Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center for Responsive, Efficient, Livable, and Independent Sunlight-enabled Habitats (RELISH)

工程研究中心的规划赠款竞争是作为ERC计划内的试点招标运行。 规划赠款不需要作为整个ERC竞赛的一部分，但旨在建立团队之间的能力，以规划收敛，中心规模的工程研究。该规划补助金将组建一个多元化的多学科团队，制定全面的计划，并为NSF工程研究中心奠定基础，设计和实施集成系统和宜居环境，以响应，高效，以及独立于电网的本地太阳能利用，以可持续地满足人类对能源和照明日益增长的需求。换句话说，它将开发先进的自给自足的太阳能住宅建筑，以新颖的方式结合新的和新兴的技术。在美国，建筑物约占一次能源消耗的40%，用电量的75%。仅住宅建筑就占能源消耗的21%左右。与此同时，尽管政策措施（例如，能源星星）。突破当前的限制需要更广泛的创新方法，改变建筑物产生和消耗能源的方式，不仅要促进可持续性，还要提高我们能源基础设施的弹性。建筑或社区层面的能源独立可以防止自然和人为造成的能源供应中断，同时实现可再生资源的更大整合。因此，计划中的工程研究中心将通过使建筑物的能源生产和消费更具可持续性，弹性和安全性来服务于国家利益。这有利于国家繁荣和福利，同时通过使美国能源基础设施更加强大来帮助确保国防。这些目标将通过推进和整合新材料和新技术来实现，从而以直接造福社会的方式促进科学进步。NSF工程研究中心计划资助的目标是聚集和整合一个由工程师、建筑师、科学家和政策专家组成的世界级团队，以推进和成熟为响应、高效、独立于电网的本地太阳能利用，可持续地满足人类对能源和照明日益增长的需求。规划补助金将通过专业促进的规划研讨会支持团队建设，并通过概括性的在线活动建立跨地域和学科界限的沟通和信任。在整个赠款期间将举行定期规划会议。建议举办一次大型公共研讨会，召集ERC提案合作伙伴、杰出的特邀演讲者、纽约州立大学布法罗分校（UB）的学生、合作机构和其他机构，特别是少数民族服务机构。一系列由教师领导的为期半天的研讨会将向更广泛的团队介绍团队中所代表的各个学科的基本价值观和观点，促进整个团队的相互理解和信任。团队领导将前往访问现有的成功的ERC和潜在的工业合作伙伴。该团队将参与UB和合作机构现有的教育、外展和扩大参与方面的成功项目，以确定最佳实践和合作机会。在所有这些活动中，团队将系统地收集？客户的声音？从研究人员到公司，从K-12学生到设计师，建筑商和通过ERC开发的未来住房的潜在居住者的利益相关者的意见。该团队还将聘请营销，传播和社会科学研究人员，以确定和有效地调查潜在的居住者，旨在达到一个真正的横截面的布法罗？不同的人口。 拟议的项目将产生新的科学思想、研究方向及其应用，以解决可用和所需可再生能源之间的差距。该项目将大大推进对信息学驱动的光（波长）转换材料发展的基本理解，这些材料为收集和利用太阳能开辟了新的范例。它将为下一代自适应光伏和热/照明/消毒系统产生想法，以实现可持续的能源消耗和基于物联网的系统，用于大规模自适应控制和优化能量流。它将提供住宅建筑的新概念，引导我们根据新材料和新技术重新构想建筑物的设计、制造和使用方式。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research.This planning grant will assemble a diverse multidisciplinary team, develop a comprehensive plan, and lay the groundwork for an NSF Engineering Research Center that designs and implements integrated systems and livable environments for responsive, efficient, and grid-independent local use of sunlight to sustainably meet ever-increasing human needs for energy and light. In other words, it will develop advanced self-sufficient solar-powered residential buildings that incorporate new and emerging technologies in novel ways. In the U.S., buildings account for about 40% of primary energy consumption, and 75% of electricity use. Residential buildings alone account for about 21% of energy consumption. Meanwhile, total residential energy consumption continues to rise despite efficiency gains driven by policy measures (e.g., Energy Star). Breaking through current limitations requires a broader approach to innovation that changes the way buildings generate and consume energy, not only to promote sustainability, but also to increase the resiliency of our energy infrastructure. Energy independence at the building or neighborhood level can protect against both natural and human-caused disruptions of energy supply while enabling greater integration of renewable resources. Thus, the planned Engineering Research Center will serve the national interest by making energy generation and consumption in buildings more sustainable, resilient, and secure. This benefits national prosperity and welfare while helping to secure the national defense by making the US energy infrastructure more robust. These aims will be achieved by advancing and integrating new materials and technologies, and will thus promote the progress of science in a way that directly benefits society.The goal of this NSF Engineering Research Center planning grant is to assemble and integrate a world-class team of engineers, architects, scientists, and policy experts to advance and mature the vision for creating integrated systems and livable environments for responsive, efficient, and grid-independent local use of sunlight to sustainably meet ever-increasing human needs for energy and light. The planning grant will support team-building via professionally facilitated planning workshops with wraparound online activities that build communication and trust across geographic and disciplinary boundaries. Recurring planning meetings will be held throughout the grant period. A major public symposium is proposed to bring together ERC proposal partners, distinguished invited speakers, and students from SUNY at Buffalo (UB), partner institutions, and other institutions, particularly minority-serving institutions. A series of faculty-led half-day workshops will introduce the broader team to foundational values and perspectives of various disciplines represented on the team, furthering mutual understanding and trust across the team. Team leadership will travel to visit both existing successful ERCs and potential industrial partners. The team will engage with existing successful programs in education, outreach, and broadening participation at UB and partner institutions to identify best practices and opportunities for partnership. In all these activities the team will systematically gather ?voice of the customer? input from stakeholders ranging from researchers to companies to K-12 students to designers, builders, and potential occupants of future housing to be developed through the ERC. The team also will engage marketing, communication, and social science researchers to identify and effectively survey potential occupants, aiming to reach a true cross-section of Buffalo?s diverse population. The proposed project will generate new scientific ideas, research directions, and applications thereof that address the gap between available and needed renewable energy. The project will significantly advance fundamental understanding of the informatics-driven development of transformative light (wavelength) converting materials that open new paradigms for harvesting and utilizing solar energy. It will generate ideas for next generation adaptive photovoltaic and thermal/illumination/disinfection systems to realize sustainable energy consumption and internet-of-things-based systems for large-scale adaptive control and optimization of energy flow. It will provide new concepts in residential architecture that lead us to reimagine ways in which buildings are designed, manufactured, and occupied in light of new materials and technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.