”, 27th International Conference and Exhibition on Electricity Distribution - CIRED 2023, Rome (Italy). 12-15 June 2023. In: CIRED 2023: Conference proceedings, e-ISBN: 978-1-83953-855-1

B. Mohandes, et. al, "AI-Based Estimation of Available Flexibility at Individual House Level," 2023 IEEE Power & Energy Soc. Gen. Meet. (PESGM), Orlando, FL, USA, 2023, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/PESGM52003.2023.10252702.

B. Mohandes, MATPOWER/MOST User Manual: User-Defined Variables, Constraints, And Cost Terms”.

Professional Background: Academia

2020 - 2024       Postdoctoral Associate, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), Luxembourg:

2020 – 2023: FLEXIGRID project

§ Development of python-based electricity market-simulator “SMAART: Stroum-Maart

§ Leading deliverable 3.4: Quantification of flexibility at distribution level

§ Collaborating in deliverable 3.2: Design of self-regulating local markets for flexibility

2022 – 2024: TESTIFY project

Assist in proposal writing

2016 - 2020      Graduate Research Assistant: Electrical Power Group, Khalifa University, Masdar Institute

Investigated utilization of DR and inverter-based renewables for providing dynamic VAR support to the power system, eliminating the need for FACTS devices.

Designed a smart DR contract to empower current demand response (DR) models in the power system.

Provide technical support for Masdar’s Research Center in King-Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy Project - Saudi Arabia.

2016 - 2020      Teaching Assistant: Khalifa University - Masdar Institute & The Petroleum Institute

2009 – 2010      Undergraduate Research Assistant: Electrical Eng. Dept. Khalifa University, Petroleum Institute

Study of Meteorological conditions effect on thin-film PVs performance (Copper-Indium-Selenide).

Industrial Experience: Oil, Gas & Petrochemicals Sector

2010 - 2016    Electrical Engineer, Abu Dhabi Polymers Industries (Borouge) Part of Borealis group and ADNOC group
Technical Group Function, Ruwais production plant.

-    Non-intrusive Online Cable Testing Project for all Borouge-2 plant 33KV cables.

-    Feasibility study, Front End Engineering Design and Supervision during EPC Phase for the following projects:

§ Construction of new ethane storage sphere at Borouge-3 plant site

§ Construction of containers yard for low density polyethylene at Borouge-3

§ Improving acid dosing system in ethylene unit at Borouge-1

§ Revamping and expansion of single site catalyst at polyethylene units of Borouge-2 and Borouge-3

§ Installation of impressed-current cathodic protection for the repair of Borouge-2 failed seawater basin

§ Relocation of six HV motors plus site facilities for the repair of Borouge-2 failed seawater basin

§ Procurement and installation of a thyristor controlled heater for Borouge ethane handling unit at export jetty

§ Procurement and installation of new vapor return arm at Borouge export jetty

§ Replacement of obsolete control cabinet for Active-Magnetic-Bearing (by SKF) for 7MW Compressor.

-    Site engineer at Borouge major turnaround 2012/2013. Provide technical support and supervision of execution in:

§ Extension of bus bar for Borouge new colored grid compounding project

§ Installation of a new switchgear cubicle and new control relays in distributed-control-system’s cabinets and HV & LV cable joints for Borouge catalyst expansion project.

-    Review of electrical design plans and material approval requests for two office buildings at Borouge site. Scope includes lighting fixtures, power fixtures, cabling work and uninterruptible power supply system:

§ Conversion of Existing Admin Building to New Technical Group building; project cost ≈ 20M AED

§ Borouge New Training Center: project cost ≈ 55M AED

-    Attaché to Technical Compliance department

§ Acquiring concepts of HAZOP, HAZID, HSEIA, QRA, COMAH and HSECES procedure.

