Jose Angel Garcia

I am a PhD student at the Heat and Power Division of the Energy Technology Department. My research focuses on increasing the operational flexibility of thermal power plants. In particular, I study the performance of new power plant layouts. These layouts consist of typical thermal power plant configurations, such as combined cycles, with added equipment to allow for greater operational range and faster response to grid conditions. This additional equipment includes, among others, heat pumps, thermal storage, electrolyzers, H2 and NH3 storage. To evaluate the performance of such systems, I develop techno-economic models that quantify technical, economic and environmental indicators. I use these models to identify optimum designs and operation strategies of these power plants. The final goal is to increase the flexibility of traditional power generation units to accommodate higher shares of intermittent renewable energies, such as wind and solar, in the energy sector.

Background

I am a Mechanical Engineering graduate of Universidad Simon Bolivar, in Venezuela. After graduating, I started a career as maintenance and project engineer in the cement industry, where I worked for 4 years. In 2016, I moved to Stockholm and enrolled in a master’s program, Sustainable Energy Engineering (SEE) at KTH. After finishing my studies, I worked as consultant, developing models and doing techno-economic analyses of energy systems such as solar power plants and borehole thermal storage systems. In 2019, I joined the Heat and Power Division of the Energy Technology department of KTH, where I worked as a research engineer. My research focused on solutions to increase the flexibility of thermal power plants. In 2020, I started my PhD studies, which are a continuation of the research I had been doing before.