Petr Musilek, PhD, Ing

Area of Study / Keywords

Engineering Faculty Executive Computer Engineering Energy Systems Software Engineering and Intelligent Systems

About

Dr. Petr Musilek received Ing. degree in Electrical Engineering (1991) and PhD degree in Technical Cybernetics (1995) from the Military Technical Academy in Brno, Czech Republic. In 1997, he was awarded a NATO Science Fellowship, tenured at the Intelligent Systems Research Laboratory, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. Since 1999, he has been with the University of Alberta, where he is presently a Professor (ECE) and an Associate Dean (Research Operations) at the Faculty of Engineering. He is a registered Professional Engineer in Alberta (APEGA), and a Senior Member of IEEE.

Research

Dr. Musilek's energy-related research focuses on the use of ICT to support the design and operation of future electric power grids. He studies the integration of renewables and distributed energy resources (DER) in power systems, concentrating on energy management of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems, battery energy storage systems (BESS), and electric vehicles. He also examines how weather impacts the energy production and consumption patterns, and the characteristics and integrity of the power delivery infrastructure (dynamic thermal rating, ice accretion). To deal with the complexity and uncertainty of modern distributed energy systems, he often employs high-performance computing and methods of computational intelligence, including machine learning, neural networks, fuzzy systems, evolutionary computing, and swarm systems. His current projects include:

• transactive energy markets
• reinforcement learning of energy trading agents
• energy production and load forecasting using deep neural networks
• energy aspects of smart homes and smart communities
• energy storage system for residential and industrial applications
• system integration of vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) systems
• advanced data analytics for energy systems

Currently and in the past, my research has been supported by the following agencies Alberta Innovates, Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), MITACS, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and by a number of industrial sponsors and research partners, including Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO), AltaLink, ATCO Electric, Enmax, EPCOR Distribution and Transmission Inc., FortisAlberta, ReWatt Power, FIND, NVIDIA, BC Transmission Corporation, BC Hydro, Bonneville Power Administration (EDF), EDF Energy, Hydro Quebec, NALCOR Energy, NB Power, TEPCO, Landmark group, and ACQBUILT.

Graduate Studies

The unique combination of research in intelligent systems, energy, and the environment, provides students in Dr. Musilek’s research group with rich opportunities to prepare for academic and industrial careers in these exciting and sought after fields.