Abstract: The author’s of this Keynote study on compensation, meaning reduction of excessive currents in electrical systems, are motivated by the need to lower the cost of electric energy delivery. This motivation strongly fits the power systems strategy of lowering, by power dispatch, the costs of energy delivery, as well as reducing the impact of electric energy production upon the environment. The development of renewable energy sources seems to be in sharp contrast to this optimization-oriented motivation. Optimization requires that the cost of harvesting such sources is known. It is a compound of various factors, such as the environmental impact, the use of the Earth’s resources, development, maintenance, and profits, to finally include social and political implications. Unfortunately, the latest seems to be the dominating ones. Renewable sources are supported by various economic incentives from states’ budgets. This support disturbs free market mechanisms, so economic optimization is losing its sense. Wind and solar energy do not cost, so in public perception, their use as electricity sources should reduce energy bills. However, the former president of the European Union (EU) Council said recently that bills for electricity in the EU are 2.5 times higher than in the US. He blamed EU policy towards reducing CO2 emissions for that. Government subsidies are not visible, moreover, in bills for electricity. Their increase could be only the tip of a huge iceberg. Consequently, the question: “Who knows how much harvesting renewable sources costs?” is legitimate and deserves investigation.

Biography: Leszek S. Czarnecki, IEEE Life Fellow, Distinguished Professor at Louisiana State University, Titled Professor of Technological Sciences, granted by the President of Poland. He received Ph.D., and D.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from the Silesian University of Technology, Poland. For two years he was with the Power Engineering Section, of the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada. In 1989 Dr. Czarnecki joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Louisiana State University.
For developing a power theory of three-phase systems with nonsinusoidal and asymmetrical voltages and currents and for methods of compensation of such systems he was elected to the grade of IEEE Fellow in 1996.
Development of the Currents’ Physical Components (CPC) – based power theory was the major professional Dr. Czarnecki’s contribution to electrical engineering, for which he was nominated to the IEEE Proteus Charles Steinmetz Award. In 2019 Stanford University, USA, recognized Dr. Leszek S. Czarnecki as the World’s 2% best faculty. A book titled: Powers in Compensation in Circuits with Nonsinusoidal Currents, is currently printed by Oxford University Press.
Leszek S. Czarnecki was decorated by the President of Poland, for activity in the United States of America, aimed at the acceptance of Poland in NATO, with the Knight Cross of the Medal of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
Dr. Czarnecki was involved in mountaineering and underwater photography. He climbed, without oxygen support, Lhotse (No. 4 in the World) in the Himalayas (8350m); he completed the first climbing of the main ridge of the Rwenzori Mountains in Central Africa (19 summits of an average high of 5000m), climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, and Mt. Kenya; traversed on ski (500km) Spitsbergen in the deep Arctic; climbed in Alpes and Andes; climbed solo Denali in Alaska, the highest mountain in North America, and traveled to Antarctica.