The University of New Mexico has announced its participation in a $20 million National Science Foundation (NSF) research program that aims to modernize the electrical grid.
The five-year NSF grant seeks to transform existing electricity distribution feeders into interconnected microgrids utilizing multiple testbeds across New Mexico, including facilities at Mesa Del Sol in Albuquerque, the statement said.
The NSF award from its Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) will support research and education at the New Mexico SMART Grid Center.
SMART stands for Sustainable, Modular, Adaptive, Resilient and Transactive.
“The NM SMART Grid Center is a novel, interdisciplinary research center that will address pressing design, operational, data, and security challenges of next-generation electric power management,” said William Michener, principal investigator for the award and state director of New Mexico EPSCoR. “Through this grant, we will not only advance research areas of national importance but train a cadre of undergraduate and graduate students in New Mexico to join the STEM workforce.”
The UNM team is made up of a team of researchers from the School of Engineering, the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of University Libraries and Learning Sciences. UNM’s Department of Economics will model human behavior with respect to energy services.
A significant part of its research will be conducted at the Center for Emerging Energy Technologies, the university said.
Research will focus on:
The UNM technical co-lead on the project is Andrea Mammoli, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of UNM’s Center for Emerging Energy Technologies.
Mammoli said the central issue the consortium will be addressing is making the current electrical grid, which is more than a century old.
Mammoli also said another outcome will be to train next generation electrical professionals in power engineering, cybersecurity, machine learning, networking, communications, data mining and artificial intelligence.
Industry partners include Siemens, Public Service Company of New Mexico, the Electric Power Research Institute, Oracle and El Paso Electric.
The effort includes researchers from the University of New Mexico (UNM), New Mexico State University, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Santa Fe Community College, Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Microgrid Systems Laboratory.
Outreach to area K-12 students and the community will be done in cooperation with Explora Museum.
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