SRC establishes $5m research partnership to market smart grid and PV technologies

13 July 2010

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC), a university-research consortium for semiconductors and related technologies, has established a $5m industry-university partnership devoted to bringing efficient energy systems and technologies to the marketplace.

Founding industry members include ABB, Applied Materials, Bosch, First Solar, IBM, Nexans and Tokyo Electron.

The Energy Research Initiative (ERI) combines companies from semiconductors and other energy-related sectors with university research centres to address the global need for smart alternative energy sources. The group said that initial research will address the need for new modelling and simulation tools to support the development of improved photovoltaic (PV) devices and the development of systems and technologies to enable an efficient, reliable and secure smart grid electricity infrastructure with integrated renewable energy resources.

‘The pervasive use of simulation in semiconductor process development, device design and system analysis has been a critical factor in the success of the electronics industry,’ said SRC executive vice president Steven Hillenius.

‘Similar capabilities do not exist for technologies in support of solar-powered systems. Likewise, today’s smart grid simulation capabilities are also limited, and new transformational approaches are required to enable significant integration of renewable energy resources into the grid.’

The ERI will initially address two critical areas for efficient distribution of renewable energy resources including PV and technologies to enable and optimise smart grids.

A photovoltaic research centre will be established at Purdue University to address the performance, cost, reliability and manufacturing challenges of PV technologies. A smart grid research centre will also be established at Carnegie Mellon University to support the incorporation of renewable energy resources and provide modeling, simulation and control tools needed to manage, optimise and secure the power grid, according to SRC.

The smart grid centre will develop the dynamic monitoring and decision systems (DYMONDS) required to create a new paradigm for the electricity infrastructure in addition to developing personal energy systems.

The ERI will be managed by a SRC subsidiary called The Energy Research Corporation (TERC), which was formed in 2009 to create opportunities between the semiconductor industry and energy sector.

Copyright © 2010 NewNet

Tags: energy efficiency, smart grid, solar

This story was published on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at 4:01 pm and is filed under North America, companies, energy efficiency. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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