SPARK and PEIK EE Researcher Steven Poore Receives Poster Award at the Large IEEE 2022 PES GM Conference

September 9, 2022

Steven Poore, a senior Electrical Engineering (EE) Bachelor of Science (BS) and University Scholars Program (USP) student, has received the Undergraduate Student Award - Second Prize at the 2022 IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting (GM). The conference, which is the flagship annual event of PES, one of the largest societies within IEEE, was held in person this year in Denver, CO, and attracted thousands of attendees. This is the third consecutive year in which such an IEEE PES GM award is received by SPARK and PEIK researchers.

The award-winning poster. entitled "Residential Load and Building Temperature Dynamic Models for DR and VPP Studies", covers Steven’s most recent work on advanced topics of smart buildings and grids. The research was conducted during the academic year 2021/2022 as part of an NSF REU supplement to the NSF project “Collaborative Research: Crosslayer Optimization of Energy and Cost through Unified Modeling of User Behavior and Storage in Multiple Buildings” led by PEIK faculty Drs. Simone Silvestri and Dan M. Ionel.

Steven is an L. Stanley Pigman scholar at University of Kentucky (UK), a national IEEE PES Plus Initiative Scholar, and currently serves as the Chair of the IEEE PES Student Chapter at UK. He has been recently selected as an Undergraduate Research Ambassador at UK to attract and mentor other junior researchers. Steven plans to graduate with a BS and a PEIK undergraduate certificate in May 2023 and to continue directly for PhD studies at UK, where he has found an excellent academic home.

In the photo, from left to right are Steven, next to Rosemary, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a mentor to Steven and a co-author to the award-winning poster, Evan S. Jones, a DoEd GAANN Fellow, and Donovin D. Lewis, an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. The four posters presented by the students are available as PDFs from the SPARK Lab website publication page. All students are advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, FIEEE, SPARK Lab and PEIK Director, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power.

PEIK Researchers Presented on Federal and Utility Sponsored Projects at the IEEE 2022 PES GM Conference in Denver, CO

September 5, 2022

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) faculty, recent graduates, and students from the ECE Department of the College of Engineering at University of Kentucky (UK), participated in this year's edition of the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting (GM), the flagship conference of one of the largest IEEE organizations. The event was held in person in Denver, CO, and attracted thousands of attendees.

The PEIK group presented the following papers and posters:

• Roy, P., He, J., and Liao, T. “Optimal Scheduling for Dispatchable Utility-Scale Solar PV Power with Battery-Supercapacitor Hybrid Energy Storage System”
• Poore, S., Alden, R. E., Hadi, A., and Ionel, D. M., "Residential Load and Building Temperature Dynamic Models for DR and VPP Studies" 
• Lewis, D., and Ionel, D.M., "Electric Vehicle Dynamic Wireless Charging Load Profile and System Sizing for Highways" 
• Jones, E. S., Jewell, N., and Ionel, D. M., "Optimal Capacitor Planning for Large-Scale Electric Utility Distribution System" 
• Alden, R. E., Gong, H., and Ionel, D.M., "Community EV-based Large Energy Storage Capacity Assessment for VPP Services" 

The presentations reported on the significant progress and main research findings from multiple projects and fellowships sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Education (DoEd), and directly by LG&E and KU, Kentucky’s largest electric power utility. The researchers also gratefully acknowledge the support of the the L. Stanley Pigman Faculty Fellowship and the L. Stanley Pigman Chair endowment. The presentations were very well received, and Steven Poore was awarded a prize for his poster, this being the third consecutive year for such a distinction to be received by PEIK researchers.

LG&E and KU and PEIK Renew Multi-year Collaboration Focused on Integration of Renewables

August 4, 2022

The Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), part of the PPL Corporation family of companies, and the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) at University of Kentucky (UK) have renewed their multi-year research sponsored agreement. The two organizations continue the successful joint research with a focus on the integration of renewables. At LG&E and KU the collaboration is led by Aron Patrick, Manager of Technology Research and Analysis. At UK, Professor Dan M. Ionel, PEIK Director and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, serves as principal investigator (PI).

During the last academic year, a thesis on transmission power system modeling and simulations has been completed. A new study on large scale generation capacity including renewables is under advanced development. Examples of recent research results are included in a joint study on the solar PV shares and Habitat for Humanity participating households in the LG&E and KU service area and in a presentation on automating Kentucky’s largest battery, delivered as part of an expert panel session held at the very large 2022 IEEE Power and Energy Society meeting. These are available as PDFs, together with joint technical journal papers, such as a very recent one on the forecast at community level of the total electric load and HVAC component disaggregation with artificial intelligence methods, from the collaboration dedicated PEIK webpage.

IEEE 2022 PES T&D Conference - PEIK Presents Federal and Utility Sponsored Research

May 10, 2022

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) graduate students from the ECE Department of the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Engineering participated in-person at this year’s IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition (T&D) in New Orleans, LA. The biennial IEEE PES T&D Conference and Exposition is one of the largest technical events organized by the IEEE Power and Energy Society. This year’s edition, which resumed the long tradition of in-person meetings, had over 10,000 attendees and hosted more than 600 exhibitors.

Students, who had of yet to attend in person a large IEEE conference, were able to connect with industry professionals and academic experts and present their research within the following posters:

• Alden, R. E., and Ionel, D. M., “Simulation of Smart Home Loads for Large Scale DR and VPP Studies using Synthetic Data from Hybrid ML Black Box Models”
• Gong, H., and Ionel, D. M., “Distribution Power System Level DR and Detailed Modeling for Electric Water Heaters with CTA-2045 Controls”
• Jones, E. S., Hadi, A., and Ionel, D. M., “Co-simulation Framework for Smart Homes and Grids employing an Ultra-fast HVAC and Building Model for VPP Control”
• Lewis, D. D., and Ionel, D. M., “Grid Impact Studies for Dynamic Wireless Charging of Moving Electric Vehicles”

These presentations reported on technical findings and ongoing collaboration with projects supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Education (DoEd), the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E & KU). Author’s versions of the manuscripts are available online from the SPARK Lab publications web page.

Guest Lecture by Aron Patrick - LG&E and KU and PEIK Collaboration

March 22, 2022

Aron Patrick, Manager of Technology Research and Analysis at Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), and a former assistant director in the Kentucky Office of Energy Policy, gave an inspirational talk at University of Kentucky (UK) to a large group of students, many of whom pursue the undergraduate PEIK certificate. Mr. Patrick shared his enthusiasm for solar power and summarized the joint LG&E and KU and UK research to enable decarbonization and renewable integration in Kentucky’s electricity portfolio. The presentation, “Kentucky’s Clean Energy Successes, Opportunities, and Challenges”, discussed Kentucky’s success in reducing emissions, as well as LG&E and KU’s commitment to research and development of new clean energy technologies to drive further decarbonization while maintaining low costs for customer.

