Cwrdd â’r tîm

Manu Haddad, FIET, is Professor of High Voltage Engineering at the School of Engineering, Cardiff University. He is also Director of the Advanced High Voltage Engineering Research Centre and the Morgan-Botti Lightning Laboratory. His research interests are in overvoltage protection, insulation systems, insulation coordination and earthing of electrical energy systems amongst others.

Dr Stephen Robson’s research interests are in the areas of condition monitoring, next generation narrowband Power Line Communication and Fault location on high voltage electrical networks. In 2012, he was awarded a PhD for his work on power line communication and fault location on high voltage distribution networks. He was subsequently appointed Lecturer in the Advanced High Voltage Engineering Research Centre. Since his appointment, he has conducted several research projects in collaboration with industry. In 2015, he was principal investigator for a National Grid funded project on the topic of non-contact measurement of trapped charge. Between 2013 and 2016, he was principal investigator on two Power Networks Research Academy (PNRA)/EPSRC funded projects on the development of an integrated power line communication and condition monitoring device for 11 kV networks. Presently, he is co-investigator on the “Environmentally Friendly Electrical Power Plant and Insulation Plant” work package of the £24M, Cardiff University led FLEXIS project. Stephen is a member of the IEEE and a steering committee member of the Universities High Voltage Network.

Dr Maurizio Albano received his 5-year degree (M.Eng.) in 1999 and then the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Padova, Italy in 2003. In 2005 he was awarded post-doctoral grant by University of Padova, Italy. In 2006 he joined the Advanced High Voltage Engineering Research Centre and he is now Lecturer at Cardiff University. His present fields of research are insulation co-ordination, electromagnetic transients and magnetic and electric fields calculations, air insulated compact substations and overhead line insulator design. He has published over 40 papers. He is a Member of IET and IEEE.

Dr. Phillip Widger received the Ph.D. and B.Eng. degrees in electrical and electronic engineering from Cardiff University, UK in 2014 and 2010 respectively. Between 2010 and 2014, he worked towards his Ph.D. degree in the Advanced High Voltage Engineering Research Centre at Cardiff University, Institute of Energy, and School of Engineering. His research is focused on alternatives gases to SF6, specialising in gas mixtures of CF3I, for use in distribution and transmission networks. SF6 is a global warming gas with a global warming potential approximately 23,900 times that of CO2 and a very long atmospheric lifetime. Research is focused on environmentally friendly alternatives that can safely insulate high voltage electrical power equipment for a more sustainable future electricity network.

Meirion Hills works as a FLEXIS Research Assistant at Cardiff University working on the Environmentally-Friendly Electrical Power Plant and Insulation Work Package under the supervision of Prof. A. Haddad. Meirion is fluent in Welsh and has an Integrated Master’s Degree in Physics (MPhys) from Cardiff University, obtained in July 2016. His MPhys project involved studying nanostructured materials as potential photocatalysts for water. Meirion started working for Cardiff University in January 2017 and helps to maintain the laboratory and assists in any experiments conducted.

Dr Alistair Reid has over 10 years of research experience in the field of electrical insulation diagnostic testing and has published over 50 papers. In 2007, he was awarded a PhD for research on partial discharge. From 2007-2011 he worked within the Institute for Energy and Environment at the University of Strathclyde as co-investigator on two major EPSRC research projects on advanced radiometric techniques for partial discharge detection. In 2011 he gained a Research Fellowship at Glasgow Caledonian University and in 2013 was awarded a Visiting Research position at California Institute of Technology's Department of Computing and Mathematical Sciences. He was then appointed as a Lecturer within the School of Engineering and Built Environment at Glasgow Caledonian University where he worked as principal investigator at GCU on the project Online HVDC Cable Monitor, funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. He is presently a Lecturer at Cardiff University, conducting research within the Advanced High Voltage Engineering Research Centre. Alistair is a Senior Member of the IEEE.