HERA Award Sustainable IT

My Master’s Thesis (accessible here) has been awarded the HERA¹ Award Sustainable IT. The HERA Awards are annual prizes aimed at fostering and supporting innovative research towards a sustainable world. Specifically, the HERA Award Sustainable IT recognizes remarkable contributions that, through a holistic sustainable approach, bring new insights or practices to the IT sector.

The jury highlighted the novelty of the approach and the impactful application to Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES). By leveraging AI, my innovative techniques have yielded significant economic and environmental benefits in the storage of renewable electricity through PHES. Given the complexity of PHES operations, we employed a combination of machine learning and optimization to derive optimal day-ahead schedules of the units. More precisely, neural networks were utilized to model the efficiency curves of the PHES units. These neural networks were then reformulated as a set of MILP constraints and integrated into a day-ahead scheduling optimization problem. With immediate applicability to existing sites, we can optimize their efficiency and improve their short-term planning. Furthermore, the demonstrated economics of underground PHES pave the way to repurposing former quarries or mines as PHES facilities, thereby minimizing environmental impact and CAPEX costs.

As a young engineer deeply concerned about the climate crisis and environmental damage, receiving this award is a great honor. It recognizes not only the technical excellence of the proposed approach but also its positive societal impact. Finally, it motivates me to strive for excellence in research that contributes to a more sustainable future.