THE MCET TEAMS

Bruno has been working in the field of techno-economic modelling of energy systems since 2005. He has worked on and has been involved in the development of several techno-economic energy systems models of South Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, West Africa, South-East Europe, and in the Middle East, on various modelling platforms including TIMES, LEAP, MESSAGE/SPLAT. In recent years, he’s been centrally involved in the linking of the South African TIMES model (SATIM), developed at UCT and eSAGE, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model based on the standard IFPRI CGE. The linked modelling framework, SATIMGE, has been used for several projects done by the Energy Systems Research Group, including the update South Africa’s NDC and is the subject of his ongoing PhD research. Bruno also lectures/supervises MSc students on the Energy Systems Analysis Course at UCT (when offered) and has been involved in several capacity building projects across Southern, Central and Western Africa for the IAEA and IRENA. He holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering and one in Mathematics of Finance. 

Contact: brunomerven@gmail.com 

Gregory Ireland is a South African energy systems engineer focused on data-driven approaches for integrated energy assessment and planning across Sub-Saharan Africa. Currently part of the Energy Systems Research Group at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and active in private consulting, his expertise includes geospatial energy access through distributed solutions and large-scale infrastructure planning for African energy transitions. He developed the open-source TEMPO (Techno-Economic Mini-grid Planning and Optimization) model to advance mini-grid planning. Gregory's work bridges science and policy to inform government decisions, private investment, and public initiatives, drawing from extensive experience at Eskom’s Generation Plant Engineering Systems Integration Department and a research background that includes hydrogen systems, smart-grid flexibility, renewable resource mapping, and socioeconomic modeling. He holds an MSc in Sustainable Energy Engineering and a BSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UCT

Contact: irelandgregory@gmail.com 

Rufaro has recently graduated from UCT chemical Engineering. She is currently working on her Masters on the above topic and supervised by Pr Harro von Blottnitz and Dr Kyle Abrahams. Rufaro has received a bursary from this project to help fund her MSc.

Contact: MSBRUF001@myuct.ac.za