Bala Venkatesh receives the IEEE Canada P.D. Ziogas Electric Power Award
Congratulations to professor Bala Venkatesh who has been named a recipient of the IEEE Canada P.D. Ziogas Electric Power Award – one of the highest honours in Canadian power engineering. A professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), Venkatesh was recognized for his outstanding contributions to the field of electric power systems. His decades of leadership in smart grids, energy storage, and power systems optimization, including solutions now operationally used by industry, reflect exactly the kind of real-world impact this award celebrates.
Leading collaboration across Canada’s energy sector
From advising the Government of Ontario’s Hydrogen Strategy to developing patented techniques used by Toronto Hydro, Venkatesh has helped to bridge industry and academia throughout his career. He’s worked with numerous other collaborators and sponsors including Tata Power, Hydro One,, IESO, Alectra, NSERC and Mitacs, among others. For six years, he also directed the NSERC Energy Storage Technology (NEST) Network, a pan Canadian energy storage network, which brought together 15 Canadian universities and over 26 industry government partners. Under Venkatesh’s oversight, the NEST Network explored different types of energy storage to support Canada’s transition to clean energy and produced a multitude of projects, patents, reports, papers and presentations to disseminate the latest data and tools.
Mentoring the next generation of innovators
At TMU, Venkatesh has helped to advance the university’s research capabilities and curriculum to train future engineers. In 2011, he was appointed the academic director of TMU’s renowned Centre for Urban Energy (CUE), which is an academic-industry partnership dedicated to developing and commercializing clean energy technologies. Under his leadership, CUE has built cutting-edge research, development and demonstration facilities, in addition to offering educational programming and a robust internship program.
Venkatesh also directs TMU’s Professional Master’s Diploma in Energy and Innovation program. Since 2016, the program has been equipping graduate students with the skills and hands-on experience needed to excel in Canada’s energy sector. Throughout his career in academia, Venkatesh has put students first, overseeing 35 research fellows, 26 PhD dissertations, 44 Masters thesis and reports, 50 undergraduates and over 360 final-year engineering design project students – and counting.
Learn more about the IEEE Canada 2026 Awards. (external link)
Read more about TMU’s Centre for Urban Energy’s capabilities and impact.
Learn more about TMU’s Professional Master’s Diploma in Energy and Innovation.