The New York State Foundation for Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR) is supporting a Rensselaer effort to study the ability of the electricity distribution grid to efficiently make use of energy from alternative sources such as solar panels, wind turbines, and fuel cells. The work is crucial to New York’s quest to have 25 percent of its energy come from renewable energy sources by 2012.

“More homes and businesses are generating their own electricity through such devices, but distribution grids were not built for end users to feed power back into the system,” says Nag Patibandla, former director of Rensselaer’s Center for Future Energy Systems (now with Applied Materials). Instead, the grids were built around central power plants, with substations feeding energy to consumers in a one-way flow.

As the input from widely distributed sources increases, the efficiency and stability of power grids may suffer. In addition, energy produced from the sun and wind is intermittent, at best. To model all these factors, Patibandla built a small test bed in the Jonsson Engineering Center on the Rensselaer campus.

Jian Sun, associate professor of electrical, computer, and systems engineering, whose research focus includes the integration of renewable energy systems with the grid, is now principal investigator. He and Nadarajah Narendran, associate professor with the Lighting Research Center, are exploring the stability, dynamics, and quality of power distribution under various conditions. Narendran is particularly interested in the effects on LEDs when the addition of new energy sources impairs power quality.