The FIDIC (International Federation of Consulting Engineers) Future Leaders Symposium took place on 8 September 2024 in Geneva at FIDIC’s Global Infrastructure Conference, and with it came the release of the FIDIC Future Leaders Booklet series – an annual publication by FIDIC’s Future Leaders Advisory Council (FLAC). The series is a collection of the contributions and views of young professionals in the infrastructure industry, and Zutari Electrical Engineer Omaira Jajbhay was one of the three South African contributors with her paper, “Shaping the Future of Infrastructure: The Shift to Renewable Energy and Smart Grids.”
Omaira’s career offers us a hopeful look into the capabilities of the next generation of engineers. As an electrical engineer focused on optimising renewable energy into smart grids, her contributions are critical. A collection of accolades, including the BRICS 2023 Future Leaders Challenge win, the 2023 SAIEE National Engineering Excellence Award, and a 2024 CESA Aon Young Engineer of the Year nomination, highlight her impact in the field.
The world is on the cusp of an irreversible shift in how it views, generates, and consumes energy. As concerns about climate change and depletion escalate, the move toward renewable energy sources has moved from a mere possibility to a global urgency. In her paper, Omaira shares an outline of the transformative shift toward renewable energy and the integration of smart grids into modern infrastructure.
She delves into the global transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources, which is driven by environmental sustainability and economic concerns over fossil fuel depletion. Highlighting the vast challenges and solutions in employing distributed generation (DG) and smart grids (SG), emphasising the complexities introduced by bidirectional power flows and the need for advanced operational strategies.
Omaira discusses the growth of smart grids as a solution to challenges, stating their ability to predict customer consumption, manage energy through intelligent sensing, and optimise power transmission. The paper further explores the role of technological advancements in increasing the ability of smart grids. It underscores the importance of renewable energy sources (RESs) and energy storage systems (ESSs) in achieving a sustainable and resilient energy infrastructure, which in turn tackles the uncertainties and frequency of power generation.
In the end, Omaira puts great emphasis on the application of advanced forecasting models and optimised energy storage techniques to improve the planning and operation of smart grids and ensure grid stability, reliability and efficiency.
Read Omaira’s submission here: FIDIC Future Leaders – Sustainability 2024
