Dr. Claudio Cañizares
Dr. Claudio Cañizares is a University Professor and the Hydro One Endowed Chair at the Electrical and Computer Engineering (E&CE) Department, and the Executive Director of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE) at the University of Waterloo, where he has held various academic and administrative positions since 1993 and has received multiple recognitions, in particular the 2021-2022 Awards of Excellence in Graduate Supervision from both the University and the Faculty of Engineering. He obtained the Electrical Engineer degree from the Escuela Politécnica Nacional (EPN) in Quito-Ecuador in 1984, where he held different academic and administrative positions between 1983 and 1993, and his MSc (1988) and PhD (1991) degrees in Electrical Engineering are from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research activities focus on the study of stability, control, optimization, modeling, simulation, and computational issues in bulk power systems, microgrids, and energy systems in the context of net-zero, competitive energy markets, smart grids, and energy access. In these areas, he has led or been an integral part of multiple grants and contracts from government agencies and private companies worth over $92 million dollars, and has collaborated with various industry and university researchers in Canada and abroad, supervising/co-supervising close to 190 research fellows and graduate students. He has authored/co-authored over 380 publications with in excess of 34,000 citations at an 82 H-index, including journal and conference papers, technical reports, book chapters, disclosures, and patents, and has been invited to deliver keynote speeches, seminars, tutorials, and presentations at many prestigious venues worldwide. He was the 2020-2024 Editor-In-Chief of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineering (IEEE) Transactions on Smart Grid; the 2022-2023 IEEE Division VII Director of the IEEE and Power & Energy Society (PES) Boards; and a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, where he was the Director of the Applied Science and Engineering Division of the Academy of Science from 2017 to 2020, and a Foreign Fellow of the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering. He is also the recipient of the 2017 IEEE PES Outstanding Power Engineering Educator Award, the 2016 IEEE Canada Electric Power Medal, and of multiple IEEE PES awards and recognitions, holding leadership positions in several IEEE and PES Committees, Working Groups, and Task Forces.
Recent Work in Energy Access
An Equitable, Affordable & Resilient Nationwide Energy System Transition (EARNEST)
Dr. Claudio Cañizares is part of the EARNEST project, a $23 million initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). This project is led by Inês Azevedo from Stanford University and involves a coalition of universities, national laboratories, and non-governmental organizations working together to develop innovative, scalable energy solutions.
As a consortium member, Dr. Cañizares and his team are focused on the integration of green hydrogen, ammonia, and solar PV into microgrids. Their pilot project aims to optimize system design for minimal costs and maximum emission reductions in Inuvik, a remote northern community in Canada.
Beyond Inuvik, the findings from this study could serve as a blueprint for expanding clean energy solutions to other remote communities across Canada and globally, providing a sustainable pathway to improving energy access in underserved regions.