Professor Arijit Banerjee’s group has been researching a wind-energy harvest architecture suitable for offshore wind turbines, which has been funded by the Department of Energy since 2018. They used a 400 W benchtop setup to prove the concept and demonstrated it at a 125 kW power level at the POETS Research and Development Center (see below and youtube link to check out the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I6LOAICPvY&t=1s). Scaling up the power by more than 300x brought many practical challenges and surprises, including a moment when the generator was on fire and an episode similar to an “aircrash investigation.” ProfessorBanerjee shared the group’s journey and discussed the architecture, along with results from the high-power testbed. This item is based on Arijit’s notes as well as an abstract he submitted for the lecture on November 2, 2023.
Dr. Ulaş C. Coşkun began work in September as CEME’s new research engineer. Dr. Coskun oversees the CEME facilities and the power and energy systems areas on the 4th floor of ECEB and ensures the equipment is in optimal condition for faculty and student use. He primarily supports faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students in experimental research by training them in instrumentation and equipment. Dr. Coskun graduated from Illinois with a Ph.D. in Physics in 2005. He then held postdocs at the University of California, the University of Texas, and Duke University, before joining ISS, a microcopy company, as a research engineer. At ISS, he focused on developing microscopy setups for research groups all over the globe. During his tenure, he developed hardware, software, and electronics to enable commercially available confocal microscopes to do FLIM, PLIM, FCS, and nSPIRO experiments. Dr. Coşkun published two Science and various PRL articles during his academic career in condensed matter, specifically focusing on proximity-induced superconductivity in graphene and carbon nanotubes and how the magnetic field affects the electrical properties of such systems. At ISS, he designed a variable pinhole, the fifth in the world design, which improves user experiences on ISS confocal systems, and an electronic circuit which lets MaiTai lasers be usable in PLIM experiments. His software is still actively used in the physics department, where he earned his degree. With over a decade of experience in experimental research and a strong background in physics, Dr. Coşkun brings a wealth of knowledge to his role as the CEME research engineer.
ECE Professor Domínguez-García and Research Professor in the Coordinated Science Laboratory and the Information Trust Institute, has received dual honors. He became the Inaugural M. Stanley Helm Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering as of August 2023, to be invested on March 25, 2024, was recognized by IEEE for his contributions to distributed control and uncertainty analysis of electrical energy systems, and elevated to IEEE Fellow on January 1, 2023. This prestigious honor is reserved for IEEE members with extraordinary technical accomplishment in an IEEE field of interest. Domínguez-García’s research focuses on providing a reliable and efficient energy supply in our changing world with an electricity infrastructure being transformed and driven by the integration of new technologies and renewable energy sources. In his research on uncertainty analysis, Alejandro’s team develops mathematical frameworks to quantify the impact of random events on power system reliability. Renewable energy systems are a good example: uncertainty analysis can help predict how variations in solar and wind power will affect your energy system. Another example is transmission line failures, which can jeopardize system operational reliability. Professor M. Stanley Helm’s (1911-2003) affiliation and dedication to the power engineering program at Illinois spanned more than 70 years. After earning his bachelor’s (1933) and master’s (1934) degrees in electrical engineering at Illinois, he worked for Illinois Power and Midstate Electric Company, and then at Clemson University and Illinois, fulfilling his calling to teaching. For the next six decades, Helm inspired several generations of electrical engineering students. He co-authored a textbook, Circuit Analysis by Laboratory Methods and received the professional degree in electrical engineering in 1950. At a time when other universities were abandoning their power engineering programs in the 1960s and ’70s, Helm played a key role in preserving the Illinois Program. As a researcher, Helm made significant contributions to the field now known as power quality. Although he retired in 1982, he continued to make valuable contributions to the Electrical & Computer Alumni Association Advisory Board where he served for 15 years. This article was excerpted from a Grainger College of Engineering 8/7/2023 news article by Eleanor Wyllie, from Alejandro’s home page, and from a plaque honoring M. Stanley Helm.
