$500,000: NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER)

The Science of Measurement-based Stability Assessment and Model Validation for Microgrids
Principal Investigator: Luke Dosiek, assistant professor of electrical engineering

This grant will help build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. The project has the potential to dramatically increase the reliability and resiliency of microgrids by providing stakeholders with real-time indicators of stability along with regular model validation and tuning. This will enable more rapid and reliable designs of microgrids to: 1) accelerate the paradigm shift from central to distributed generation; 2) reduce community dependence on large corporate- or government-owned energy resources; 3) foster increased use of renewable energy; and 4) enable a new level of rural electrification. The grant will also support work to redesign and modernize the power curriculum at Union, including a development of a new cross-disciplinary course that merges power engineering and music theory that will culminate in a public concert of sonified power grid data.