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Dr. Abdel-Aty (Aty) Edris is a Senior Manager in Exponent’s Engineering Management Consulting practice. He has broad experience in utility and industrial power systems, including power system analysis, dynamics, control, and problem mitigation. Dr. Edris has extensive project management expertise, and has more than 30 year of industry experience, including positions at ABB, EPRI, Siemens Energy, and Quanta Technology.
Dr. Edris is an international top expert in managing and controlling electric grids using Flexible AC Transmission Systems (FACTS) and High Voltage Direct Current technologies (HVDC). He managed the design, development, and installation of the world’s first FACTS installations at TVA, AEP, and NYPA. He also has extensive expertise in reactive power compensation, dynamic thermal circuit ratings, power electronics, smart grid technologies, integration of renewable energy resources, and energy storage. The decisions made for selecting these technologies were based on transmission system planning, root-cause analysis of system reliability, and the development of sound value propositions.
Dr. Edris specializes in solving challenging problems from their main root cause rather than treating or mitigating the effect of the problems,
Dr. Edris holds numerous patents in the US and Sweden. These include patents related to the mitigation of subsynchronous resonance, maintaining synchronism under fault conditions, and smart inverters for distributed energy integration. In addition, Dr. Edris has a wealth of teaching experience in the USA, Egypt, Sweden, China, South Africa, and Middle East.
Work Experience
• Exponent,Menlo Park, CA,A leading engineering & scientific consulting firm dedicated to helping our clients solve their technical problems
- Senior Manager (April 2014 – present)
• Quanta Technology, Oakland, CA
- Senior Director (2010 – April 2014)
• Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
- International Advisor (2012 – present)
• Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
- Adjunct Professor (2010 – present)
• Siemens Energy, Mountain View, CA
- Principal Consultant and Business Director (2008 – 2010)
• EPRI, Palo Alto, CA
- Senior Technology Development Manager (1992 –2008)
• ABB Power Systems, Vasteras, Sweden / Pittsburgh, PA
- Development Engineer (1980 – 1992)
• Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
- Senior Research Fellow (1974 – 1980)
Selected honors, awards, and degrees
• IEEE Fellow
• IEEE Outstanding Engineer Award, 2008
• IEEE Award for Industry Leadership and Scientific Contributions, 2006
• EPRI Performance Recognition Award, each year from 1992 – 2007
• EPRI Chauncey Award for Outstanding Technical Leadership, 2003
• EPRI Award for Excellence in Technical Leadership, 1996
• R&D Magazine I-R 100 Award for Top Technological Innovations of the Year, 1996
• Ph.D. Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden
• M.Sc.Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
• B. Sc.(honor) Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
Title of Dr Abdel-Aty Idris keynote lecture in ICNEEE 2016
Opportunities and Challenges of Integrating Renewable Energy Resources:
Effects on and Values for the Grid
Recent Patents
• “Automatic Self Adjusting Voltage Controller, Smart Inverter Concept” (2012)
- US Patent No. 8,179,104 B2
• “Method and Circuit for Cascaded Pulse Width Modulation” (2007)
- US Patent No. 7,230,837
• “Power Flow Controller Responsive to Power Circulation Demand for Optimizing Power Transfer” (2006)
- US Patent No. 7,117,070
Selected recent conference activity
• Keynote Speaker at MEPCON’14 Conference, Cairo, Egypt, December 2014
- “Holistic Understanding of Electric Grid Performance”
• Speaker at Energy Storage Conference, Nice, France, February 2013
- “Energy Storage and the Electric Grid of the Future”
• Invited Panelist at the Super Session of the IEEE GM, San Diego, CA, 2012
- “Opportunities and Challenges of Integrating Wind, Solar and other Distributed Generation & Energy Storage, Effects and Values for the Grid”
• Keynote Speaker at the Mideast Innovative Smart Grid Technology Conference, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2011
• Panelist, Plenary Session, European Innovative Smart Grid Technology Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden, October 2010
- “What Makes a Transmission Grid Smart”
• Chairman, Plenary Session, South Africa Power Conference, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2007
• Keynote Speaker, Middle East Power Conference, Egypt, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012
• Chairman, FACTS Technology Panel Session, IEEE T&D Latin America Conference, 2004
• Keynote Speaker, CIGRE Conference, Wuhan, China, 2001
Languages
Arabic, English, and Swedish
Publications
Authored, coauthored, or presented over 100 IEEE and CIGRE technical papers