Kentucky has already reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 46% since 2010 to a level below the Obama-era Clean Power Plan targets set for the year 2030, a full decade ahead of the proposed schedule. Emission reductions are expected to continue and accelerate into the future as older coal-fired generating units are replaced with newer, cleaner technologies. LG&E and KU is a national leader in energy research and is committed to investing in new clean energy technologies to decarbonize remaining fossil-fueled generation and transition to a clean energy portfolio. In 2014, in partnership with the University of Kentucky, LG&E and KU built Kentucky's largest carbon capture system. In 2016, LG&E and KU built Kentucky’s largest solar farm and installed its largest lithium-ion battery. Data has been used by researchers, including those from PEIK, who collaborated with LG&E and KU and published joint papers, including one that received an IEEE award winning paper. The presentation also described LG&E and KU's strategies and ongoing projects for reducing solar costs and impact on the environment by incorporating native plants, pollinator habitats, and using sheep for vegetation management. 

Mr. Patrick has a weekly presence on campus where he works closely with university researchers and mentors graduate engineering students on a wide range of projects including topics of renewable energy, electric power systems, solar PV, advanced battery technology, green hydrogen, and others. More details on the ongoing successful collaboration that spans research, teaching, and outreach activities, are available from the dedicated PEIK webpage Collaboration with Utility Collaboration – LG&E and KU.

UK PEIK and EE Team Selected by NASA for ULI Aviation Research Project

January 12, 2022

NASA has recently selected teams of university faculty and students to participate in the agency’s University Leadership Initiative (ULI) with a research focus on sustainable aviation. The teams will spend up to five years on the potential awards, exploring novel ideas, including elimination of emissions and autonomy research in support of advanced air mobility. The full announcement is available as the NASA Release 21-176.

ULI gives the academic community an opportunity to contribute to NASA’s aeronautical research and provide students with valuable experience in solving real-world technical challenges. “Aviation of the future has to be climate friendly to keep the world flying, and a great way to do that is to allow tomorrow’s top minds to begin making contributions to these goals while still in school,” said Koushik Datta, ULI project manager. 

Four large multi-disciplinary teams have been selected nationwide. The one including University of Kentucky is led by Florida State University and comprises Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, University of New York at Buffalo, and Georgia Tech. The industrial partners include Raytheon, Boeing, and Advanced Magnet Lab. The UK team will also work closely on this project with the high-tech company QM Power, Inc. The multi-organizational academic and industrial team will consider how hybrid hydrogen-electric power generation could be combined with fuel cell technology to lower emissions. The UK project will be led by PEIK faculty, Dr. Jiangbiao He, EE Assistant Professor, and Dr. Dan M. Ionel, EE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, who will serve as PI and co-PI, respectively. (image credit: NASA)

IEEE PES National Scholarships Awarded to Electrical Engineering and PEIK Students

December 2, 2021

Two EE and PEIK undergraduate students, Hope Anderson and Steven Poore, have been each competitively awarded a 2021/2022 national IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Plus Initiative Scholarship. Hope (second from the left in photo) and Steven (second from right in photo) are both L. Stanley Pigman Scholars and recipients of the E.On for PEIK Scholarship. They are studying towards their BS in electrical engineering and pursue the PEIK certificate. Their research on electric power engineering topics is supported this year through an NASA REU and an NSF REU, respectively. 

These IEEE awards continue the success enjoyed in recent years by UK and PEIK students. Also included in the photo are Evan Jones (right in photo) and Donovin Lewis (left in photo), both Ph.D. EE students and mentors to Hope and Steven. Evan and Donovin have previously received the IEEE PES national scholarship as undergraduate students at the University of Kentucky (UK), where they have continued for graduate studies. Evan is currently a Department of Education (DoEd) GAANN Fellow and Donovin is an Otis A. Singletary Fellow and a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellow. All four students conduct research in the SPARK Lab within PEIK and are advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, IEEE Fellow, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power. 

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is headquartered in New York City and is the world's largest association of technical professionals with more than 400,000 members. The Power and Energy Society (PES) is the oldest and one of the largest societies within the IEEE with approximately 40,000 members. At UK, there is an active student chapter of IEEE PES, which is jointly organized with the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS).

PEIK and EE Faculty Awarded a Department of Defense DURIP Award

November 22, 2021

PEIK and EE Faculty, Dr. Yuan Liao (featured in the photo) and co-PIs, Drs. Jiangbiao He, Aaron Cramer and Dan M. Ionel, have received a DURIP (Department of Defense University Research Instrumentation Program) award funded through the Office of Naval Research, totaling $876,408.00.
 
This project will be used to purchase critical research equipment including a real-time digital simulation system - RTDS simulator, Omicron protection testing system CMC 356 and amplifier CMS 356, and a power amplifier EGSTON CSU100.
 
The project team includes faculty members in PEIK, who have strong interests in research and education critical to the missions of DoD. The purchased equipment will empower investigators to perform research in modeling, simulation, diagnostics, protection and control of power components and systems, which are critical to the mission of the DoD.
 
The equipment will enhance existing defense-related research and enable investigators to pursue more future defense-related grants and educate more undergraduate and graduate students who have the expertise in power and energy area to meet the need for future defense labor force. The project team also plans to make the equipment available to researchers at other universities and the industry for broader impacts. The new equipment will greatly enhance the research and education infrastructure and capacity at the University of Kentucky, and as a result, the PEIK center will make a steady step toward establishing itself as one of the leading and key contributors to DoD research and education.

Best Paper Award at the 2021 ICRERA International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications for SPARK and PEIK Researchers

November 18, 2021

The paper “Power Factor and Reactive Power in US Residences - Survey and EnergyPlus Modeling,”, authored by SPARK and PEIK researchers from University of Kentucky (UK), has received a Best Paper Award at the 10th edition of the International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications (ICRERA). The event was held in a hybrid format, in-person in Istanbul, Turkey and online via web conference. Recent annual editions of the conference took place in Glasgow, Scotland; Brasov, Romania; San Diego, California; and Birmingham, England.

The research covered in the paper benefited of support from the Department of Energy through the ENAGE project led by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). A growing number of electronic loads for modern appliances are present in residential electric power distribution systems. It has become increasingly more important to consider the power factor (PF) of residential communities with a view at opportunities for energy savings. Following a survey based on literature and publicly available information, the paper proposes a procedure for the calculation of an equivalent PF employing experimental data provided smart meters. Also included in the paper is a proposed simulation technique employing the widely used EnergyPlus software for building energy modeling.

The authors of the award-winning paper are featured in the photo from left to right: Dr. Abdullah Al Hadi, Postdoctoral Researcher; Hope Anderson, ECE Undergraduate Research Fellow and NASA REU student; Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power; and Evan S. Jones, PhD student and GAANN Fellow. The authors' version of the paper manuscript is available on the SPARK Lab website. 

PEIK and EE Faculty Dr. JiangBiao He Awarded DOE Project to Research High-Reliability Large Power Transformers 

November 12, 2021

Dr. JiangBiao He, Assistant Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Faculty Fellow with PEIK and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received a new award from the US Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The project, “Ultra-high-Performance nano-Liquid Insulation for upgrading Large Power Transformers (UPLIFT),” led by the industry partner, GE Research, will be funded in the total amount of $1.7 million over two years.

The new project, competitively awarded under the DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program DE-FOA-0001953, seeks to improve the service lifetime of large power transformers, which are essential elements used in almost all electric power transmission-distribution systems. By collaborating with GE Research and Prolec GE, Dr. He will lead the research on lifetime prediction and multi-physics modeling of the large power transformers. 

Dr. He joined University of Kentucky (UK) in 2019 and established a research program in power electronics, electric machines and drives, and electrification of transportations with project sponsors including NSF, DOE, and NASA. While with UK, he received the IEEE IAS Andrew W. Smith Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award in 2019 and the IEEE Myron Zucker Faculty Grant in 2021.

PEIK Researchers Participate in the Online IEEE ECCE 2021 Congress and Report on Government and Industry Sponsored Research 

October 20, 2021

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and University of Kentucky (UK) College of Engineering faculty, Drs. Jiangbiao He and Dan M. Ionel, together with PhD students and candidates Yaser Chulaee, Majid Fard, Huangjie Gong, Murat Gurhan Kesgin, Pranoy Roy, and Yibin Zhang, participated in this year's edition of the large IEEE ECCE Congress. The papers presented, which were published in the conference proceedings, also include co-author contributions from other PEIK faculty, Dr. Aaron Cramer, and PhD students Evan Jones, Donovin Lewis, and recent graduate, Dr. Damien Lawhorn.

The research reported covers topics of special electric machines: ultra-high power density and coreless PCB axial flux, bearing currents, energy storage, smart buildings and grids, electric aircraft propulsion drives, and multiport converters for solar-wind hybrid renewable energy systems. Projects have been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), U.S. Department of Education, NASA-KY EPSCoR, Ansys, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Regal Beloit Corporation, and QM Power. 

Drs. He and Ionel also served as session chairs on topics of transportation electrification, power electronics converters, and smart buildings and energy management systems, and Dr. He was a co-instructor for a 3-hour tutorial on “Hybrid Semiconductor Switches based Power Modules, Converters, and Systems”.  The Energy Conversion Congress and Exhibition (ECCE) is the largest annual joint event of the IEEE Industry Applications and IEEE Power Electronics Societies, which typically attracts approximately 2,000 attendees. The event was originally scheduled for Vancouver, Canada and has been organized on-line due to pandemic conditions.

UK Enters Agreement with KU to Purchase Solar Power 

October 18, 2021

The University of Kentucky (UK) has entered into an agreement with its electricity provider, Kentucky Utilities Company (KU), to purchase 44% of the output of a new 125-megawatt (MW) solar facility. KU and its sister utility, Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E), have now filed the contracts for the project with the Kentucky Public Service Commission. The facility is planned for McCracken County, near Paducah, and is expected to be online in 2025. Once operational, this solar facility will provide approximately one-third of the electricity consumed by the campus. Purchasing power from renewable sources also diversifies the mix of fuels the university relies on for electricity and this boosts the resilience of campus utility systems.

Integrating the operations of the campus with the academic experience of students and faculty is a high priority at UK. Utilization of the campus and campus operations as a classroom and lab is recognized nationally as a high-impact practice that enhances student success. This initiative is a strong example of this commitment. More details are available from the UKnow news and from the UK sustainability goals and initiatives webpage. 

At UK, PEIK has an ongoing close collaboration with LG&E and KU on multi-year research projects for the integration of large solar PV in electric power systems. Joint studies were published in technical conference proceedings and journals on topics of renewable energy penetration, solar PV farms, and multi-MW battery operation for energy storage, including an IEEE award winning paper. The UK students, who pursue the PEIK certificate in power and energy, one of the largest of its kind in the UK College of Engineering, continue to benefit of scholarships established through the E.On endowment set up on behalf of Kentucky Utilities. Collaboration also includes teachings activities, classes with field visits, lectures and seminars by LG&E and KU experts, as well as joint participation in high impact outreach events. More details on the collaboration are available, for example, in this year’s news featured on this PEIK website and in last year’s annual report, which is available online.

L. Stanley Pigman Long-time Supporter and Advisor of PEIK Inducted in the UK Hall of Distinguished Alumni 

October 4, 2021

L. Stanley Pigman, an entrepreneur from Wilmington, NC, and a longtime strong supporter and advisor of the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK), has been inducted into the University of Kentucky (UK) Hall of Distinguished Alumni. Mr. Pigman was a first-generation college student who studied at UK on an engineering scholarship and graduated in 1981 with a BS in Mining Engineering. He began his early professional career as a project engineer with a new mining company, Sierra Coal, a subsidiary of General Electric. Later in 1992, he joined two colleagues to form Sugar Camp Coal. Eventually, Mr. Pigman formed his own company, Pigman Coal Sales, providing sales services to an independently owned start-up company for a new mining project in western Kentucky. He built several more businesses that own and lease coal properties, then relocated his company headquarters to High Point, NC.

At UK, his generous support included the establishment of the endowment for the L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and for the L. Stanley Pigman Junior Faculty Fellow, sponsorship for the UK Solar Car, and donations for laboratory and SPARK group developments. Mr. Pigman and his wife, Karen, promote engineering and technology to high school students by supporting programs such as Project Lead the Way and, recently, by committing funding for 16 new high school chapters of the Kentucky Technology Student Association. The Pigman Scholars program at UK now provides scholarships for 70 undergraduate engineering students annually. The students who graduated with BS moved on to good careers in industry and utilities or some continued for PhD studies at UK, including those who were awarded prestigious fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Education (DoEd), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Mr. Pigman Pigman sits on the UK College of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council, the Mining Engineering Foundation, the President’s Capital Campaign Committee and the UK College of Engineering Capital Campaign Committee. He was inducted in the UK College of Engineering Hall of Distinction in 2009 and was awarded a UK Honorary Degree of Humane Letters in 2017. The new induction in the UK Hall of Distinguished Alumni recognizes Mr. Pigman’s significant contributions to the field of power and energy and for supporting various programs that provide better access to education in engineering.

SPARK Lab Extends Research on Innovative Electric Machines with QM Power Company 

September 29, 2021

The SPARK Laboratory, which is affiliated with the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and operates within the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Engineering, has recently extended its collaboration with QM Power, Inc, a start-up company, the research of which is supported by substantial private investment and by the Department of Energy (DOE). The collaborative project focuses at UK SPARK on advanced large-scale optimization of innovative electric machines based on QMP patented concepts.

SPARK and QM Power have also collaborated for the last two years on another project supported by DOE for the development of an electric machines for electric vehicles with a record high specific power of 50kW per liter. Results from the successful preliminary testing of a laboratory prototype will be published in a joint paper and presented this October at the IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exhibition, which is the largest joint technical event of the IEEE Power Electronics and Industry Applications Societies.

Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, Director of the SPARK Lab and of the PEIK Institute, will serve at UK as the principal investigator (PI) for the project leading a team of researchers. At QM Power, Drs. Madhav Manjrekar and Somasundaram Essakiappan will serve as the technical project leads, reporting to Mr. Tom Stepien, CEO of QM Power, Inc.

PEIK and EE Faculty JiangBiao He, Awarded New NSF Project to Research Smart Electric Motor-Drive Systems

September 29, 2021

JiangBiao He, PEIK Faculty and L. Stanley Pigman Faculty Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received a new award from the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The project is titled “Collaborative Research: Smart Coils for AC Motors,” and will be a collaboration with Kansas State University. It will be funded in the total amount of nearly $500,000 over three years. In this project, UK serves as the lead organization and Dr. He serves as the PI at UK.

Electric motors, generally powered by variable-speed drives, have been broadly used in electric vehicles, airplanes, robotics, industry automations and others. The new generation of fast-switching variable-speed drives induce significant insulation stress on the motor windings due to impedance mismatch and the associated high-frequency surge voltages. This project aims to develop smart coils’ technology for AC motors, which adaptively changes the winding surge impedance by manipulating the high-frequency components of the line voltages output from the drives. This collaborative research can significantly impact mobile energy technologies such as electric vehicles, electric aircraft, and robotics, where high reliability and high energy efficiency of electric motor-drive systems is the high priority.

Dr. He joined the UK Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in January 2019 after multiple years of industry R&D experience at GE Global Research and Rockwell Automation. His research interest includes power electronics, motor drives, renewable energy and smart grid.

Learn more about his research at his lab website.

Donovin D. Lewis is Awarded the Otis A. Singletary Graduate Fellowship and Starts EE PhD Program at UK

September 14, 2021

Donovin D. Lewis, a recent Electrical Engineering (EE) Bachelor of Science (BS) and undergraduate PEIK certificate graduate, was awarded the Otis A. Singletary Graduate Fellowship for the 2021-2022 academic year. This fellowship honors Otis A. Singletary, the eighth president of the University of Kentucky (UK), who advocated for increased student participation in university affairs and developed greater trust and respect between students and university administration. The award was established by the Board of Directors of the University of Kentucky Athletics Association and is the highest attainable graduate fellowship offered by the UK Graduate School.

Over the summer, Donovin, continued to serve as the electrical chief engineer for the UK Solar Car team who became national champions for the Formula Sun Grand Prix and national vice-champions for the American Solar Challenge, as covered in recent PEIK and UK news. Donovin's leading technical contributions benefited greatly of the technical knowledge on electric vehicles, and reliability of power electronic systems gained as part of two NASA REUs in the previous academic year at UK.

Donovin, who grew up in Kentucky, was a University Scholars Program student integrating his BS and PhD studies at UK, where he was the recipient of a William C. Parker Scholarship and received many student awards and recognitions. In the spring, he has been awarded a most prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, one of the only 48 granted this year nationwide for EE. Recently, Donovin started collaboration with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) on topics of electrification of transportation, electric vehicle charging and power system integration. He continues for PhD at UK, where he found an excellent academic environment, and continues to be directly advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, FIEEE, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK Lab and PEIK Director.

Rosemary E. Alden Receives IEEE PES GM Poster Award and Starts EE PhD Program at UK

September 7, 2021

Rosemary E. Alden, a recent Electrical Engineering (EE) Bachelor and Science (BS) and undergraduate PEIK certificate graduate, received the Undergraduate Student Award - Second Prize at the 2021 IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting (GM). The conference, which is the flagship annual event of PES, one of the largest societies within IEEE, typically gathers more than 2,500 participants. This is the second year in a row Rosemary has been awarded at IEEE PES GM for her undergraduate research work. As per her IEEE mentors, this is nothing short of a record for an extremely competitive international event.
 
The award-winning poster, “Artificial Intelligence-based Short Term Electric Load Forecasts for Smart Homes including HVAC, EWH, and PV Components ”, has an author's version posted on the publications page of the SPARK website. The research covered was conducted as part of an NSF REU supplement on a collaborative NSF project led at University of Kentucky (UK) by CS and ECE and PEIK faculty, Drs. Simone Silvestri and Dan M. Ionel, and at Marquette University by Dr. Cris Ababei.  
 
Rosemary, who grew up in Kentucky, was a University Scholars Program student integrating her BS and PhD studies at UK, where she was a L. Stanley Pigman Scholar and received many student awards and recognitions. In the spring, she has awarded a most prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, one of the only 48 granted this year nationwide for EE. Over the summer, she had a remote internship with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Rosemary will continue her PhD studies at UK, where she found an excellent academic environment, and continues to be directly advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, FIEEE, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK Lab and PEIK Director.

IEEE 2021 PES GM Conference - PEIK Presents on Federal, Industry, and Utility Sponsored Research Projects

September 3, 2021

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PIEK) faculty, recent graduates, and students from the ECE Department of the College or Engineering at University of Kentucky (UK), participated in this year's edition of the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting (GM), and presented the following papers and posters:

• Gong, H., Akeyo, O. M., Rooney, T., Branecky, B., and Ionel, D. M., "Aggregated Generic Load Curve for Residential Electric Water Heaters"
• Alden, R. E., Ababei, C., and Ionel, D. M., “Artificial Intelligence-based Short-term Electric Load Forecasts for Experimental Smart Homes including HVAC, EWH, and PV Components”
• Jones, E. S., and Ionel, D. M., “Co-simulation of Electric Power Distributions and Buildings with EnergyPlus and OpenDSS”
• Bankes, G., Akeyo, O. M., and Ionel, D. M., “Large-Scale Solar PV and Battery Energy Storage Model Study on a Proposed Benchmark Transmission System”
• Gong, H., Alden, R. E., and Ionel, D. M., “Home Energy Management System for Coordinated PV and HVAC Controls based on AI Forecasting”.

The presentations reported on main technical findings and the very good progress made on research projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Education (DoEd), and directly by industry, A. O. Smith, and utilities, LG&E and KU, and TVA. The presentations were very well received, and Rosemary E. Alden was awarded a prize for her poster. Authors’ versions of the manuscripts are available online from the SPARK Lab publications web page. Due to pandemic restrictions, the very large event, which typically attracts thousands of participants as the flagship conference of IEEE PES, took place online.

PEIK Sponsored UK Solar Car Team are National Champions!

August 23, 2021

The University of Kentucky (UK) Solar Car team are now national champions after claiming 1st place in the track-style 2021 Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) race this past July 30th-August 1st. In the photo, the team and their car, Gato Del Sol VI, are placed in their final podium positions ahead of the second and third placed groups from MIT and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Other team participants from the US included large colleges of Engineering such as University of California Berkeley, Georgia Tech, and Minnesota. The Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) is an annual track competition that is held on grand prix or road style closed courses for custom-designed and built solar electric vehicles to test them in overall reliability, vehicle handling, energy efficiency and strategy. UK’s current car, Gato Del Sol VI completed first the 250 laps accounting for 625 miles in this year track race.

The UK Solar Car Team are also national vice-champions for the American Solar Challenge (ASC), which took place August 3rd-8th, having completed the approximately 970-mile road race fully under the car's own power. The UK team also received the "Most Improved" award for continuous development in design, construction, and racing of solar PV electric vehicles over the past 10 years. These are outstanding achievements in the long standing tradition of the UK Solar Car team that provides hands-on experience with engineering design and development for power and energy generation and efficient vehicle operation. The PEIK logo is proudly displayed on the UK Solar Car and its continued support is gratefully acknowledged. 

CS and PEIK Undergraduate Student, Jackson Codispoti, Reports on NSF REU Research in ACM's Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems Paper

August 20, 2021

Jackson Codispoti, a Computer Science Senior and NSF REU student, will have a paper published in an upcoming edition of the Association for Computing Machinery’s Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems. This represents an outstanding achievement for such a junior researcher. PEIK and Computer Science professor, Dr. Simone Silvestri is Jackson’s faculty advisor, and co-author to the paper, together with postdoctoral researcher Dr. Atieh R. Khamesi. The publication marks continued success with research supported by the NSF REU supplement that includes an expansion of Dr. Silvestri’s NSF Career award received earlier this year.

The paper, "Learning from Non-Experts: An Interactive and Adaptive Learning Approach for Appliance Recognition in Smart Homes", focuses on the problem of appliance recognition from electric signatures collected by a smart outlet. The proposed approach  combines stream based active learning and K-nearest-neighbor based classification to simultaneously learn the user engagement and the appliance signatures. Jackson led the design of the machine learning methods as well as the development of an Arduino-based smart outlet to collect the signatures.

PEIK Faculty and Chemical Engineering Professor, Jeffrey Seay, Develops Clean Cooking Fuel Device

August 19, 2021

Jeffrey Seay, PEIK Faculty and Chemical Engineering Professor at the University of Kentucky College of Engineering Extended Campus at Paducah (UK Paducah), has collaborated with partners in numerous countries, including Ethiopia, Senegal, Uganda and India, on research that has resulted in a device capable of converting waste plastic into clean fuel oil. 
 
The Trash-to-Tank (3T) Processor is an open-source creation produced by Dr. Seay’s nonprofit organization, Engineers for Sustainable Energy Solutions (ESES). The plastic-derived fuel oil (PDFO) yielded by the 3T Processor is clean, safe and easy to transport. ESES is working with Upcycle Africa Limited in Mpigi, Uganda, to train residents how to assemble and use the 3T Processor. In addition to being used as a cooking fuel, the 3T Processor can also produce diesel fuel for household or farm equipment.
 
While ESES is an independent nonprofit organization, numerous past and present UK students are involved in its mission. UK Paducah undergraduate researchers play a big role in enhancing the processor’s performance. This technology, developed at the UK Paducah campus, will impact people around the world.

PEIK Awards 19 Power and Energy Scholarships

August 18, 2021

The UK College of Engineering awarded 19 E.ON Scholarships for PEIK to eligible students who demonstrated strong interest in power and energy studies. These annual scholarships continue to be supported by the endowment established years ago at UK by E.ON, on behalf of Kentucky Utilities Company (KU). The scholarships provide recipients between $2,000 and $3,000 annually and may also grant an additional $2,000 for use on a power and energy-related study abroad trip during the school year or the following summer. 
 
KU and Louisville Gas and Electric Company (LG&E) continue to be strong supporters of UK and PEIK teaching, research, and outreach programs. For more information on the Undergraduate Certificate in Power and Energy scholarships, visit the PEIK website [PEIK Undergraduate Certificate Webpage] and [PEIK Scholarship Webpage].

The photo used for illustration was taken during a 2018 on-campus PEIK seminar. Lonnie Bellar, Chief Operating Officer for LG&E and KU, presented during the in-person event, which attracted a very large audience of students and regional professional community and was the last seminar held before the pandemic onset. 

PEIK Faculty and UK Materials Science Professor Y.T. Cheng Discusses Electric Vehicles on NPR

August 17, 2021

PEIK faculty and Materials Science professor, Y.T. Cheng, recently appeared on local NPR station, WEKU, to discuss President Biden’s electric vehicle goal. The goal, for electric vehicles to be 40 to 50 percent of vehicles purchases by 2030, would be quite an increase from the current number of 2%. Dr. Cheng discussed several factors that could help increase the use of electric vehicles such as more government infrastructure and the declining cost of battery manufacturing. Finally, Dr. Cheng noted that the environmental impact of electric vehicle adoption will depend on where the electricity for the batteries is being generated.

You can read and listen to the full story here.

Eastern Kentucky High School Students Attending the Pigman Scholars Camp at UK Visit with PEIK and SPARK

August 10, 2021

More than 50 high school students from across Eastern Kentucky had the opportunity to visit UK’s campus for the first time during the Pigman Scholars Camp. The program, funded by L. Stanley Pigman and his wife Karen, is a four-day event that brings prospective students to UK’s campus for tours, information sessions, and hands-on engineering activities. The Pigman Scholars Camp also encourages students to apply for an L. Stanley Pigman Scholarship if they pursue engineering studies at UK. The need-based scholarships are renewable up to four years and the annual amounts to be given range from $1,000 - $15,000. More details are available on the UK and College of Engineering websites.

In the group photo, taken at the entrance of the newly renovated Grehan building, Mr. and Mrs. Pigman are in the center at the top of the stairs. Their most generous contributions and donations for the power and energy program at UK include a chair endowment, the support for the national champion UK solar car team, advanced equipment for the new SPARKS labs in the Grehan building, support and mentorship of many students over the years. At the center on the ground row, from left to right, are three Pigman scholars and SPARK Lab students advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and PEIK Director: Rosemary Alden, now an incoming PhD student and NSF GR Fellow, Evan Jones, a PhD student and DoEd GAANN Fellow, and Hope Anderson, a NASA REU undergraduate student. The three of them guided tours of the labs, meet with the young visitors, discussed, and shared from their own successful experience at UK.

More information can be found at the UK College of Engineering and UK websites.

Electrical Engineering and PEIK Faculty Dr. JiangBiao He is Awarded the 2021 Zucker Faculty Grant

August 9, 2021

Electrical Engineering and PEIK Faculty Dr. JiangBiao He, received the 2021 Zucker Faculty Grant for his proposal titled “'High-Reliability Electric Propulsion Drives based on Digital Twin Technologies”. This new project aims to enhance the reliability of electric propulsion drive systems with digital twin technologies, a virtual multi-physics modeling representation that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of a physical propulsion system. The electric propulsion drive is the core component in electric transportation systems, including electric vehicles, airplanes, and ships, and improving the reliability of the propulsion drives will be of paramount importance. Contributions from this project will establish a cost-effective, accurate and robust reliability improvement framework for modern electric propulsion systems.    
 
The Myron Zucker Faculty Grant Program was established within the IEEE Foundation by the IEEE Awards Board in 1987. It is administered by the IEEE Industry Applications Society through its Zucker Grant Committee. Every year, only two research projects are selected from the global Industry Applications Society that has more than 14,000 members.

PEIK Reports Success with Many Undergraduate Certificates Issued

June 25, 2021

Over the last academic year, 2020-2021, UK awarded 45 students with the Undergraduate Certificate in Power and Energy (PEIK). The program leading to the certificate consists of a series of foundational courses supplemented by a broad array of elective courses related to power and energy developed to prepare the students for a successful career in industry and the electric utilities. The PEIK certificate program has been initiated in 2010 with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) and continues its growing activity with direct support from UK, industry, utilities, and private donors.

The photo used for illustration was taken at the UK December 2019 Commencement Ceremony before the COVID-19 pandemic. At UK, plans are in progress to return to normal operations in the Fall 2021 semester. Additionally, the university plans for classes to be conducted mostly in person, with classrooms at full capacity. Events on campus will also return to full capacity in Fall 2021.

The list of majors for the students who were issued the certificate this year includes Electrical and Computer Engineering, Chemical and Materials Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Joseph Sottile, ECE and MNG Professor, serves as the Director of the Undergraduate PEIK certificate.

PEIK Researchers Report on NSF, NASA, DOE, and Industry Sponsored Projects at IEEE Online Conferences

June 24, 2021

Power Energy Institute of Kentucky (PIEK) students from the ECE Department in the College or Engineering at University of Kentucky (UK), recent graduates, and researchers participated in this year edition of the International Conference on Electrification of Transportation, ITEC 2021, and presented the papers:

• Lawhorn, D., Han, P., Lewis, D., Chulaee, Y., and Ionel, D. M., “On the Design of Coreless Permanent Magnet Machines for Electric Aircraft Propulsion”
• Gong, H., and Ionel, D. M., “Combined Use of EV Batteries and PV Systems for Improving Building Resilience to Blackouts”.

In May, the group took part in the International Conference on Electrical Machines and Drives, IEMDC 2021, with papers and presentations:

• Kesgin, M. G., Han, P., Lawhorn, D., and Ionel, D. M., "Analysis of Torque Production in Axial-flux Vernier PM Machines of the MAGNUS Type
• Zhang, Y., Lawhorn, D. L., Han, P., and Ionel, D. M., “Integrated AC to AC Converters for Single-phase Input to Two-phase Output Motor Drives”
• Han, P., Heins, G., Zhang, Y., and Ionel, D.M., “Integrated Modular Motor Drives Based on Multiphase Axial-flux PM Machines with Fractional-slot Concentrated Windings”.

The papers cover main technical findings and the very good progress made on research projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Department of Energy (DOE), and directly by industry. Due to pandemic restrictions, the two large conferences organized by the IEEE took place online. Authors’ manuscript versions of the papers are available online from the SPARK Lab website.

Damien Lawhorn, EE and PEIK Student Completes NASA Graduate Fellowship Research and Receives PhD in Electrical Engineering

May 10, 2021

Damien Lawhorn, an electrical engineering (EE) PhD student and a NASA KY Graduate Fellow, has successfully defended his dissertation. His PhD advisor was Dr. Dan M. Ionel, EE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, Director of the SPARK Lab and of the PEIK Institute. The UK Ph.D. committee included Drs. Aaron Cramer, Gabriel Dadi, James Lumpp, and Joseph Sottile.

Damien, who was born and grew up in Liberty, Casey County, KY, graduated with a BS in EE from UK in May 2017. He continued directly for PhD studies at UK, initially as a L. Stanley Pigman graduate scholar, and since January 2018 as a NASA KY Graduate Fellow on three consecutive research projects assignments on topics of electric power components and systems for aircraft. He spent the summers with the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC), contributing as an intern to the development of motor drives for NASA's first all-electric aircraft, the X-57 Maxwell, as well as to advancements toward MW hybrid-electric propulsion systems. During the academic semesters, Damien’s research took place at UK in the SPARK Lab and funding was provided by NASA KY grants for which Drs. Ionel, Cramer, and Lumpp, served as PI and Co-PIs, respectively.

Damien is a founder and a leading member of the Kentucky Organization of Robotics and Automation (KORA), a multidisciplinary student-led club, which has competed in a NASA driven national competition, and Executive Committee member of the UK IEEE PES and IAS student chapter. Upon PhD graduation, he will move to Houston to work in collaboration with the NASA Johnson Space Center on advanced electronics projects as part of the Space Exploration Systems Group within Jacobs Engineering.

Due to pandemic restrictions the PhD defense was held online, and the public section of the presentation was attended by internationally distinguished academics, colleagues and friends, and family. The full PhD dissertation will be available online from the UKnowledge repository. Examples of Damien’s research concepts and results include those from the journal paper "Multi-objective Optimization for Aircraft Power Systems using a Network Graph Representation", recently published in IEEE Transactions on Transportation Electrification. Other publications, together with an event note for the online PhD defense, and a short bio are available from the SPARK Lab website.

Rosemary Alden and Donovin Lewis, EE SPARK and PEIK Students Awarded Prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships

April 16, 2021

Rosemary Alden and Donovin Lewis, electrical engineering, PEIK and SPARK Lab students, have been awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships (NSF GRF). The two students are featured in the center of the photo during a recent celebratory ZOOM friendly meeting with their SPARK Lab group. The NSF GRF is very competitive and attracts typically more than 12,000 applications annually for all topics of science and engineering. This year, only 48 fellowships were awarded nationwide for electrical engineering. The NSF GRF provides student stipend, tuition, and research support for the duration of the doctoral studies.
 
Rosemary, who grew up in Nicholasville, KY, is an L. Stanley Pigman Scholar, a national IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Initiative recipient, the Chair of the IEEE PES & IAS Student Chapter at UK and received many other awards and recognitions. She has been an NSF REU student for the last year and has been an Undergraduate Research Fellow in the SPARK Lab since 2018. Donovin, who grew up in Paducah, KY, is the recipient of William C. Parker, Kentucky Educational Excellence, and national IEEE PES Plus scholarships, the electrical engineering lead of the UK Solar Car Team and received many other awards and recognitions. He has been a NASA REU student for the last year and has been an Undergraduate Research Fellow in the SPARK Lab since 2019.
 
Rosemary and Donovin are both University Scholars Program (USP) students and are scheduled to graduate with a BS in May. They plan to intern over the summer with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Oakridge National Laboratory (ORNL),  respectively, on their main research topics of smart homes and grids and electrification of transportation, before continuing their USP at UK in the fall with PhD studies and research in the SPARK Lab.
 
In the photo, among the other SPARK students, at the lower right corner is Akeyo Oluwaseun, who recently graduated with a PhD and now works on the analysis of renewable energy integration with Sargent & Lundy, one of the world’s largest power systems consulting firms. Next to him is Damien Lawhorn, who is a NASA KY Graduate Fellow and is scheduled to soon defend his PhD dissertation before moving to Houston to work in collaboration with the NASA Johnson Space Center as part of the Space Exploration Systems Group within Jacobs Engineering. Short bios for all the SPARK students are available at https://sparklab.engr.uky.edu/people. All students are advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, Professor of Electrical Engineering, the L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and the Director of the SPARK Laboratory and of the PEIK Institute at the University of Kentucky.

LG&E and KU's Aron Patrick Delivers PEIK Distinguished Speaker Online Seminar

April 8, 2021

On Wednesday, April 7, 2021, Aron Patrick, Manager of Technology Research and Analysis at Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU), was a featured presenter for a PEIK Distinguished Speaker online seminar. The presentation, “Kentucky’s Clean Energy Successes, Opportunities, and Challenges”, discussed Kentucky’s success in meeting carbon emissions targets, as well as LG&E and KU’s commitment to developing new clean energy technologies to go beyond current reduction goals. Based on available data, Kentucky has demonstrated reduced carbon dioxide emissions below the Obama-era Clean Power Plan targets for the year 2030, a full decade ahead of the proposed schedule. Emission reductions are expected to continue and accelerate into the future. 
 
Mr. Patrick discussed the commitment of LG&E and KU, together with its parent company PPL, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 70% by 2040 and by 80% by 2050. Also reviewed were LG&E and KU’s renewable energy infrastructure including hydroelectric plants, solar installations, and energy storage capabilities. The company has operated two hydroelectric facilities, Ohio Falls and Dix Dam, since the 1920s. In 2016, LG&E and KU built Kentucky’s largest solar farm and installed its largest lithium-ion battery. The presentation covered LG&E and KU's expansion of solar offerings and concluded with a review of strategies for lowering costs and improving solar integration by utilizing the natural environment and incorporating native plants, pollinator habitats, and using sheep for vegetation management.

SPARK Lab Extends Research on Electric Machines and Drives with Regal Beloit Company

March 22, 2021

The SPARK Laboratory, which is affiliated with the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and operates within the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Engineering, has recently expanded its collaboration with Regal Beloit Corp. through the continuation of a multi-year sponsored research project. Regal, which is headquartered in Beloit, WI, is one of the largest electric motor manufacturers in the world, and a Fortune 1000 company with international operations and over 25,000 employees. The two organizations have very successfully collaborated over the last five years.

At UK, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, Director of the SPARK Lab and of the PEIK Institute, serves as the principal investigator (PI) for the project leading a team of students and postdoctoral researchers on topics of advanced analysis, simulation and optimization of special electric machines and power electronic drives. Example joint publications include: "Evaluating the Effects of Electric and Magnetic Loading on the Performance of Single- and Double-Rotor Axial-Flux PM Machines," by Narges Taran, Greg Heins, Vandana Rallabandi, Dean Patterson, and Dan M. Ionel in IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, Vol. 56, No. 4, doi: 10.1109/TIA.2020.2983632, pp. 3488-3497 (2020). This paper describes the design and demonstration of one of the highest efficiency ever reported electric motors for 3/4hp at 1,050rpm typical ratings (see photo). A collection of publications in authors’ manuscript versions is available from the SPARK Lab website.

PEIK Faculty and KIAC Director, Don Colliver, Named Co-chair of New ASHRAE Task Force for Building Decarbonization

March 10, 2021

PEIK faculty, Biosystems Engineering faculty Professor, and KIAC Director, Don Colliver, has been appointed co-chair of the ASHRAE Task Force for Building Decarbonization. Twenty five states, many US cities (including Louisville, KY), and many countries have set goals for carbon reduction. Buildings contribute 40% of all carbon emissions. This international task force is charged with developing information to give guidance to countries on how to achieve their carbon reduction goals.
 
Don Colliver, ASHARE Fellow and Presidential Member (’02-03) and Director of the Kentucky Industrial Assessment Center, also served for ten years as Chairman of the Advanced Energy Design Guide Steering Committee consisting of AIA, ASHRAE, ISENA, USGBC and DOE that produced ten books with over 650,000 copies in circulation. Dr. Colliver’s research interests include Solar Energy, Sustainable Design and Construction, Climatic Design Conditions, and Energy Auditing. 
 
Founded in 1894, ASHRAE is a global professional society of 55,000 members with 199 chapters worldwide. It is committed to serve humanity by advancing the arts and sciences of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, refrigeration and their allied fields. As an industry leader in research, standards writing, publishing, certification and continuing education, ASHRAE and its members are dedicated to promoting a healthy and sustainable built environment for all, through strategic partnerships with organizations in the HVAC&R community and across related industries. More information is available on the ASHRAE website.

Simone Silvestri, Computer Science and PEIK Faculty, Expands NSF CAREER Award with REU Supplement

February 25, 2021

Dr. Simone Silvestri, Computer Science Assistant Professor and PEIK Faculty, has received a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) supplement expanding on the prestigious NSF CAREER Award received in 2020. The award entitled “Energy Management for Smart Residential Environments through Human-in-the-loop Algorithm Design”. In this award, Dr. Silvestri addresses the problem of reducing the energy consumption of the residential sector. This sector is responsible for more than 20% of the total energy consumption of the United States, and this amount has been constantly increasing for several decades. Smart residential environments (SREs) are a new paradigm that envisions homes equipped with smart appliances based on the paradigm of the Internet of Things. SREs offer tremendous potential to reduce the energy consumption of the residential sector; however, previous work in this context has largely overlooked the complexity of human behaviors and perceptions when interacting with such systems. In this award, Dr. Silvestri and his team take an innovative approach that merges computer science, electrical engineering, and social sciences to reduce the energy consumption of the residential sector through SREs.
 
The REU supplement will allow Elanor Sudduth, a CS undergraduate student, to be actively engaged, later this summer and throughout the next academic year, in research alongside PhD students and their faculty advisors.

PEIK Researchers Report in Journals on Utility Sponsored Successful Projects for Renewable and Distributed Energy Resources Power System Integration

January 28, 2021

Two papers have been published this month in high-circulation and impact peer-reviewed open access journals: “Study of Renewable Energy Penetration on a Benchmark Generation and Transmission System," in Energies, Vol. 14, and “Peak Reduction and Long Term Load Forecasting for Large Residential Communities including Smart Homes with Energy Storage”, IEEE Access, Vol. 9. The articles are available for open access from the Energies and IEEE Access websites, respectively. Authors’ manuscript versions are posted on the SPARK Laboratory website. 

The success of the research reported and the papers greatly benefited of collaboration and support from large regional utilities Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities, LG&E and KU, and Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA. Authors and co-authors from the SPARK Lab within PEIK include Huangjie Gong, PhD candidate; Dr. Akeyo Seun, recent PhD graduate and now a Senior Engineer with Sargent and Lundy, LLC; Dr. Vandana Rallabandi, former postdoctoral researcher and now Lead Engineer with GE Research; and Dr. Dan M. Ionel, IEEE Fellow, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair, Director of the SPARK Lab and PEIK Institute.

Akeyo Oluwaseun of Sargent & Lundy and Recent UK PhD and PEIK Graduate Delivers IEEE Online Seminar on the Integration of Large PV Power Plants and Batteries

December 22, 2020

On December 17, 2020, Dr. Akeyo Oluwaseun, Senior Engineer at Sargent & Lundy, a global leading power and energy consulting firm headquartered in Chicago, IL, presented in a seminar organized by the IEEE Louisville Section. The talk was substantially based on two IEEE published papers on the topics, which were mentioned in a PEIK news earlier this month. Author’s manuscript versions of the papers are available from the SPARK Lab website at UK.

