Estibalitz Ruiz Irusta is a PhD researcher specializing in energy flexibility. She was born and raised in the Basque Country, where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in Renewable Energy Engineering from the University of the Basque Country (EHU). During this period, she also obtained three working experiences, mostly from internships. Firstly, she worked in quality control at the company Cikautxo, dedicated to the design and fabrication of rubber pieces for the automobile industry. Afterwards, she did an internship in an hydroeolic central called “Gorona del Viento”, located in the Canary Islands. Finally, she wrote her bachelor’s thesis together with the company Rotak. S.A. about the pitch control of wind turbines.
Driven by her passion for sustainable energies and willingness to expand her horizon, she joined the Erasmus Mundus Joint Program in Smart Cities and Communities (SMACCs). There, she specialized in Energy Efficiency from EHU, Urban Planning, Energy and Transport from the University of Mons (Belgium) and Smart Grids and Demand Management from Heriot-Watt University (Edinburgh). She concluded her master’s degree with a thesis about Probabilistic Optimization techniques for power system operation.
Currently, she is a doctoral researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), where she has joined the FINATRAX research group. She focuses on topics such as demand-side flexibility, energy markets and smart grids. Her research aims to give solutions to energy balance challenges brought by the increase in renewable energy capacity and bidirectional power flows coming from “prosumers” to achieve a decarbonized energy system. She is also interested in new ICT technologies to apply in power system control and emerging energy markets.
