Mostafa Shad Zolpirani

 PhD Candidate

Email: m.shaad_at_gmail.com

Research Interests:                                                                                                         Artificial Intelligence, Multi-agent Systems, Distributed Control Systems, Fuzzy Logic controllerssample

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"My project is the design and implementation of an aggregated load control on Domestic Electric Water Heater (DEWH)."  

"The aim of this project is to design a controller to shave and shift (if possible) the peak of total power demands. Since the electric water heater consumes almost 20 to 30 percent of total household power consumptions, it is a good choice to reduce and shift EWHs power consumption".

Mostafa Shad is on the cusp of changing the amount of energy used by water heaters in residential homes. The University of New Brunswick PhD candidate has been conducting research in this area since 2009. The overall goal of his research is to develop a better smart grid, an electrical grid that attempts to predict and respond to actions of all of its users. "The objective of this project is to make the consumption smarter," Shad explains. "What we are building is something that will schedule household devices, such as electric water heaters, to consume energy when the generation is high and reduce consumption when the generation is low." Shad is working on his project alongside COBRA (COllaboration Based Robotics and Automation), a group of robotics researchers at UNB. While COBRA mainly researches unmanned ground, aerial, and underwater vehicles, Shad's research complements his colleagues. Through his work with water heaters, he will be able to increase the overall reliability of power systems. Shad likes the team environment that COBRA has and feels that his work has benefitted from getting to work with the team and their supervisor, Dr. Howard Li. "We have great teamwork and Dr. Li provides really good feedback for us," Shad says. "He's helping us to improve our work and enhance the quality of our performance." Shad, who earned both his undergraduate and Master's degrees in computer engineering and hardware design at Sharif University in his native Tehran, Iran, explains that he is concentrating mainly on a load management system. "The problem is that power consumption is increasing and now the trend of generators are toward green energy resources, like wind energy or solar energy," he says. "However, one problem is that when these energies are available, the usage is not that high and when they are not available, people tend to use more energy." Shad is conducting his research in collaboration with a pilot project in Saint John, wherein a smart meter is installed in houses to control water heaters and their power consumption. "The total power consumption of houses peaks when all of the water heaters are turned on," he explains. "So, by scheduling the usage time of water heaters, we can reduce the cost of power consumption and the stress over power generators." He adds that this project is important because promotes better usage of green energies and reduces CO2 emissions by current power plants, such as fossil-fuel power stations. "It would solve a grid problem," he says. "The problem was to integrate green energies with the current form of energies. It's good to reduce the autogeneration in power plants and use more green energies." Shad says that he's thankful for the opportunity and is looking forward to continuing his research. "I want to thank everyone for helping us with this project," he says. "I want to thank Dr. Li for his good comments and guidelines and Dr. Liuchen Chang for his great management techniques. I also want to thank Saint John Energy for the pilot project and NB Power for supporting us."