Impacts

Industry engagement is a key part of APEC mission and considered as one of the center strategic priorities. APEC Industry Engagement Strategy is catered towards the mission of the center by ensuring regular, mutually beneficial communication between APEC and a broad range of relevant industrial (and other) stakeholders. Such interactions are aimed to identify and prioritize industrial needs leading to new research and development avenues. The generated research knowledge and technology have been transferred to industry through industry‐academia colloquia, training workshops and demonstrations of the developed methods and tools. APEC has strong active engagement with numerous industrial partners and is continuously working to build on this partnership to engage and broaden industrial stockholders to boost the long‐term mutual activities focused on industry-based research, training workshops/courses, testing/validations and products development as follows:

• Industry-Based Research: APEC aims to be the top among all Research Centers within the region in industry-financed research collaborators. For that purpose, we are constantly looking for new and better ways to partner with industries within the UAE and around the world. APEC plays a significant role by providing research facilities, expertise and resources to furnish industry partners with in-depth view of the most current and groundbreaking developments in the Power & Energy industry. APEC has established research collaborations with major governmental utilities and industrial entities in the UAE including TRANSCO, EWEC, ADDC, Emirates Steel, and DEWA. In addition, APEC developed international industrial research collaborations with Manitoba Hydro International (Canada), Elia grid international (Belgium) and other strategic partners.
• Several Industrial-academic collaborations have been established successfully with different stockholders, examples are: the research group has completed a number of industry-sponsored projects with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)-Drilling, ADNOC-Gas processing and other industries in ADNOC group. Total funding received from these projects is approximately US$ 1 million. Moreover, ADNOC has funded research infrastructure through the research laboratories (ADNOC Research and Innovation Centre – ADRIC) in the areas of high voltage (HV) engineering, power electronics, variable frequency drives, renewable energy systems and simulation software with a total funding of about US$ 2million. In addition, APEC team diversified their industrial collaborators for getting substantial external funds with total amount of US$ 3 million (e.g. Manitoba Hydro International, ELIA GRID International, Belgium, Abu Dhabi Transmission and Dispatch Company, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority). Moreover, APEC team has contributed significantly to the Khalifa University (KU) successful Virtual Research Institute (VRI) award for sustainable energy production, storage and utilization that has been funded by ASPIRE (https://www.aspireuae.ae ) with a total amount of AED 65.9 million.
• The research group of APEC is actively collaborating with international universities such as MIT, Cardiff University, the University of Waterloo, Padova University, India Institute of Technology Madras, India Institute of Technology Delhi, Singapore Institute of Technology, The University of Tokyo, Kyushu Institute of Technology and Kuyshu University, University of Toronto and University of Alberta. These partnerships are in the form of several collaborative research projects, supervision of graduate research students and mutual research visits. APEC team has strong links with key international standard bodies such as CIGRE, IEC ACTAD and British Standard Committees and professional bodies such as IEEE and IET.
• APEC team offered several training and consultancy services for power utilities, manufactures and industries. Moreover, working professionals from industries have continued their graduate studies at KU under the supervision of APEC members. Also, many graduates from KU are currently working in these industries in UAE and worldwide. APEC will use this opportunity to further increase the interaction and collaboration with industry in UAE and worldwide.
• APEC is focusing on developing a fully online training and continuing education programs for industry and power utilities to provide professional engineers with cutting-edge knowledge related to power and energy systems.
• Transfer and mobilize knowledge gained through research into applications with societal and/or economic impact. Consequently, promoting APEC and KU at large, as a hub for R&D energy technology development with potential for commercialization, entrepreneurship and the creation of startup companies.