Personal profile

Personal profile

Dr Onyema Nduka has been a Lecturer in Sustainable Power Systems in the Electronic Engineering (EE) Department, School of Engineering, Physical and Mathematical Sciences (EPMS) of Royal Holloway University of London since June 2020. He is currently the Director of Student Experience and Outcomes of EPMS, the Senior Tutor and Library Liaison Officer for EE department and the Deputy Head of the Power Systems Research Group. He is also the Deputy Director of the MSc Smart Power Systems course. He developed and currently leads the Low-Carbon Technology and Power Quality (Low-C-PQ) Research Lab activities at Royal Holloway. He is a Steering Group Member of the College's Living Sustainably Catalyst. 

He is a Senior Member of the IEEE (SMIEEE), a Member of IET (MIET) and a Registered Electrical Engineer (REng) with the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN). He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and also holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice in Teaching and Learning from Royal Holloway University of London. He is a Member of the UKRI Talent Peer Review College.

He has served and is still currently serving as Reviewer for different reputable journals including the IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, Sustainable Energy, Power Systems, Power Delivery, IEEE Access and IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution etc. He has also served as a technical committee member for several IEEE Power and Energy Society sponsored conferences.

He holds both a PhD & DIC in Electrical (Power Systems) Engineering and MSc & DIC in Control Systems from Imperial College London and a BEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (with majors in Power Systems Engineering Technology) from the Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria.

Research Areas

His research has mainly focused on contributing towards the achievement of the United Nations SDGs 7 (clean and affordable energy for all). Hence, he has developed analytical and computational tools for fast-tracking the adoption of renewables (especially solar photovoltaics) and low-carbon technologies (mainly electric vehicles and battery energy storage systems) in power networks and microgrids. Some of the tools which he has developed include the following: EMANA, ECAHA, ECAHLFA and RECAHPFA, which are published with the IEEE Transactions journals.

He remains research active in the following areas:

  • Sustainable power systems
  • Real-world distribution networks and microgrid modelling, operations and control
  • Power quality (intersects power electronics, power systems, signal processing and control engineering)
  • Power systems optimisation and state estimation
  • Renewable energy modelling and control
  • Other areas of research interests are power systems massive data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning applied to power systems and energy internet of things (EIoT).

Previous Experience

Prior to joining Royal Holloway University of London, he was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Imperial College London, UK, where he worked on the Joint UK-India Clean Energy (£1M) project for almost two years. During his time at Imperial College London (both as Postdoc and PhD researcher), he supervised a total of nine (9) masters’ projects in sustainable power systems and co-supervised a PhD candidate (on electric vehicle fleet integration into power distribution networks and microgrids), in addition to conducting his independent research. He was actively involved in the formation of an energy research consortium between Imperial College London and some African universities as part of the Imperial College Global Challenge Research Fund project. This resulted in two workshops (alongside invited lectures) held in Nairobi, Kenya and Abuja, Nigeria. Also, in 2019, he was a Visiting PostDoctoral Researcher to the University of Alberta, Canada, with research focus on power quality state estimation.

He has previously served as a Power Quality Engineering Consultant for Imperial Consultants (ICON) in the UK Power Networks NIA (Network Innovation Allowance) project on Domestic Energy Storage and Control (DESC). As the Lead for the Power Quality aspect of the project, he contributed to the development of the project specification document. He also extracted power quality field measurements from Ranger PM1000 power quality analyser and validated the data set. He designed and implemented power quality studies for UK representative low voltage distribution network and also presented findings to the clients and other stakeholders. The DESC project won the Energy Storage Category prize of the British Renewable Energy Award of 2018. In 2016, the research group he worked with won the Imperial College President’s Outstanding Research Team Award. This award celebrated research teams that conducted impactful research for industries and the entire society. Onyema was a recipient of a prestigious Nigerian Federal Government Scholarship which enabled him to lead a research on power quality (particularly voltage unbalance and harmonics analysis and control) in active power distribution networks while he was at Imperial College London. He was also awarded the Rivers State Governor's Special Overseas Scholarship among several other awards and recognitions.

He was formerly an academic (appointed owing to graduating top of his class (ranked 1st out of 211 students)) at the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria. There, he taught modules ranging from introduction to high voltage direct current (HVDC) technology, power systems, control engineering and engineering mathematics.  

He has been an invited speaker at different institutions including the prestigious IEEE lecture series, Kharagpur Section, India, 2019. He chaired a session on Power Systems Modelling and Analysis in the 2020 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM).

Collaborators

His current research collaborators include:

  • Prof. B.C. Pal, Control and Power Group, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, Imperial College London, UK
  • Dr D. Chakravorty, Head of Innovation, TNEI Services Ltd, UK
  • A/Prof. S. Maiti, Electrical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, India
  • Prof. A. Adoghe, Head of Power Systems Research Cluster, Covenant University, Nigeria
  • Prof. E. Okafor, Professor of Electrical Power Systems, Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria. Etc.

For more information about Onyema, see his LinkedIn Profile.

Current PhD Students

2. Amir Adib, First year PhD student (Main/Primary Supervisor)

MSc Electrical Power Engineering, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK

  • PhD Topic: Data-driven electricity network operations and control considering uncertainty

1. Bilal Ahmad, First year PhD student (Main/Primary Supervisor)

    MTech Electrical Engineering, IIT Roorkee, India

  • PhD Topic: Automated framework for flexibility services in a battery energy storage proliferated smart power distribution system

Both students (Amir and Bilal) are funded through two successful competitve PhD studentship bids within the College and EPMS School. 

Other PhD supervision experience 

Yue Yu, PhD research on Smart Electric Vehicle Charging Strategy in Direct Current Microgrid (PhD Co-Supervision at Imperial College London), completed Dec. 2022  

Prospective PhD students

Onyema is still accepting PhD students that have full funding and strong academic and technical background in sustainable electrical power systems and smart grids, to his team. If interested, kindly send him an email at Onyema.Nduka@rhul.ac.uk with a maximum of 2-page CV and a brief explanation of your source of funding.

Teaching

Current and previously taught modules at RHUL include:

  • UG: Professional and Sustainable Engineering
  • PGT: Sustainable Power Generation
  • UG: Mathematics for Engineers 1
  • UG: Electronic Circuits and Components

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
  • SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities

Education/Academic qualification

Electrical Engineering, PhD and DIC, Imperial College London

26 Jan 201511 Apr 2018

Award Date: 1 Jul 2018

Control Systems, MSc and DIC, Imperial College London

20132014

Award Date: 1 Nov 2014

Electrical and Electronic Engineering, BEng (Hons., 5-year curriculum), Federal University of Technology Owerri, Nigeria

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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