Kiruba Sivasubramaniam Haran – professor of electrical & computer engineering and director, CENTER FOR POWER OPTIMIZATION OF ELECTRO-THERMAL SYSTEMS (P/O/E/T/S),
Professor Haran joined 24 other active NAE members in the Grainger Engineering faculty. These include CEME Power faculty members Professor Emeritus Phil Krein and, before him, the late Professor Emeritus Pete Sauer. NAE memberships are among the highest honors an engineer in the U.S. can receive. Kiruba studies high specific power cryogenic and non-cryogenic machines for electrified transportation and renewable energy applications. Since 2022, he has served as director of the National Science Foundation Engineering Center for Power Optimization of Electro-Thermal Systems – a key enabler in providing an increase in power density through advanced technology and workforce development. He also is affiliated with the Carle Illinois College of Medicine at Illinois. His research has contributed to advanced high-power-density electrical machinery and high-temperature, superconducting technology applications. His group works closely with industry to insert new machine and drive technologies into actual products, and is collaborating with aerospace, renewable energy, and other companies on a range of applications. In partnership with NASA, Haran’s group recently demonstrated a 1-megawatt electric motor that could help propel future, more environmentally friendly and economically sustainable aircraft. Under ARPA-E support, they are now working on cryogen-free superconducting machines through a university spin-off, Hinetics, LLC, with the goal of making unprecedented improvements in efficiency. This news item was excerpted from https://ece.illinois.edu/newsroom/64246 by Lois Yoksoulian and Grainger Engineering staff.
On January 5, 2023, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building (ECEB) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign became the university’s first zero energy (ZE) certified facility through innovative facility design and clean energy produced on campus. All the operational energy associated with ECEB is now offset through a combination of on-site solar production and solar renewable energy credits (SRECs), which earned the 238,000 gross square foot facility official Zero Energy Certification (ZE) from the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). The ECE Building produces about 11 percent of its energy through its rooftop array, a 300 kW setup featuring 970 panels. The rest of its consumption is supported through SRECs from Solar Farm 2.0, a 12.32 megawatt (MWdc) utility-scale installation on south campus bordering the Village of Savoy. The IFLI standard for meeting ZE certification includes accounting for all heating, cooling, and other energy a facility uses. Any non-electrical consumption is converted to a kilowatt-hour electricity equivalent to assess the efficiency performance and necessary offset. The certification process required a full year for verification and guarantees for continued zero energy operation into the future. Offsite renewable energy production must also be located within the same regional power grid and linked to building energy usage. Reaching energy conservation and clean energy targets as a part of overall sustainability efforts is fundamental to Illinois’ land-grant university mission. The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) is the university’s strategic plan to meet the Climate Leadership Commitments, including becoming carbon neutral as soon as possible and building resilience to climate change in the local community. This article was excerpted from https://ece.illinois.edu/newsroom/news/net-zero-certification by Steve Breitwieser.
Peter Sauer, Grainger Chair Emeritus Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, died on December 27, 2022 in Urbana, IL. He was 76. Pete joined the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a faculty member in 1977. At UIUC he taught courses and directed research on power systems and electric machines. His main contributions were in the modeling and simulation of power system dynamics with applications to steady-state and transient stability analysis. He authored/co-authored over 200 technical papers and a book with M. A. Pai, Power System Dynamics and Stability, which was published by Prentice-Hall in 1998. He retired from full-time service at the end of 2019. During his tenure at UIUC, Sauer won numerous honors and accolades. In 2020 he received the IEEE Power & Energy Society Lifetime Achievement Award for his exceptional career-long contributions to power systems modeling and dynamic analysis, and for leadership in power engineering education. He received the 2022 IEEE Tesla Award “for contributions to dynamic modeling and simulation of synchronous generators and for leadership in power engineering education.” He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003. Sauer was once asked what he loved about engineering. “I love that you get a chance to think big and think small” was part of his response. As an educator and mentor, his favorite quote was “Students are candles to be lighted, not bottles to be filled” (adapted from Plutarch). Pete was so influential in his students’ lives that one former student, Bahman Hoveida, established a named professorship, The Peter Sauer – Bahman Hoveida Distinguished Chair in Electric Power, in his honor.
