Offshore green hydrogen
Wind-powered electrolysis, hydrogen buffering, liquefaction, cryogenic storage and weather-limited shipping, studied as one coupled chain rather than separate components.
Renewable energy · Hydrogen · Research software
Owais Ahmad
PhD Candidate in Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria
I study how renewable energy systems perform across real weather, hour by hour: offshore green-hydrogen production and export, and remote community microgrids. I also build the simulation and optimization software those questions need, with results that can be traced and reproduced.
Research focus
Energy systems that have to work every hour of the year
My work connects physical models, long weather records and optimization, so that design decisions account for when energy is available, where it can be stored and how it can be moved.
Remote community microgrids
Dispatch and sizing of renewable, storage and diesel microgrids, comparing forecast-informed model predictive control with conventional load-following.
Energy storage
Batteries, underwater compressed-air storage and hydrogen inventories: when storage improves reliability or cost, and when it does not.
Optimization and uncertainty
Multi-objective design with NSGA-II/III, mixed-integer dispatch, sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis, and year-to-year weather variability.
Research software
C++ and Python simulation platforms with conservation checks, regression tests and recorded provenance, so that results can be rerun and audited.
Power systems and solar PV
An electrical power-systems background and more than three years designing, commissioning and maintaining commercial solar-PV installations.
Featured software
OffshoreLH2
A research platform that simulates an offshore hydrogen hub as one chronological system: wind, electrolysis, gaseous and liquid hydrogen storage, liquefaction, shipping and delivered cost, with energy and mass balances checked every hour.
- Deterministic C++20 physics core, exposed to Python through pybind11, with a PySide6 desktop application and a command-line tool.
- Simplified and higher-fidelity models for hydrogen storage, LH₂ tanks, compressed-air storage, vessel cargo and electrolyzer ageing.
- ERA5 site-data preparation, sensitivity, Monte Carlo, interannual and NSGA-II studies, and versioned study recipes.
- Every run is saved with its configuration, weather-data hash and software version.
Latest publication
Operability thresholds in offshore green hydrogen
Nonlinear operability thresholds in offshore green hydrogen production: Multi-objective system design under metocean uncertainty
Eleven years of hourly ERA5 data for a North Atlantic and a North Sea site, an hourly production, storage and vessel model, and tri-objective optimization show how wind–wave transfer limits shape offshore hydrogen design. Performance responds sharply when those limits are strict and levels off as transfer capability improves; the selected North Atlantic design reached US$8.53/kg, against US$11.78/kg for the North Sea design.
Background
From solar-PV projects to doctoral research
Engineering practice came first: system sizing, single-line diagrams, procurement and commissioning. It still shapes how I model systems today.
Experience
- 2023 – present
PhD Researcher, Energy Systems and Scientific Computing
University of Victoria
- 2023 – present
Teaching Assistant
Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science, UVic
- Apr – Sep 2026
Research Assistant, Power for People
University of Victoria
- 2019 – 2023
Project Engineer, Solar PV
Voltric Energy (Pvt.) Ltd., Peshawar
- 2017 – 2018
Power Engineer
Huawei Technologies, Pakistan
Education
- 2023 – 2027 (expected)
PhD, Mechanical Engineering
University of Victoria · candidacy passed April 2025
- 2018 – 2020
MSc, Renewable Energy Engineering
University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar
- 2013 – 2017
BSc, Electrical Engineering (Power Systems)
UET Peshawar · graduated with distinction
Working on offshore energy, hydrogen or microgrids?
I welcome conversations about research collaboration, evaluating OffshoreLH2, and engineering or research roles in renewable energy and energy-system modelling.