CORC senior researcher Marta Victoria receives prestigious starting grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark
The prestigious Sapere Aude: DFF-Starting Grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark has been granted to CORC-PI Dr. Marta Victoria to carry out groundbreaking research. Her project "Highly renewable energy systems under extreme weather events" aims to describe periods of extreme weather using statistics, and to design strategies to ensure that an energy system with a very high proportion of solar and wind energy is reliable, even under extreme weather conditions.
"We can't build an energy system that takes account of everything. That would be extremely costly. So, what do we do if there is a long period without wind and without sun, and with a high demand for energy, and how can we adapt the system without over-dimensioning it? We need to find out what we have to be prepared for when the weather changes as a result of climate change," says Associate Professor Marta Victoria from the Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering at Aarhus University in an interview for AU Engineering.
This is the background for the EXTREMES project (Highly renewable energy systems under extreme weather events), which aims to describe periods of extreme weather using statistics, and to design strategies to ensure that an energy system with a very high proportion of solar and wind energy is reliable, even under extreme weather conditions.
About the project, that starts in 2023 and runs for four years, Marta Victoria says:
"Our future energy systems will be based on solar cells and wind turbines. This will make them more sustainable but also more sensitive to extreme weather events. What are the events that make it difficult for the energy system? How long is the worst period with low wind or solar generation that we can expect? How many times in a year will this happen? How will climate change impact those extreme events? In the EXTREMES project, we will investigate the answers to these questions. Our main goal is to describe these extreme periods using statistics and to design strategies to make sure that the energy system is reliable even under extreme weather conditions."
Read about Marta Victoria's project and why she has become interested in this field.
Sapere Aude grants are awarded by Independent Research Fund Denmark to talented early-career researchers to enable them to develop and strengthen their own research ideas and establish themselves as research directors with the foundation's financial assistance. This year, Independent Research Fund Denmark has awarded Sapere Aude grants to 41 researchers following 356 applications. The 41 researchers share a total of DKK 247 million DKK