§ Production of performance standards for HSECES systems

-    Review of Borouge standards documents and electrical safety procedures

-    Execute bad actor analysis study for all site’s electrical equipment for a 2 years period

-    Production of new specifications guideline document on Earthing, equipotential bonding and lightning protection

-    Technical study and construction support for several small-budget projects (cost < 81,000 USD)

-    Investigation & production of technical reports for failures and warranty claims of different equipment

Jun-Aug 2009   Electrical Engineering Intern, Abu Dhabi Gas Industries

Workshops, and Seminars Appearances

Dec 2018         TRANSCO - CIGRE Day Invited speaker. Power flexibility with high penetration of renewables

Feb 2019         Power Energy Summit Dubai UAE 2019, Invited speaker under young researcher category: new
                        flexibility index for demand response units

Leadership Activities & Voluntary Work

Ongoing          Collaborator on MATPOWER-MOST Project:

Contributions include: Three bug reports, including a proposed fix for one bug, and four new features

Ongoing           Reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Power systems, Smart Grids, Sustainable Energy, Energy Conversion, and IEEE Power Engineering Letters

Dec 2020         Outstanding Reviewer award by IEEE Transactions on Power Systems

April 2019       Invited Judge for UAE-skills competition. Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning Category

Professional Trainings and Certifications

Nov. 2013         Functional Safety Management for TÜV-SÜD Certification

Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) and HAZOP. Passed the certification test at first attempt.

Apr. 2012         Electric Wiring Regulations Certification By Regulation and Supervision Bureau-UAE

Nov. 2011         Pearl Sustainability Buildings Rating System of Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council

Awards & Honors

Summer 2019  MIT-Science Review Nomination for young innovators under 35. Nominated by Dr. M. El Moursi

Spring 2017     Shortlisted for Masdar Institute & Massachusetts Institute of Technology Exchange Program

Dec 2015         Masdar Institute Research Fellowship Grant for PhD students

June 2010        Partial tuition support scholarship by Petroleum Institute for part-time Master’s students

May 2010        Renewable Energy Competition UAE University - shortlisted for second round of evaluation

May 2009        Winning Team at UAE-IEEE Competition: Design Of Simplex Free-Space Optical Transceiver

Spring 2009     Outstanding Junior Student Award  for Electrical Engineering Department - Petroleum Institute

August 2005    Recipient of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Full Scholarship for Undergraduate Students


Skills

Programming Languages

Python including Sellinium, Tensorflow, PyTorch, and Pillow.

MATLAB including: deep learning, statistics and machine learning, parallel computing, distributed computing and optimization

Julia including JuMP                     

General Algebraic Modeling Software (GAMS)

Proficient in HPC utilization for various schedulers: SGE, LSF and PBS. Basic knowledge of powershell and shell for HPC operation.

Administrative Tools                        LaTeX, Adobe Photoshop, Autocad Autodesk and Microsoft Office

Technical Design Packages           PS-CAD, ETAP

Other                                                           RT-Lab for operation of real time data simulation platform: OPAL-RT

Spoken Languages                             Luxembourgish: B1.1                     English: C1/C2 (IELTS Test)

French: A2.1                                   German: A2.1

Index terms: Matlab, Python, Julia, GAMS, renewable energy, psat, matpower, energy economics, electricity markets,, local flexibility market, wholesale market, retail market, reserve, p2p, peer, p2pool, long term, day ahead, intra day, real time, rolling horizon, mpc, model predictive control, uniform pricing, pay as bid, flexibility, postdoc, postodctoral, assistant professor, faculty, power systems, engineering, feedback control systems, control engineering, auction-theory, evolutionary game theory, strategy, behavior of smart agents, cost-sharing in cooperative-games, heuristic optimization, analytical optimization, convex optimization, efficient algorithms, algebra, cplex, ampl, Julia, statistics, probability, forecasting, wavelet, signal processing, digital, discrete, gams, massachusetts institute of technology, MIT, ga, genetic algorithm, pso, particle swarm, ant colony, power system stability, power system analysis, time domain simulation, deep learning, neural networks, neural ode, detailed dynamic system model, transient model, detailed model, nonlinear, dynamics, demand response, TSO, DSO, transmission, distribution, IEEE, reviewer, transactions, francais, french, allemand, deutscch, lëtzebuergesch, luxembourgish, english, anglais, englisch, smart contracts, price based, reinforcement learning, federated learning, multi agent deep reinforcement learning, monte carlo, programming, policy iteration, q-learning, graph theory, graph neural networks, git, big data, nonlinear programming, perceptrons, cluster, HPC, LSF, PBS, SGE, shell, scholar, linkedin, research, researcher, eigenvectors, centrality, spectral clustering, K-means, language models, attention mechanism, LSTM, recurrent neural networks, autotransformers, convolutional neural networks, residual neural networks, inception layer, regularization, overfitting, karush Kuhn tucker, KKT, global optimum, local optimum, Vickrey Clarke groves, VCG mechanism design, shapley value, opal-rt, rt-lab.