Resources — Wind, Solar, Hydro, Geothermal, Ocean, Tidal

BUILDINGS

Yvan Beliveau, director of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction and the G.A. Snyder-Falkinham Professor of Building Construction, specializes in building energy systems.

Robert Dunay, the T.A. Carter Professor of Architecture in the School of Architecture + Design and chair of industrial design, was one of the primary faculty advisors for the 2002 and 2005 Virginia Tech entry in the Solar Decathlon Competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Both projects fared well in the international competition with the 2005 house capturing first place in critical categories of architecture, dwelling, day lighting and electric light judged by an international panel of architects and designers.

Michael Ermann, assistant professor of architecture in the School of Architecture + Design, specializes in designing residences using stack-effect cooling towers, shared shade, and cross-ventilation for passive cooling; and innovative insulation strategies, direct gain, thermal mass; infiltration minimization, night insulation, and novel thermostat set point strategies. Particular attention is paid to the support roles of thermal mass, tight construction, thermal resistance, siting, and aperture size. He teaches environmental building systems.

Jim Jones, associate professor of architecture and director of the Center for High Performance Learning Environments, researches and teaches building energy systems. His research sponsors include the Virginia Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy for his work on roof systems.

USE AND TRANSPORTATION

Robert Schubert, associate dean for research and outreach for the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, specializes in building efficiency and sustainable design. He was one of the primary faculty advisors for the 2002 and 2005 Virginia Tech entry in the Solar Decathlon Competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Both projects fared well in the international competition with the 05 house capturing first place in critical categories of architecture, dwelling, day lighting and electric light judged by an international panel of architects and designers.

Joe Wheeler, assistant professor of architecture in the School of Architecture + Design, specializes in energy efficiency. He was one of the primary faculty advisors for the 2002 and 2005 Virginia Tech entry in the Solar Decathlon Competition sponsored by the Department of Energy. Both projects fared well in the international competition with the 05 house capturing first place in critical categories of architecture, dwelling, day lighting and electric light judged by an international panel of architects and designers.

CONNECTING TO THE GRID

Virgilio Centeno, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, does research on synchronized sampling and phasor measurement, power systems as critical infrastructures, power systems education, and microcontroller applications in power systems, which has applications to power security and to integrating distributed generation (DG) energy systems with the power grid. For examples, he and his students are developing smart reconfigurable protection modules (SRPM). An SRPM consists of a digital protection system with embedded intelligence and communication channels that can adapt power relay functions in response to an unexpected change in the system at a DG site. An example would be the loss of one of the transmission lines that bring power to a distribution system. Such an event would cause an energy imbalance, forcing other DG units and the remaining transmission system to make up for the loss. The use of SPEBBs and SRPM together will significantly improve system efficiency and security, a growing concern in our post-9/11 world.

Fei (Fred) Wang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, works on alternative energy power electronics, power systems, and controls. For example, Wang and his colleagues at the Center for Power Electronics Systems are developiing user-friendly grid-interface connectors. The engineers have proposed improvements to existing power electronics building blocks (PEBBs) with advanced digital protection to enable easy installation of distributed generation technologies, such as a solar house that is gathering more energy than it can use or store, into the power grid. Basically, with embedded intelligence for grid interface, PEBBs become SPEBBs (smart power electronics building blocks). These smart modules will facilitate a simpler communication structure. “Instead of being custom-made for each application, the SPEBBs can be mass-produced,” said Wang, “thus reducing human error and increasing dependability at greatly reduced costs.” See also the Center for Power Electronic Systems in the Energy Infrastructure category.

MATERIALS

Scott Case, associate professor of engineering science and mechanics, performs life prediction of composite materials subjected to spectrum and environmental loading. Energy-related applications include reliability and durability analyses of composite materials for wind turbine and hydrogen storage, as well as for proton exchange membrane fuel cell systems.

