PIRE: U.S.-Denmark Cooperative Research and Education in Intermittency-Friendly Community-Scale Renewable Energy Micro-Grids

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Uncertain resource supplies, global change and energy market volatility call for strategies directed at developing alternative energy solutions. Anticipated requirements for reduction in fossil fuel consumption and carbon emissions from large-scale centralized power generation, point to the need for fundamentally sound ways to increase renewable energy sources along with facilities for delivery and distribution. This Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) project addresses the technical, social, and economic aspects of community-scale renewable energy micro-grids. The partnership involves researchers from the U.S. and Denmark who, together, will serve as a cooperative, virtual research, development and education center. Primary partners are the University of California-Santa Cruz, the University of California-Davis, Aalborg University and the Technical University of Denmark.Technically, the core efforts of this PIRE focus on integrating engineering design and deployment principles with sociological elements of energy user behavior. This will be achieved through a collaborative research framework that collects supply and demand data in both countries, models micro-grid-user operation, and analyzes the effects of intermittency and variable demand. In doing this, the U.S.-Danish team will focus on system optimization based on site-specific solar, wind, heat pumps, cogeneration and storage, and intelligent agents for load managing. Integrated with the five-year research effort is a well balanced educational program for student and junior researchers, professional development focused on sustainability engineering, renewable energy, and ecological design, as well as workforce development seminars for industry professionals. Junior participants have access to hands-on design and operation opportunities, reinforced by jointly prepared video-linked courses on renewable micro-grid fundamentals and operation. Overall, the anticipated broader impacts include the practical refinement of an innovative approach to power generation that takes into account local and regional variations, while complementing the existing power grid. If successful, future applications could lead to a measurable increase in carbon-free energy capacity with potentially lower environmental and regulatory requirements. Furthermore, through outreach and instruction for communities, schools, colleges and industry, via workshops, specialized workforce development activities, and new education modules, the combined results are expected to provide an accessible and open resource to assist entrepreneurs, decision makers and educators who foresee similar needs and challenges in their own local communities or regions. The project is funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE) through the PIRE program.