Hanrong Huang

The University of New South Wales

Hi, my name is Hanrong Huang, I’m currently a second-year PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales studying in the School of Minerals and Energy Resources and the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering. My research topic is decarbonising mining via renewable energy microgrids which lies in the intersection of renewable energy, off-grid mining, system design, regional decarbonisation, and economics. The motivations for my research come out from the background of continuously decreasing prices of renewable energy (in particular, PV and wind), and the urgent need for decarbonisation to reach the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. With a particular focus on Australia’s mining industry, we found that a significant of mining sites are adapting renewable energy into the power supply to reduce carbon emissions. The hybrid microgrid seems to be the most feasible and appealing solution and it has been proven that it is feasible in terms of technology readiness and economic results. The previous research works conducted by me and my supervisors Dr Fiacre Rougieux and A/Prof Seher Ata have constructed a model of a fully renewable microgrid that could be applied to copper ore processing to attain zero carbon emissions. Extended from ore processing, the ultimate goal of my PhD is to construct a fully renewable microgrid model that could cover loads of an entire mining site with a focus on demand-side flexibility and predictive dispatch strategies. We believe that the research outcomes will accelerate the transition to decarbonised and sustainable mining and will be beneficial to mitigate climate change