Xinyang Guo, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
Xinyang, where did you grow up, and how old were you when you first discovered a love for renewable energy research?
I grew up in Xiangyang, Hubei Province, an ancient cultural city in Central China. In my junior high school, distributed solar PV street lamps and small-scale wind turbines appeared in my city. At that time, I felt that this way of power generation was very novel. Later, I learned that nature has endless renewable energy, which could be easily converted into electricity. When I was an undergraduate, I began to have a strong interest in renewable energy after systematically learning the operating principles, power generation characteristics and grid integration issues of various renewable sources.
What draws you to your current field – what makes you passionate about it?
When I was a senior, I met my current supervisor, Professor Chen Xinyu. He said the rapid decline of offshore wind cost could lead to a huge potential for the decarbonization of southeast coast. I think it's very cool to build large-scale turbine clusters at maritime space. Later, with my gradual understanding, I realized that offshore wind power was indispensable for the ambitious target of carbon neutralization, and the construction of trans-continentalinterconnections in Northeast Asia. At that time, I carried out the resource analysis, grid integration and optimal investment of offshore wind power.
Can you give us a briefoverview of your research project that you are pursuing while based at the Harvard-China Project?
Carbon neutrality of the energy system: a cross-sector study incorporating the decarbonization of industry, transportation, construction and agriculture in China. This study enlarges the previous research scale from power system to all the sectors.
Interconnection of Northeast Asia: the construction of the submarine connections to promote the transnational electricity trading and the integrated utilization of the complementary renewables in each country.
Where do you hope to take this research – will you expand upon it?
This is an interdisciplinary comprehensive research project, where there are high-level researchers from multiple disciplines, conducting integrated scientific research. Everyone gets along equally and friendly, and academic exchanges are unique and profound. Professor Mike will talk to us and give many constructive feedback.
What are your career goals? What will you pursue next?
My goal is to become a university researcher. My next plan is to return China to continue my doctoral degree, and maintain exchanges with members of the Harvard China program.
How has the Harvard-China Project thus far aided your research?
Professor Michael McElroy has given me very valuable and instructive research topics. His thinking on research points and story lines is very original and in-depth. He is very friendly and will listen to my ideas patiently and give valuable opinions. Professor Yang Xi has long-term research on the decarbonization pathway of major departments in China, which is of great help for our research of energy system.