The laboratory
A centre of innovation and exploration at the heart of the Hydrogen Research Institute, where a multidisciplinary team designs tomorrow's intelligent energy solutions.
LIREI brings together professors, research professionals and graduate students around a shared mission: proposing solutions for intelligent energy management, from the power grid to buildings and vehicles. Our work combines optimization, machine learning, modeling and experimentation on real-world data.
Our history
The Hydrogen Research Institute (IRH) at UQTR was publicly inaugurated in 1996. Three years later, in 1999, LIREI was created as a multidisciplinary team within the Institute, with the mission of proposing solutions to manage energy intelligently.
Today, the laboratory pursues its activities in Trois-Rivières and is preparing to move into the new research facilities of UQTR's Pellerin-Marmen building.
Thirty years of research, reconstructed from the lab's publications, defended theses and major agreements.
- 1996
The IRH is inaugurated
UQTR's Hydrogen Research Institute is publicly inaugurated.
- 1999
LIREI is founded
The laboratory is created as a multidisciplinary team within the IRH, with the mission of proposing solutions to manage energy intelligently.
- 2000-2011
Hydrogen and remote sites
Early work centres on standalone renewable systems coupled with hydrogen: electrolyzers, fuel cells and storage for remote sites. More than half the period's publications deal with hydrogen.
- 2012
The lab's first doctorate
Alben Cardenas Gonzalez defends a thesis on integrating decentralized energy sources into the local grid. He is now a professor at UQTR.
- 2012-2017
Transport electrification
Energy management for electric and fuel-cell vehicles joins the agenda, accounting for over a third of the period's publications.
- 2017
An experimental apartment
The lab commissions an instrumented apartment — communicating thermostats and smart loads — to test, model and optimize residential energy under real conditions.
- 2018-2021
The turn to residential buildings
Demand forecasting, thermal storage, non-intrusive load monitoring and occupant-behaviour modelling become the core of the work: residential rises to 41% of publications.
- 2019
First Hydro-Québec Research Chair
Creation of the Hydro-Québec Research Chair on Transactive Management of Residential Power and Energy Demand, held by Professor Kodjo Agbossou.
- 2023
Alliance program 2023-2028
Launch of the research program on transactive flexibility management with Hydro-Québec's LTE/IREQ and Polytechnique Montréal, backed by NSERC, Mitacs and four industrial partners.
- 2024
A second Chair, broader in scope
The chair is renewed for five years ($3.28M) and becomes the Hydro-Québec Research Chair on Transactive Management of Electrical Energy. It adopts an open intellectual-property approach: results, including code, are released freely.
- 2022-2026
Transactive energy and flexibility markets
Market mechanisms, multi-agent coordination and machine learning now dominate — 35% of recent publications address transactive energy and markets — extending to greenhouses and remote communities.
Our research programs
Our activities are organized around three major programs that structure the laboratory's doctoral projects and collaborations.
Energy flexibility
2023-2028 research program with Hydro-Québec's LTE/IREQ and Polytechnique Montréal: unlocking customer energy flexibility through local energy service markets and hierarchical distribution grid management.
Quebec greenhouses
Program targeting greenhouse energy efficiency and yield in northern climates: predictive energy and climate management, robustness to uncertainty and intelligent anomaly diagnosis.
Remote communities
Program on microgrids for remote communities and sites: replacing diesel with hybrid renewable systems and storage, reliable even under extreme northern conditions.
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Join the laboratory
LIREI is always looking for motivated graduate students interested in intelligent energy management.
