Oregon State University part of $8M federal effort to improve electric grid operation

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State College is a part of an $8 million Division of Power effort to replace and enhance the operation of the nation’s hydroelectric era methods, lots of that are roughly a century outdated.

Ted Brekken, professor {of electrical} engineering and pc science within the OSU Faculty of Engineering, will lead Oregon State’s $1.9 million portion of the venture, together with co-principal investigators Eduardo Cotilla-Sanchez and Yue Cao, additionally electrical engineering and pc science researchers at Oregon State. 

Brekken, who oversees the Wallace Power Techniques & Renewables Facility at OSU, will discover methods to boost grid operate and adaptability because the grid receives extra electrical energy from wind and photo voltaic sources and offers with trendy masses such because the charging of electrical autos.

“These advances and enhancements might be applied throughout the subsequent 5 to 10 years and will probably be related for many years to come back,” Brekken mentioned. 

Brekken is a part of OSU’s Power Techniques group, which conducts analysis on a spread of subjects together with renewable vitality, motors, turbines, energy provides, energy high quality and electrical methods resiliency.

Brekken’s group on the Division of Power venture is aiming to exhibit and quantify the worth of a hybrid hydroelectric-storage era unit, which entails combining a hydropower unit that doesn’t have storage functionality with supercapacitors. 

Supercapacitors are short-term vitality storage gadgets generally utilized in methods requiring common and fast cost/discharge cycles, like vehicles and different autos, elevators and industrial equipment.

Brekken will information the development of a 200-kilowatt, lab-based hybrid hydroelectric-storage era unit to function a testing floor for efficiency evaluation and mannequin validation.

The group may also develop a high-resolution, real-time, wide-area grid mannequin for investigating the hoped-for grid operation advantages, which embody improved capability to accommodate the expansion of wind and photo voltaic era, together with general grid operational resilience and stability.

The opposite two grants awarded by the Division of Power as a part of the $8 million funding package deal to enhance hydropower flexibility and grid reliability each went to groups led by energy corporations, Common Electrical and Littoral Energy Techniques.

Hydropower, one of many oldest and largest sources of renewable vitality, makes use of the pure circulate of transferring water to generate electrical energy. It accounts for practically 60% of Pacific Northwest electrical era, 37% of whole U.S. renewable electrical energy era, and roughly 7% of whole electrical energy era, in keeping with the DOE.