Global Centers Track 2: Equitable and User-Centric Energy Market for Resilient Grid-interactive Communities

分布式能源(DER)具有巨大的潜力，可以通过收集和分配各种根据当地社区特点量身定做的可再生能源，将运营商和用户转变为更清洁和更具弹性的能源供应。在这一转型中，公平和以用户为中心的市场至关重要。需要新的设计、机制和技术，以便在电网边缘为不同的社区和利益攸关方建立一个基于DER的、自我维持的清洁能源生态系统。这项授予圣克拉拉大学(SCU)的全球中心设计奖支持美国参与中心的规划阶段，以应对这些挑战。计划中的中心由美国SCU和加拿大康科迪亚大学(CU)共同领导，旨在创建一个具有关键质量的全球研究和培训平台，用于协作调查、创新和教育，为电网互动社区实现以用户为中心的能源经济。其目标是促进科学知识和工程解决方案，为更广泛的当地社区提供更公平、负担得起、灵活和可靠的清洁能源供应。它将调查有利的机制和技术，以提高全球范围内清洁能源的社区接受度、利益相关者的利益和提供者/消费者的互动。该中心将遵循其受使用启发的性质来设计研究和教育活动，以应对电网互动社区中关键利益相关者的实际挑战。教育和外展部分将为学术界、工业界和社区培养下一代劳动力。在设计阶段，该中心将专注于两个关键组件：网格交互社区和以用户为中心的市场。它将促进不同研究专家和社区用户之间的对话和合作。它的项目将调查：i)关键利益相关者的关键应用和用例，呼吁以使用为基础的多学科和国际合作；ii)电网互动社区、用户概况、设备驱动的能源管理、机械经济和能源公平的新理论、框架和模型；iii)清洁能源市场、基于社区的能源互动和可扩展的联合模拟的新架构；以及iv)创新的电网边缘技术，用于高效、灵活、可信和弹性的分布式能源管理，以应对电网互动社区的干扰、对手和灾难。该中心将发布其联合模拟工具、测试用例和数据集，以发展研究社区和生态系统。这两个领先机构之间的国际合作将利用其当地社区独特的地理、技术、监管和文化背景，为全球范围内惠及普通公众的研究和教育活动提供丰富和多样化的机会。将向少数群体研究人员、专业人员、学生和其他用户提供特别计划，以促进生态系统中多部门利益攸关方的多样性、公平性、包容性和可及性。该奖项由全球中心计划资助，这是一项创新计划，旨在支持受使用启发的研究，以应对与气候变化和/或清洁能源相关的全球挑战。Track 2设计奖支持美国的研究人员将国际团队聚集在一起，开发研究问题和合作伙伴关系，进行景观分析，合成数据，和/或建立多方利益相关者网络，以推动他们未来更大规模的应用启发研究。  该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Distributed energy resources (DERs) have tremendous potential to transform operators and users toward more clean and resilient energy supplies by harvesting and distributing various renewable energies tailored to the profiles of distinctive local communities. An equitable and user-centric market is essential in this transformation. New designs, mechanisms, and technologies are needed to establish a DER-based, self-sustaining clean energy ecosystem at the edge of power grids for a diverse spectrum of communities and stakeholders. This Global Centers Design award to Santa Clara University (SCU) supports U.S. participation in the planning phase of a center to tackle these challenges. The planned Center, co-led by SCU in the US and Concordia University (CU) in Canada, aims to create a global research and training platform with a critical mass for collaborative investigation, innovation, and education toward a user-centric energy economy for grid-interactive communities. The goal is to advance scientific knowledge and engineering solutions for more equitable, affordable, flexible, and reliable access to clean energy supplies for a broader range of local communities. It will investigate enabling mechanisms and technologies to increase community acceptance, stakeholder benefits, and provider/consumer interaction of clean energy in a global context. The Center will follow its use-inspired nature to design research and education activities that address the practical challenges of key stakeholders in grid-interactive communities. The education and outreach components will prepare the next-generation workforce for academia, industry, and communities. During the Design Phase, the Center will focus on two critical components: grid-interactive communities and user-centric markets. It will foster conversations and collaborations among diversified research experts and community users. Its projects will investigate: i) Critical applications and use cases from key stakeholders that call for use-inspired, multi-disciplinary, and international collaborations; ii) New theories, frameworks, and models for grid-interactive communities, user profiling, device-driven energy management, machina economicus, and energy fairness; iii) New architectures for clean energy markets, community-based energy interactions, and scalable co-simulation, and iv) Innovative grid edge technologies for efficient, flexible, trustworthy, and resilient distributed energy management against disturbances, adversaries, and disasters for grid-interactive communities. The Center will release its co-simulation tools, testing cases, and datasets to grow the research community and the ecosystem. The international collaborations between the two leading institutions will leverage the distinctive geographical, technological, regulatory, and cultural context in their local communities to provide enriched and diversified opportunities for research and education activities benefiting the general public in the global context. Special programs will be offered to minority researchers, professionals, students, and other users for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility among multi-sector stakeholders in the ecosystem. This award is funded by the Global Centers program, an innovative program that supports use-inspired research addressing global challenges related to climate change and/or clean energy. Track 2 design awards support U.S.-based researchers to bring together international teams to develop research questions and partnerships, conduct landscape analyses, synthesize data, and/or build multi-stakeholder networks to advance their use-inspired research at larger scale in the future.  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.