“What really drew me to engineering was the ability it offers to make important contributions to climate action and mitigating climate change,” says Dr. Christine Chen, whose research is playing a role in the energy transition.
- Program:
- Campus: Vancouver
Position: Associate Professor
Education: BASc (University of Toronto), MS PhD (University of Illinois)
What led you to engineering?
I come from a family of electrical engineers! Both my parents trained as electrical engineers, as did my grandparents. This meant I had a good knowledge of what engineering was all about when I was growing up. I actually started my undergrad in engineering science, which had more of a focus on the fundamentals of math and science than other engineering programs.
When I took an elective in electric power systems in fourth year, everything clicked together for me.
I realized that this was an area I was interested in pursuing over the long term and that it was an area where I could use my skills in math and engineering design to make a positive impact in the world.
Tell us about your research.
I work on improving control of our power grid to be more reliable and efficient. We often take electricity for granted, but in reality, there are many technical challenges of getting it into our homes and businesses. This is especially true due to the ever-growing integration of renewable energy sources, primarily wind and solar. The decarbonization of our electricity system requires integrating these sources, but they tend to be far more dependent on the weather. This is very different from traditional power systems that have more controllable inputs, like coal or natural gas.
Renewables are a challenge because they are intermittent and variable, yet we expect electricity to be there for us when we need it.
My research looks at ways to integrate more flexibility into the system, through strategies like shifting the demand for electricity to match generation, rather than more traditional approaches of matching generation to demand.
Another challenge is the incredible growth in demand for electricity. With the broader decarbonization trends across sectors, we are going to need a lot more electricity – perhaps double to triple our current capacity by 2050 – and that estimate doesn’t even take into consideration the incredible demands that increasing use of AI will place on the electrical grid.
One area of my research currently addresses just this.
I’m collaborating with my colleagues in computer engineering to look at demand response, as we do in power systems, but for computing.
This means finding ways to shift or route computing workloads (or the demand for power) in both space and in time to use green electricity where and when it is available, for example.
Another strategy for bringing more flexibility into our electricity system is a technology called “distributed energy resources”. Historically, many jurisdictions rely on large power plants that produce a lot of power. These plants are typically located in remote areas and rely on high-voltage transmission lines to move the electricity to where it is being used.
We now have the opportunity to integrate smaller energy generation and storage facilities into the power grid. This could look like rooftop solar panels, a small-scale wind farm, battery storage, or even vehicle-to-grid technology that sends stored energy from a car’s battery back to the electricity grid.
When you consume electricity at the place it is made, the system is much more efficient and you don’t incur the energy losses from long-distance transmission of electricity.
With this strategy, however, there are many different “knobs” or inputs we can tweak or control, with many more people actively involved in producing and consuming energy, and behaving in different and sometimes unexpected ways.
This has actually led to some of my other research on behaviour. I am working with colleagues at UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs to explore the social and economic elements of energy generation and use.
How do you test out your ideas?
A lot of what we do in engineering research is based around simulation.
We build mathematical or computer models of the system and then apply control algorithms or optimization solutions to benchmark or test potential alternatives. This information can then be used to introduce real-world changes that will improve system reliability and performance.
For example, I’ve worked with a software company that is designing tools to help utilities operate or control distributed energy resources in a way that doesn’t create issues for the larger system.
What excites you about this work?
What makes this research so interesting is that we are looking at the system as whole. It’s not just about trying to make a specific device more efficient or less expensive or to make incremental improvements to energy generation technology.
It’s thinking about how to take the advances we’ve made in specific areas – and forecasting what advances we might get down the line – and then putting those individual pieces together to identify how they might best work together.
Read about our Alum Pavni Agarwal
Anything else you want to share?
What really drew me to engineering was the ability it offers to make important contributions to climate action and mitigating climate change.
Electrification and the electric power system are going to be significant contributors to how we’re going to get to net zero.
There’s an opportunity for electrical engineers and electrical engineering as a discipline to play a major role in the energy transition. If you want to make a broad-scale social impact in your work, I encourage you to consider electrical engineering!