On January 5, 2023, the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building (ECEB) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign became the university’s first zero energy (ZE) certified facility through innovative facility design and clean energy produced on campus. All the operational energy associated with ECEB is now offset through a combination of on-site solar production and solar renewable energy credits (SRECs), which earned the 238,000 gross square foot facility official Zero Energy Certification (ZE) from the International Living Future Institute (ILFI). The ECE Building produces about 11 percent of its energy through its rooftop array, a 300 kW setup featuring 970 panels. The rest of its consumption is supported through SRECs from Solar Farm 2.0, a 12.32 megawatt (MWdc) utility-scale installation on south campus bordering the Village of Savoy. The IFLI standard for meeting ZE certification includes accounting for all heating, cooling, and other energy a facility uses. Any non-electrical consumption is converted to a kilowatt-hour electricity equivalent to assess the efficiency performance and necessary offset. The certification process required a full year for verification and guarantees for continued zero energy operation into the future. Offsite renewable energy production must also be located within the same regional power grid and linked to building energy usage. Reaching energy conservation and clean energy targets as a part of overall sustainability efforts is fundamental to Illinois’ land-grant university mission. The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) is the university’s strategic plan to meet the Climate Leadership Commitments, including becoming carbon neutral as soon as possible and building resilience to climate change in the local community. This article was excerpted from https://ece.illinois.edu/newsroom/news/net-zero-certification by Steve Breitwieser.
ITEC Asia-Pacific 2022 will be held on the Zhejiang University (ZJU) International Campus, Haining, Zhejiang Province, China, from October 28–31, 2022. The conference covers all major topics in power electronics, electric machines, and power systems for transportation electrification. It addresses a variety of transportation systems such as electric vehicles, hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, fuel cell vehicles, heavy-duty and off-road vehicles, rail, sea, undersea, air, and space vehicles. Haining is located in northeast Zhejiang Province, in the Hangzhou Bay region of the Yangtze River Delta. It is famous for the Qiantang River tidal bore, leather shadow puppets, and early silk fabric. Today, it is a major producer of leather, textiles, solar panels, and automotive parts. Professor Krein served as Executive Dean of Zhejiang University/University of Illinois Joint Engineering Institute (ZJU-UIUC) from 2015 through 2020, and since 2020 has been director of the Dynamic Research Enterprise for Multidisciplinary Engineering Sciences (DREMES), a unique umbrella for active collaborations among ZJO, Illinois, and the ZJU-UIUC in Haining, China. The enterprise explores fundamental global issues in human health, energy and environments, and sustainable manufacturing.
Dr. Kim is both a researcher and educator who is renowned for developing engineering lecture videos that she has shared publicly on YouTube since 2014. She posts the lecture videos she develops to her YouTube channel called “katkimshow” which has 76,000+ subscribers and some of her videos have over 430,000 views. To make her courses more accessible, she launched the website called Engineering Spark that provides additional resources on her courses, including quizzes and simulation problems. Many students and industry professionals alike have said that these videos and coursework have been invaluable to their studies. Dr. Katherine A. Kim received the B.S. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) from the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in 2007. She received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in ECE from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011 and 2014, respectively, where she was very active in the Power and Energy Conference at Illinois (PECI), see PECI 2022, pages 38–40. In PECI’s inauguration year (2010), she served as Registration Officer; in 2011 she was in charge of the Program and in 2012 served as Co-Director. In 2013 she served in Publications and in 2014 was in charge of Student Networking. She also innovated a workshop on presentation skills, including PowerPoint karaoke. Katherine was an Assistant Professor of ECE at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, South Korea, from 2014–2018. Since 2019, she has been an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. For IEEE PELS, she served as the Student Membership Chair in 2013–2014, PELS Member-At-Large for 2016–2018, PELS Women in Engineering Chair in 2018-2020, and currently is the PELS Constitution and Bylaws Chair 2021–2022.
