Associate Professor Iain MacGill

School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications and

Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets

Research interest

Level 1: I work on integrating clean energy technologies into the electricity industry.

Level 2: I explore the technical, economic, commercial and policy challenges of integrating new clean energy technologies like wind and solar into the electricity industry

Level 3: I analyse and model the technical, economic and commercial characteristics of integrating low carbon and energy efficient technologies into restructured electricity industries, and the policy challenges of appropriately facilitating their deployment.

Interest in engineering

Why did you get into engineering?

Its where science gets applied to meet practical needs

What are your research goals?

Help us better understand the opportunities yet challenges of transitioning our electricity industry towards a low carbon future

What do people not understand about you do?

With clean energy it is not usually a question of technical feasibility but, instead, economic fundamentals, commercial attractiveness, political realities and societal consensus

Advice for prospective power system engineers

Our job first and foremost is to keep the lights on. Once you can do that, then our job is to work towards a sustainable electricity industry future.

Lectures/Courses taught

ELEC9715 – Electricity Industry Operation and Control

ELEC9714 – Electricity Industry Planning and Economics

Students

Number currently in lab:

8

Number graduated:

5

Student Projects:

Electric Vehicle integration into the grid

PV integration into the grid

PV policy design

Network planning

PV hybrid mini-grid systems for developing countries

Distributed energy storage in the electricity industry

Analysis of the Australian National Electricity Market

Integrated resource planning in the electricity industry

Technology innovation policy for clean energy

Electricity market design to facilitate clean energy

Looking for students for projects related to:

All of the above

Professional Organisations and Consulting positions

Member, IEEE

Fellow, Australian Institute of Energy

Grants

“Robust Policy frameworks for the future grid” within the CSIRO Future Grid Cluster, a Joint project led by the University of Sydney with UNSW, University of Queensland and University of Newcastle.

“Achieving cost-effective abatement from Australian electricity generation”, Joint project with University of Melbourne, funded by ARENA.

“Network benefits of Concentrating Solar Power”, Joint project with the University of Technology Sydney, funded by ARENA.

“The economic value of ‘smart’ integration of Electric Vehicles into the Australian electricity industry”, ARC Linkage Project,

“High penetration of Photovoltaics in electricity grids”, funded by ARENA

“Energy market reform for carbon pricing in China’s electricity sector”, joint project with ANU, funded by theDepartment of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIICCSRETE)           

“Integrating Solar Energy into the Australian NEM”, funded by ARENA

“Opportunities and challenges for the development and implementation of community-scale renewable energy projects” funded by the Low Carbon CRC    

Patents

None

Education

PhD/postgraduate

PhD (Electrical Engineering) – University of NSW

Undergraduate

B.Eng.(Elec) – University of Melbourne

M.Eng.Sci (Biomed) – University of Melbourne