Professor Leon Freris

Professor Leon Freris was the head of the Power Systems section in the department of Electrical Engineering at Imperial College. In 1993 he joined Loughborough University to set up CREST the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology. Today, after over two decades of operation, CREST is firmly established as the leading UK centre in the field of Renewable Energy, with an international reputation both in research and education. For a number of years he was a visiting professor at the University of Lausanne. He is now a visiting professor at the Universities of Reading and Kingston.
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 and their integration into electric power systems. During his academic career he attracted research funding from the UK, USA, EU and industry sources. He has published over 120 papers several of them in the top engineering journals. He is the co-author with Prof. E. Laithwaite of a book on Power Systems, the editor of a book on ‘Wind Energy Conversion Systems’ and the principal author of ‘Renewable Energy in Power Systems’. This last book was translated and published in France, China and Korea. A second edition is now being prepared.
He was a founding member of the British Wind Energy Association, now renamed RenewableUK, which is the UK’s professional body of manufacturers and developers of wind energy products and services. He acted as consultant to UNESCO, EU, OECD, the British Council and to a number of industrial companies. For a period he acted as a technical consultant to Linklaters. Recently he acted for a number of years as a technical consultant on Wind Power related issues to Renewco, a Lloyd’s registered insurance company. Since retirement he has lectured widely to Engineering groups, U3A and to schools on climate change and the technologies available to mitigate it. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology.