EPICS global research centre for 100% renewable power grids launched in US

The Electric Power Innovation for a Carbon-free Society (EPICS) centre has been launched at the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Baltimore, MD in the US.

The new centre, which is based at the University’s Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI) and launched formally on November 1, brings together partners from the UK and Australia as well as others in the US to undertake research towards the delivery of 100% renewable energy power grids across the world.

The centre is led by Benjamin Hobbs, professor of environmental management, and co-directed by Yury Dvorkin, associate professor at JHU, with other US participants including Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California Davis.

The UK team, which includes the universities of Strathclyde, Edinburgh and Newcastle, is led by Mark O’Malley, professor of power systems at Imperial College.

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The Australian team, which includes the CSIRO and Monash University, is led by Pierluigi Mancarella, professor of electrical power systems at the University of Melbourne.

“Through the EPICS centre, we hope to develop innovative computing, economics, engineering and policy solutions for transitioning towards a 100% renewable energy power grid,” said Hobbs.

“This transition is critical both for decarbonising the global electric power sector, which is responsible for nearly half of global carbon emissions, and for supporting climate-critical decarbonisation of other economic sectors and energy end uses.”

Four research thrusts

The EPICS centre will undertake research in four areas.

Research thrust 1 is focused on harnessing the latest advances in computer technology to develop power grid models and data-sharing mechanisms to handle the unpredictable nature of renewable energy resources like wind and solar.

Thrust 2 is aimed to find ways to accommodate wind, solar and storage resources into the grid and leverage these inverter-based resources’ flexibility for ancillary services.

Thrust 3 is proposed to develop economic analysis principles and tools for decision-making on how to design and operate 100% renewable power grids.

Thrust 4 will then use insights from the earlier thrusts to develop strategies for achieving net zero power grids as well as cross-infrastructure solutions to facilitate natural gas, hydrogen and power integration to reduce carbon emissions from other economic sectors, including transportation and buildings.

The EPICS centre has been funded for five years by the US National Science Foundation through its Global Centres Competition Awards, which are aimed to establish global approaches to address clean energy and climate change challenges.

Other collaborators in the research are expected to include electricity system operators around the world such as CAISO in California, National Grid ESO in the UK, Eirgrid in Ireland and AEMO in Australia.

Other ROSEI partners include the Global Power System Transformation Consortium, Energy Systems Integration Group and Future Power Markets Forum.