Shabbir received his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and master’s in electrical engineering. His doctorate degree, awarded by TalTech, focused on electrical power engineering and mechatronics.

His area of interest is near-zero energy buildings and their energy management. „It fascinated me, it seemed really good. It was futuristic, that’s why I chose that thing,“ he says about the choice.

Today near-zero energy buildings are not so much futuristic as the future – the EU has a plan to make all buildings still existing by 2050 very energy efficient. Currently about 40 percent of EU’s energy consumption is spent on buildings. „We do need to consider present geopolitical and economic scenarios,“ the scientist explained.

TalTech awarded him a grant to help achieve this goal. „Right now I am working on development of some sort of mobiile app or website that the user can access it online to monitor what’s going house in the terms of elecricity,“ he said. The user should be able to see not only how much energy is made from solaar PV or how much energy is in the batteries, but also what is consuming electricity in the rooms. „And then I will develop an algorithm that will optimixe the energy cost for the user. In the end of the year, the balance should be zero. Like, they don’t have to pay for the energy at all.“

It works by connecting solaar PV to a smart inverter that’s a little more controllable than conventional one. That can then be connected to electric vehicle, household appliances etc. That allows use to charge electric vehicle at a time when price is very low or when solaar PV is available.

He said that the system itself will not be very complicated as all technologies are already available.

TalTech has a near-zero energy building where the solution is tested. If everything goes well, the solution will be available from next year.