OVERVIEW, PLANNING, POLICY, AND IMPLEMENTATION

Richard F. Hirsh, professor of History and Science and Technology Studies, performs social science research on the history and management of electric utility systems. Winner of several grants from the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities, Hirsh focuses on long-term social issues affecting the use of technologies in the regulated and increasingly deregulated utility system. He is especially interested in business and government policies that affected the power network and how new policy can be created to benefit companies, customers, and the environment. Author of Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry (1989) and Power Loss: Deregulation and Restructuring in the American Electric Utility System (1999), Hirsh helped create and is director of the interdisciplinary Consortium on Energy Restructuring at Virginia Tech.

Saifur Rahman, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute, did an overview of alternative energy sources including solar, wind, hydro, biomass, geothermal, and ocean, as well as characterization of storage devices used in alternative energy systems. "'Renewable Energy and the Global Environment' - A Modular, Web-Based Interdisciplinary Course for Undergraduates" was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. He teaches alternative energy systems.

John Randolph, professor of urban affairs and planning and director of the School of Public and International Affairs, specializes in the areas of environmental planning and policy, land use planning, water resources planning, energy planning and policy, renewable energy, energy efficiency, and environmental impact assessment.

Tamin Younos of the Virginia Water Resources Research Center is looking at the potential use of renewable energy resources for developing sustainable water supplies that implement advanced water purification technologies.

SOLAR

Randy Heflin, associate professor of physics, and colleagues in chemistry and in engineering, focuses on nanophotonics and organic photovoltaics. He studies the design and development of nanomolecular devices for conversion of solar energy into electricity. For example, Heflin and Rick Davis, associate professor in chemical engineering, are working on an NSF-funded project to increase the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells by controlling the materials at the nanometer length scale. Organic solar cells have the potential to be more cost efficient, lighter, and more flexible than current commercial silicon solar cells. Heflin’s work is supported by Luna Innovations and the National Science Foundation.

Saifur Rahman and George Hagerman of the Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute research methods for estimating performance of different solar energy systems, including photovoltaic, domestic hot water, swimming pool, and transpired solar wall ventilation air pre-heating. For example, the "Virginia Million Solar Roofs and PV4VA" project, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, compiled methods for estimating performance of different solar energy systems, including photovoltaic, domestic hot water, swimming pool heating, and transpired solar wall ventilation air pre-heating, to provide building owners with the means of determining the most cost-effective solar application for their residential or commercial buildings.

WIND, WAVES, AND TIDES

George Hagerman, a senior research associate at Virginia Tech's Advanced Research Institute in Northern Virginia, researches marine renewable energy resources, including offshore winds, waves, and tidal currents for both utility-scale electric power generation, and small-scale energy harvesting for marine and coastal sensor networks. He has performed ocean wave energy resource and site characterization for potential demonstration projects in seven states, for the Electric Power Research Institute. Two sites are moving to the next phase of development. He just completed (May 06) tidal current energy resource and site characterization for potential demonstration projects in five states and two Canadian provinces for the Electric Power Research Institute. Work is now underway for the demonstration project in Nova Scotia. He is presently developing resource estimating methodology for potential tidal and river current energy conversion sites and identification of novel technology applications for an underwater turbine developer. He teaches independent study on wind resource evaluation.
       Hagerman also does research on the benefits of developing surface coal mined lands into wind energy projects. In the “Wind Powering America - Virginia Initiative,” sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Wind Powering America program, Hagemann’s group collaborated with James Madison University, George Washington University, Old Mill Power Company, and the Environmental Resources Trust to promote environmentally responsible wind power development in Virginia. Virginia Tech’s technical contribution was to research the benefits of developing surface coal mined lands into wind energy projects, taking advantage of existing infrastructure elements while reducing reclamation costs to mine operators.

Rakesh Kapania, professor of aerospace and ocean engineering, is determining the sensitivity of various aerolastic responses, such as divergence, flutter, aeroelastic lift distribution, and control effectiveness, to small perturbations in the shape parameters of the wing. These studies of the interaction among inertial, elastic, and aerodynamic forces of materials and structures are useful for design of wind turbines.

Danesh Tafti, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is developing computational design tools for wind turbines and underwater energy harvesting structures.