U.S. Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy announced the University of Central Florida will receive a $2 million grant from the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy. The grant will be used to support integration of solar energy into the nation’s electric grid.
“We must both reduce our dependence on fossil fuel, while ensuring reliable, affordable energy for families and businesses in central Florida,” said Murphy. “UCF – with the Florida Solar Energy Center – is researching and developing energy technologies that will protect our environment and strengthen our nation’s economy. As a Member of Congress, I will continue to help position central Florida as a national leader in green energy and innovation, working to create well-paying jobs, reducing our carbon footprint, and making our nation more energy independent.”
UCF was one of only 13 grantees chosen to help develop state-of-the-art grid planning and operational tools that will help the U.S. continue to be the worldwide leader in solar energy.
This project designs and develops a scalable architecture and a set of algorithms for distributed control and optimization. The platform encompasses automatic fault location isolation and service restoration and Volt-VAR optimization; distribution system state estimation algorithms for both the conventional non-convex task and the convex state estimation task; a three-phase unbalanced power flow model that captures the non-linear behavior of system components and enables rapid computation of sub-transmission network and unbalanced distribution network; a two-stage stochastic security-constrained algorithm for real-time operational planning; and a distribution energy market framework that utilizes both model-based and data-based techniques to provide market-based signals for real and reactive power control of PV systems.
