EPRES - Electrical Power & Renewable Energy Systems Research Lab

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EPRES

Current Support:

The research activities in this laboratory are supported in part by NV Energy (formerly Sierra Pacific Power Co.)
Assessment of Alternative Energy Applications at the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) $60,000.00
Kira Lay has been recently awarded $4,500.00 by NSF EPSCOR Climate Change Program - Undergraduate Research for her proposal titled "Integration of Renewable Energy Based Power Generation in to the US Grid: Benefits & Challenges". The grant was for Summer 2009 and the duration was 10 weeks. Her research findings were presented by her at the NSF EPSCOR meeting held in Reno, NV in August 2009.

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Our computers (7 Dell Precision T7400 workstations with two Quad Core E5420 @ 2.50GHz processors with 16 GB RAM) are equipped with the following state of the art computation & power system software programs:

EMTP-RV for power system electromagnetic transients simulations with a new visualization tool
PSCAD by Manitoba-HVDC Research Center for power system transient stability studies
PowerWorld for power system steady state applications with a powerful user interface
PSS/E for power system dynamic simulations

In addition to the listed licensed software programs, MATLAB (with complete list of licensed toolboxes) is available on each workstation.

Power Educational Toolbox (PET), A powerful educational & research tool for understanding power flow and state estimation analysis in power systems is public and also available for use on our workstations. (Developed by Dr. F.H. Magnago and Dr. Ali Abur @ Texas A&M University)

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An excerpt from the testimony of Terry Boston, President and CEO of PJM interconnection, to US Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in July 2008: (Full testimony [ pdf ])

"...

If one is for renewable generation to power US economy, which I am, we need more transmission;
If one is for more nuclear energy to power US economy, which I am, we need more transmission;
If one is for the development of clean coal technology with carbon sequestration, which I am, we need more transmission;
If one is for the development of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that improve overall system efficiency and reduce oil imports and carbon emissions, which I am, we need more transmission..."

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Online Resources:

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

Western Wind and Solar Integration Study by GE & NREL [ html ]

US Wind Map [ html ] [ pdf ], Wind Atlas [ html ], Wind Data [ html ]

US Solar Radiation Map [ html ], Solar Data [ html ]

Renewable Energy Maps of Nevada [ html ]

Nevada Wind Map [ html ]

Check this service to learn the wind speed (m/s) or solar radiation (kWh/m²/day) at a given time of the day on US map [ html ] (You have to register to use this service but it is free!)

A wind navigator by AWS Truewind [ html ]

Renewable Energy Data Book - published by Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) unit of US Department of Energy (DOE) in September 2008 [ pdf ]

Renewable Energy Atlas of the West [ pdf ]

National Transmission Grid Study - presented to the President of US by DOE in 2002 [ pdf ]

Annual Energy Outlook by Information Administration (EIA) unit of DOE [ 2009 ]

The Modern Grid Strategy by National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) of DOE [ pdf ]

The Smart Grid: An Introduction by DOE [ pdf ]

20% Wind Energy by 2030 published by Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) unit of US Department of Energy (DOE) in July 2008 [ pdf ]

Search engine for technical papers:

IEEE Xplore

Web of Science (Citation Index)

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News & Magazines:

IEEE Power & Energy Magazine [ html ]