“The fact that so many countries are taking part in the Global Energy nomination cycle and that new regions are joining us not only underlines the high status of the Prize, but also shows how important science and international dialogue are for the development of the global energy industry,” said Rae Kwon Chung, Nobel Prize laureate and Chairman of the Global Energy Prize International Award Committee.
The drawing up of the shortlist marked the conclusion of the second stage of the Prize’s nomination cycle. The first stage – acceptance of applications for the Prize – took place between January 1 and April 20, 2023. In that period, a total of 90 nomination submissions from 48 countries were filed, the highest number of participating countries in the Prize’s history. The submissions were presented to the independent experts who evaluated them according to a fixed set of criteria. In each category – Conventional Energy, Non-Conventional Energy, New Ways of Energy Application – the top five applications with the highest average score were determined to make up the shortlist.
The laureates of the 2023 Global Energy Prize will be chosen during a closed meeting of the International Award Committee to be held in early July.
The shortlist of the nominees for the 2023 Global Energy Prize includes:
Conventional Energy Nomination
1. Ljubivoje Popović (Serbia), Leading Research Engineer, Electric Power Distribution Company of Belgrade: for developing the methodology enabling the determination of relevant characteristics of high-voltage and extra high-voltage cable lines.
2. Zhongmin Liu (China), Director, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics: for research, commercialization, and development of methanol to olefins (MTO) and ethanol (MTE) technologies for efficient coal conversion.
3. Vladimir Terzija (Russia), Head of the Laboratory of Modern Energy Systems, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology: for research in smart grid applications, wide-area monitoring, protection and control, multi-energy systems, switchgear and transient processes, ICT, data analytics, and digital signal processing applications in power systems.
4. Zhijun Jin (China), Dean of the Institute of Energy, Peking University: for fundamental research on hydrocarbon accumulation mechanism, hybrid hydrocarbon generation from organic-inorganic interaction, deep marine carbonate sequence, marine shale gas.
5. Abdulaziz Al-Qasim (Saudi Arabia), Head of Upstream Hydrogen Technology and Sustainability, Saudi Aramco: for significant implementation of robust monitoring and surveillance program for the CO2-EOR demonstration project.
Non-Conventional Energy Nomination
1. Zhong Lin Wang (China), Founding Director, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems: for invention of triboelectric nanogenerators as a new energy technology for self-powered systems, internet of things, robotics, artificial intelligence and large-scale blue energy harvesting.
2. Bhim Singh (India), SERB National Science Chair and Emeritus Professor, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi: for advancement in the field of renewable energy-based systems, development of low-cost energy-efficient solar photovoltaic fed water pumping systems for rural areas, development of energy-efficient ceiling fan motor to reduce power consumption.
3. Seeram Ramakrishna (Singapore), Director, Center for Nanotechnology & Sustainability, National University of Singapore: for an outstanding contribution to the development of alternative energy, scientific achievements in the design of artificial photosynthesis systems, a cycle of scientific works in the field of bioenergy and hydrogen energy
4. Liejin Guo (China), Head of State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University: for the pioneering study, development, and implementation of Thermochemical and H2 production by supercritical water gasification of coal/organic wastes and Multiphase flow photocatalytic/photoelectrochemical H2 production.
5. Yu Huang (USA), Professor and Department Chair, University of California Los Angeles: for series of breakthroughs in innovative catalyst design that can enable the cost-effective, durable and high-performance fuel cells
New Ways of Energy Application Nomination
1. Masato Sagawa (Japan), President, NDFEB Corporation: for the invention of the strongest anisotropic permanent magnet composed of neodymium (Nd), iron (Fe)and boron (B) which has been used for all kinds of motors to reduce the power consumption.
2. Ruzhu Wang (China), Chair Professor, Shanghai Jiao Tong University: for research on sorption refrigeration that significantly advanced the technology of utilizing low-grade thermal energy for generating highly efficient cooling and seminal contributions to desiccant-based heat pump that has doubled the energy efficiency for cooling/ heating.
3. Kouki Matsuse (Japan), Emeritus Professor, Meiji University: for pioneering contributions to the advancement of power conversion, control, and motor strategies for drive systems for various industrial applications to increase energy efficiency.
4. Mohammad Nazeeruddin (Switzerland), Professor, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne: for fundamental research and development of energy-efficient devices encompassing the use of emerging semiconductors for perovskite and dye solar cells.
5. Amit Goyal (USA), SUNY Distinguished Professor & SUNY Empire Innovation Professor, Director, Laboratory for Heteroepitaxial Growth of Functional Materials & Devices, Director, NYS Center for Plastics Recycling & Innovation and Founding Director, RENEW Institute, State University of New York at Buffalo: for contribution to high temperature superconductivity, discoveries, and inventions to fabricate long-lengths of high-performance superconducting wire for all large-scale energy-related applications of HTS.
