Science & Technology Outreach

Ali Gulrez, our VP Energy Systems who is also an alumni of Imperial College London, interacted with the participants of London International Youth Science Forum (LIYSF) on 28th July 2023 on the topics of sustainability and how Battery Energy Storage Systems in the UK is helping the UK to decarbonise.

LIYSF is a two-week residential student event held annually in central London which attracts 500 of the world’s leading young scientists aged 16-21 years old from more than 70 participating countries. LIYSF is run under the Royal Patronage of HRH Princess Royal.

Imperial College London’s Energy Futures Lab (EFL) had organised the session for 30 students to interact with industry professionals and academics on the topic of sustainability and decarbonisation.

Ali was invited by EFL as a panellist to speak on the occasion. Ali spoke about the UK’s binding decarbonisation targets and how current renewable industry is helping the grid to achieve net neutrality and at the same time overcoming the challenges of grid constraints and ageing infrastructure. He gave real life examples of how Lower 48 Energy BESS is accelerating the clean energy transition by building grid scale energy storage system projects where most needed across the country.

He explained how batteries are crucial for the growth of renewables and how the problem of intermittent renewables is solved.

He also spoke about how new ideas and initiatives are disrupting the energy industry and the role Science & Technology plays in enabling these disruptions.

The aim of the session was to encourage the students to take up STEM as a career path and introduce them to the field of renewable energy & sustainability

The session attracted a lot of interesting and insightful questions from budding scientists and technocrats which were ably addressed by the panellists. The session concluded with a tour of the Smart Energy Laboratory at Imperial College London where the students got to see real time power and energy flows through the UK grid system.