Rate My Professor Keith Bell

Professor Keith Bell holds the ScottishPower Chair in Future Power Systems in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, where he has been since 2005. Prior to this, he served as a system development engineer in the British electricity supply industry and conducted research at the Universities of Bath and Manchester, as well as in Naples. He obtained his BEng (Hons) in 1990 and PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Uncertainty in Power System Operation in 1995, both from the University of Bath. In late 2013, Bell was appointed to the ScottishPower Chair in Smart Grids; he then became co-Director of the UK Energy Research Centre from 2014 to 2019, Scientific Director of the Electrical Infrastructure Research Hub in 2018 with Ian Cotton, and a member of the Committee on Climate Change in 2019. His professional qualifications include Chartered Engineer (CEng), Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET), and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE, elected 2020). He received the CIGRE Technical Committee Award in 2010.

Bell's research specializations encompass power system planning and operation including smart grids, power system economics, markets and regulation, energy policy and system modelling, risk management in power systems via statistical methods and intelligent systems, and the grid integration of renewables. He has contributed to over 60 research projects and produced 183 research outputs. Key publications include 'Which way to net zero? A comparative analysis of seven UK 2050 decarbonisation pathways' (2022, with James Dixon and Susan Brush), 'Management of extreme weather impacts on electricity grids: an international review' (2024, with Graeme Hawker et al.), 'Cascading-aware criticality assessment of transmission corridors in IBR-dominated systems' (2025, with Sina Hashemi et al.), and 'An AC/DC Security-Constrained Optimal Power Flow for Great Britain HVDC Integration' (2025, with Sam Hodges et al.). He is an invited expert member of CIGRE Study Committee C1 on System Development and Economics, serves on the Executive Board of the Power Systems Computation Conference and the Executive Committee of the IET Power Academy, and has advised the Scottish Government, Republic of Ireland government, Ofgem, and the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on power systems matters.