Francesco Gerini graduated with honours in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2019. In 2018, he joined EPFL as a visiting graduate student to complete his master's thesis. He is currently a PhD student at the Distributed Electrical System Laboratory (DESL) at EPFL, working on the development of optimal control of hydropower units hybridised with battery energy storage systems and hydraulic short circuit within the XFLEX HYDRO project. His research interests encompass the control of grid-connected utility-scale batteries for the optimal exploitation of renewables in modern power systems, as well as optimal control methods and power grid services.

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