Student duo named a top finalist at WPC Dragon’s Dam competition.
This past October, Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) undergraduate students Raein Layegh Pour and Aidin Fami Zagharami took the stage at Waterpower Week 2025 in Ottawa. The electrical engineering duo was named a national finalist in the WaterPower Canada (WPC) Dragons’ Dam Competition and invited to pitch their projects live to a panel of influential waterpower experts and professionals. The student team, dubbed Allons-y, represented TMU’s Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering with pride – taking third place in the competition for their innovative smart grid hydropower retrofit project.
The winning project
Layegh Pour and Fami Zagharami’s project addresses the challenge of modernizing aging hydropower plants to meet the demands of today’s smart grid and renewable energy systems. Many existing facilities lack the flexibility and digital control needed for real-time coordination with solar, wind, and energy storage. The team’s solution is a smart grid retrofit controller that upgrades existing hydropower plants with real-time monitoring and adaptive control – without requiring costly infrastructure replacement. Using embedded systems and digital communications, the retrofit system has the potential to enhance grid reliability, improve operational efficiency, and support the integration of distributed energy resources.
Real-time validation was performed using the Typhoon HIL604 integrated with a SCADA interface for live monitoring and control.
Throughout the project’s development, Layegh Pour and Fami Zagharami were mentored by professor and Canada Research Chair in Smart Grid Cyber-Physical Security, Dr. Reza Arani. The team thanks Arani for his valuable guidance in the design and simulation process and shares that he was instrumental in helping to validate their work.
Congratulations team Allons-y!