PhD students win local heat in Young Persons Paper Competition
2 November 2021
Congratulations to Qikun Chen and Amirreza Azimipoor, this year’s winners of the Welsh and South West Sections' heat in the Young Persons Paper Competition by the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers.
The Young Persons Paper Competition (YPPC) is an annual competition organised by the Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers’ Young Persons Network. It allows young gas professionals and students to showcase their work in front of a diverse audience of leading industry professionals.
Qikun and Amirreza competed with some of the most talented young people in the field at the local Section heat on 30 September, where they delivered a short oral presentation and answered questions from a panel of judges.
Qikun’s winning presentation ‘Optimal operation of compressors in an integrated gas and electricity system’ explored the reduction of emissions and costs at the compressor level of gas networks. Qikun modelled the South Wales and South West gas networks to forecast how the system might work in the future to meet net-zero targets.
Amirreza was awarded runner-up with his presentation ‘Transporting hydrogen via South Wales gas network.’ His work demonstrated that in the future, the South Wales high-pressure network can operate with pure hydrogen gas instead of natural gas. Using the gas network for hydrogen will bring costs of transportation down and makes hydrogen a more affordable means of reaching the net-zero target.
Qikun will go on to compete in the IGEM 2021 YPPC national final in December.
The YPPC event was shared with IGEM Wales and IGEM South West Sections and was held online. Judges were Sarah Williams (Director of Regulation, WWU), Professor Philip Bowen, Cardiff Uni and CEG member) and Katie Ling (Customer Support Officer) – one of last year’s winners.
Many congratulations to Qikun and Amirreza on this wonderful recognition of the quality of their doctoral research.
Both research students are part of the Centre of Integrated Renewable Energy Generation and Supply.