California Smart Grid Center

Smart Grid Team

Just some of the Smart Grid Center members on July 11, 2012.

Seal/logo of the California Energy Commission   California Energy Commission (CEC) Grant Establishing the CSGC June 2010 through June 2012

The California Smart Grid Center (CSGC) was established in June 2010 for the purpose of research and demonstration projects in the evolving smart grid area. Broad areas of interest include:

  1. Grid Security
  2. Plug-in-Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (PH&EV)
  3. Residential and Commercial sensor and home area networks
  4. Electrical Power Transmission and Distribution evolution.
  5. Technology Transfer Educational Activities

The faculty and staff of the CSUS Engieering College all bring a comprehensive set of skills to the research of how energy mangement will evolve in California. With my background in sensor, instrumentation, and telemetry, I will focus on the use of sensors and communication for energy management.

The first order of business was the creation of the Sensor/Home Area Network (HAN) Laboratory in August 2010 at Riverside Hall - Room 3001.

Sensor/HAN Lab Research Statement      NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Report

Sensor/HAN Research Roadmap 2011-2012      Sensor/HAN Research Year One Report April 2011

 

Elements of Micro-Grid - Battery Management Project Proposal
Researchers: Mohammad Vaziri, Suresh Vadhva, and Russ Tatro with both graduate and undergraduate students.

The primary focus of this activity is:

  1. Acquisition and installation of renewable resources such as photovoltaic and wind power generators.
  2. Acquisition and installation of energy storage devices such as advanced battery systems.
  3. Integration of computer based system automation to include grid status, fault detection/analysis and recovery.
  4. Demonstrate the control of battery systems for energy storage and peak energy use (local resource).

Recent Activites:

California Energy Commission (CEC) Grant BOA-99-234-P:  September 2009 through July 2010
Researchers: Suresh Vadhva and Russ Tatro with graduate student Puneet Kaur and undergraduate student Jeremy Dixon.

The CEC with PIER funded the building of a building to grid test bed facility in Cory Hall of UC Berkeley.
The team from CSUS shadowed the UC Berkeley development program and documented the process required to implement the Cory Hall testbed.

The CSUS group has submitted a paper to the Information Reuse and Integration Conference: Building to Grid (B2G) at the California Smart Grid Center

The final methodolgy report was presented to the CEC on July 9, 2010. CSUS Documentation of UC Berkeley B2G Methodolgy

 

California Energy Commission Grant BOA-99-237: September 2009 through June 2010
Researchers: Suresh Vadhva and Mohammad Vaziri with graduate students Chuck Hoffman and Kunjal Yagnik

Research in continuing in the fault analysis of electrical substations fed by multiple sources including the existing power grid and integrated distributed energy resources.

The group has published an IEEE paper: Standards Rules and Issues for Integration of Renewable Resources

 

National Renewal Energy Laboratory (NREL)/California Energy Commission (CEC) Grant titled Practical Processes towards Smarter Power Grids with Green Resources

CSUS has installed various sized photovoltaic systems around the campus. The existing power lab should receive a dedicated photovoltaic system within two years.