Ian Varela Santos Fernández has been awarded the 2020 EASE Student Award

On 16 November 2020 Ian Varela Santos Fernández has been granted the fifth European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) Student Award. Ian wrote his thesis in the LLM Energy and Climate Law on the legal barriers to electricity storage in the European Union.

He focussed on a legal mechanism that allows an energy storage (such as a battery) operator to sell flexibility services in order to e.g. solve grid congestion or regulate grid voltage. Such a legal mechanism can speed up the deployment of energy storage by increasing its profitability and facilitate energy transition.

The EASE selection committee acknowledges the outstanding quality of the Ian’s thesis in the field of energy storage. Whereas the EASE student awards usually are granted to students having a master in science, this thesis was written as part of the 2019-2020 Master in Energy & Climate Law under the supervision of Dr. Romain Mauger of the Groningen Centre of Energy Law and Sustainability (GCELS).

As a winning student Ian will be invited as a guest at the next EASE Energy Storage Global Conference, which will take place in Brussels in 2021. There, he will present his research to the participants. An interview was published on EASE’s website . We are very proud of Ian’s achievement.