EST&P Master's Student Uroš Simović Participates in World Energy Council's Executive Assembly

This week, experts from all over the world are gathering in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to attend the 2015 Executive Assembly of the World Energy Council (WEC). These events are held twice a year by the WEC and are designed to facilitate dialogue between global energy leaders on the critical issues affecting the energy world today. This year, Carnegie Mellon had a seat at the table — thanks to Energy Science, Technology & Policy master's student Uroš Simović.

Simović was nominated to participate in the WEC Executive Assembly as a member of the WEC Future Energy Leaders' program and as a representative of the WEC Serbian National Committee. The Future Energy Leaders' taskforce is a program that gathers young professionals in activities aimed to shape a generation of energy leaders equipped to tackle the problems of sustainable energy in the future.

"Taking part in important discussions and decisions, in line with the WEC mission 'to promote the sustainable supply and use of energy for the greatest benefit of all people,'" Simović says, "is an exceptional opportunity to contribute to a better future."

As a member of the WEC Knowledge Network, Simović is currently working on a project to assess the integration impacts of renewable energy resources on power systems and possible remedial actions. This research is based on reports from over 20 countries and will provide inputs to further evaluate the performance of generating plants. The findings will be presented in a brief report slated for publication in 2015.

Before becoming a member of the WEC, Simović spent nearly three years as a project engineer for Energoprojekt Entel plc in Qatar, working on several large, complex projects in different fields of electrical engineering.

"The unique professional experience and exposure to state-of-the-art solutions and equipment in Qatar's energy sector made me determined to focus my career on the improvement of power engineering and generating favorable conditions for efficient, reliable and environmentally sound energy generation and utilization," he says.

To Simović, the future of innovation in the energy sector will require a multidisciplinary approach and global synergy, as optimization constraints vary from country to country depending on political, economic, social and regulatory aspects. The WEC Knowledge Network report will provide this global perspective, making the implementation and management of optimal energy solutions much easier.

It was the desire for a global perspective that brought Simović to Carnegie Mellon in the first place. "Besides offering the ideal training necessary to achieve my technical knowledge ambitions related to sustainable development," he says, "The Energy Science, Technology and Policy program provided me an opportunity to network with the global community, share ideas and find new perspectives to the challenges of sustainability."

"I hope that WEC Executive Assembly will be an opportunity to promote CMU and the Energy Science, Technology and Policy program not only to my FEL colleagues, but also to the WEC community," Simović says. "I believe that it is important to share the objectives and contributions of CMU in creating fully determined and competent professionals to face the challenges of a sustainable energy future."