Professor Leon Freris

BSc(Eng), MSc(Eng), DIC, PhD, FIET

  • Visiting Professor

Background

Professor Freris was a founding member of CREST, conceived the MSc course in Renewable Energy Systems Technology and was its first Programme Director. Through government funding, he extended the campus taught MSc into a distance learning course.

Expertise

  • Electrical Power Engineering in particular the production conditioning and utilisation of large pulses of energy
  • High-current high-power conditioning systems
  • Renewable Energy Systems

CV

Professor Leon Freris was born in Athens, Greece. In 1960 he joined Imperial College, London, as a lecturer and subsequently became the head of the power systems section in the department of Electrical Engineering. In 1995 he retired from Imperial College and joined Loughborough University where he co-founded CREST (Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology). Today CREST is firmly established as one of the leading international centres in the field of renewable energy, with an international reputation both in research and education.

His early research interests were in HVDC transmission, power system optimization and power electronics. From the mid-seventies he focused his research on renewable energy technologies in general and the electrical aspects of wind power systems in particular.

He has published extensively in all the major electrical engineering journals, is the co-author of three books and of a recently published fourth titled ‘Renewable Energy in Power Systems’, published by Wiley. During his academic career he attracted research funding from the UK, USA, EU and industry sources and acted as consultant to UNESCO, EU, OECD, the British Council, Lloyd’s underwriters as well as to a number of industrial companies. For a number of years he was a visiting professor at the University of Lausanne. He is a founding member of the British Wind Energy Association and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Recent research interests
  • Load flow analysis
  • Power system optimisation
  • HVDC transmission
  • Power Electronics
  • Wind turbine control and optimisation
  • Integration of renewable energy in power systems
Invited lectures only