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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Serdar Celik, PhD, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering in the School of Engineering, was invited to the World Energy Outlook 2017 in Istanbul in December 2017.

International Energy Agency Executive Director Dr. Fatih Birol shared the WEO 2017 release with world energy leaders, government officials and academics from all around the world. Just last Tuesday, Jan. 23, Birol testified before the United States Senate on the agency’s global market outlook.

Celik was privileged to attend the event. “It was an ‘invitation only’ event that brought a select number of individuals in the field of energy from around the world,” he said. “I had a chance to meet a number of individuals including government officials, non-profit energy organization leaders, representatives from the private sector and academics. This was one of the best events I have attended in the past few years, in terms of networking and learning first-hand about what is going on in the energy sector globally.”

Celik sees benefits from the networking. “Last May, I organized the Ilgaz Energy Symposium in Turkey which turned out to be a bigger success than I had anticipated,” he said. “The attendees made comments that I should do another one in the coming year. I have already started working on the second Ilgaz Energy Symposium scheduled for May 11-13 on Mt. Ilgaz.

“The networking opportunity I had at the World Energy Outlook meeting yielded some new ideas for this year’s symposium, and some important individuals will be invited to our event. The symposium benefits SIUE as well, because it appeared in both national and local news media, and many energy professionals in the area are now familiar with SIUE.” 

Celik’s students also will benefit from his experience. “I have already shared some of my take-aways in my classes so far, and I plan to elaborate on others as I see fit during lectures,” he said. “Our students enjoy the lectures more when they hear about not only the real-life projects and field tours, but also global meetings about the politics, investments and technological developments on the field as they learn theory. I think “theory-project-field tour-global views” are extremely strong components for learning.”

Celik also soaked up the latest information on energy politics and policies, and technology enhancement on renewables. His main take-aways were:

• Both the oil and shale gas boom in the U.S. has changed the global game significantly. This will have remarkable impacts on the energy markets, international trade flows and investments.
• China has been investing in clean energy technologies that are beyond expectations. As one of the major buyers, China’s energy politics can have notable effects on international energy resource trade.
• Although the countries around the globe seem to be trying to achieve the goals set at the COP 21 Paris Meeting, more efforts need to be put into reaching those goals.
• Digitalization in the energy field is becoming more popular. It comes with many benefits for both the utility providers and the consumers. It also brings new job opportunities. One potential drawback is energy security, as these systems can be vulnerable to potential cyber attacks if sufficient precautions are not taken.

Photo: Serdar Celik, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering in SIUE’s School of Engineering.