At Sargent & Lundy, Dr. Akeyo focuses on engineering modeling and simulation of electric power plants and high voltage transmission systems. He recently received the PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kentucky (UK) and the PEIK graduate certificate. Dr. Akeyo’s doctoral research in the SPARK Lab at UK contributed to projects sponsored by Department of Energy (DOE) and in close collaboration with large utilities, especially Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU).

PEIK and KIAC Receive Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet Award

December 9, 2020

The Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and the Kentucky Industrial Assessment Center (KIAC) have received the 2020 Community Environmental Luminary Award from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet (EEC). The EEC’s annual environmental awards of excellence were announced by Governor Andy Beshear and EEC Secretary Rebecca Goodman. The Community Environmental Luminary Award is given in recognition of outstanding achievements in education and outreach.

“These awards represent significant achievements in keeping Kentuckians healthy through better stewardship of the environment,” said Governor Beshear. “This is a time when we all need to do more to take better care of each other and this beautiful state that we live in.”

Housed within the University of Kentucky College of Engineering, PEIK was established in 2010 with multi-million-dollar support from the Department of Energy and continues its work with contributions and in collaboration with industry and utilities, community, and University. PEIK’s multidisciplinary faculty group from different departments within UK’s College of Engineering includes Drs. Yang-Tse Cheng, Don Colliver, Aaron Cramer, Paul Dolloff, Zongming Fei, Jiangbiao He, Larry Holloway, who served as founding PEIK Director, Nicholas Jewell, Jeffrey Seay, Dusan Sekulic, Simone Silvestri, and Vijay Singh. The Directors of the PEIK undergraduate and graduate certificates in power and energy are Drs. Joseph Sottile and Yuan Liao, respectively. Dr. Dan M. Ionel, Professor of Electrical Engineering and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, currently serves as PEIK Director.

PEIK offers UK students the opportunity to earn undergraduate and graduate certificates in power and energy. The course offerings from several departments, which range from understanding global energy issues to alternative and renewable energy systems, provide technical knowledge and laboratory experience, as well as learning on the broader economic, environmental and social impacts of power. PEIK averages more than 1,000 enrollments in power and energy courses each year and has awarded a record number of certificates, more than 100 in the last two years alone, being one of the largest certificate programs within the UK College of Engineering.

KIAC, which is affiliated with PEIK, sends teams of faculty members and engineering students to conduct manufacturing plant energy assessments and make recommendations for potential savings opportunities. Through Department of Energy funding, the energy assessments are conducted entirely free of charge. KIAC has saved more than 95 businesses almost $20 million, while providing significant reductions in energy use and contributing to environmental improvements and conservation. KIAC received the “National IAC of the Year” award in 2016. Mr. Jason Souders is the Program Coordinator for both PIEK and KIAC and Dr. Don Colliver, Professor in the UK Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, serves as KIAC Director.

PEIK and LG&E and KU Collaborative Research on Utility-Scale Batteries Receives IEEE Paper Award

December 3, 2020

Researchers from the SPARK group within the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and from Louisville Gas and Electric Company and Kentucky Utilities Company (LG&E and KU) have recently received from the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS), Renewable Energy Systems Committee, a Transactions Paper Award - Third Prize for the manuscript entitled "Incorporating Battery Energy Storage Systems into Multi-MW Grid Connected PV Systems", which was published in the flagship peer-reviewed journal IEEE Trans on IAS. Most recent research by the group has been just published in the widely circulated peer-reviewed IEEE Access journal in the paper "Parameter Identification for Cells, Modules, Racks, and Battery for Utility-Scale Energy Storage Systems". The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is the world's largest association of technical professionals with more than 400,000 members worldwide and the IAS is one of its large societies.

The publications are reflective of the strong collaboration between PEIK and LG&E and KU on timely topics of new technologies for renewable energy generation and storage in the electric power systems. Since 2018, the joint research group actively working on utility-scale large electric batteries and solar PV topics included at UK: Oluwaseun M. Akeyo, Ph.D. student, Vandana Rallabandi, Postdoctoral Researcher, and Dan M. Ionel, EE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK Lab and PEIK Institute Director, and at LG&E and KU: Nicholas Jewell, Senior Engineer, and Aron Patrick, Manager Technology Research and Analysis. Authors' versions of the technical papers are available from the SPARK Lab website. 

SPARK and PEIK Collaborate with EPRI on the ENGAGE Distributed Energy Resources Project Funded by DOE

November 12, 2020

The SPARK research group affiliated with the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) will participate in a newly awarded research project led by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), in collaboration with utilities and industry, and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). At EPRI, the large collaborative project is led by Dr. Aminul Huque, Principal Project Manager, and at UK, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, FIEEE, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK and PEIK Director, serves as PI. 
 
The research will develop and test an end-to-end aggregation and control architecture for Distributed Energy Resources (DER). The architecture would be designed to enable behind-the-meter (BTM) solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to be co-located with other DER to provide both bulk power and distribution grid services. The multi-institutional team will conduct advanced transmission, distribution, and DER simulations to validate the merit and performance of DER-provided services, and better estimate the potential need for network upgrades. The multi-year project is entitled “Enable BTM DER-provided Grid Services that Maximize Customer and Grid Benefits (ENGAGE)”, received a DOE award of $3 million and will additionally benefit of a $1.1 million cost-share budget contribution.
 
The SPARK and PEIK research contributions to the project will build upon expertise in DER optimization and co-simulation of smart homes and grids with the EnergyPlus and OpenDSS open-source software, as illustrated in recently published papers. These are available, in authors’ manuscript versions, from the SPARK Lab website, and include contributions by PEIK faculty, Drs. Dan M. Ionel and Don Colliver, and SPARK Lab Ph.D. and research students: Huangjie Gong, Evan S. Jones, and Rosemary E. Alden.

Electrical Engineering and PEIK Faculty Dr. Aaron Cramer Receives Grant from U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research

November 9, 2020

Electrical Engineering and PEIK Faculty Dr. Aaron Cramer, has been awarded a grant from the U.S. Navy Office of Naval Research. The new project seeks to advance the metric-based evaluation of control system performance by evaluating optimal-control-based system techniques, integrating of control-based evaluation with other system metrics, and assessing control implementation opportunities. Contributions in these areas will immediately improve the capability of control system evaluation and will ultimately lead to new techniques for the development of control systems for complex, multi-mission systems. The project will be funded for approx. $360,000 over three years.

Advances in shipboard power systems are creating new opportunities to apply energy to meet the mission needs of the warfighter, but the growing complexity of such systems is creating new challenges for the control systems that must govern them. Enhancements in analysis and design techniques will improve resource utilization, allowing the system to operate more efficiently and/or with greater performance.

IEEE PES National Scholarships Awarded to Electrical Engineering and PEIK Students

October 23, 2020

Three PEIK and EE undergraduate students, Rosemary Alden, Hope Anderson, and Donovin Lewis have been each competitively awarded a 2020/2021 national IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Plus Initiative Scholarship. Rosemary (on the right in the photo taken during a recent Zoom online meeting) and Donovin (left in the photo), also received this yearly scholarship in 2019/2020. The two of them are University Scholars Program (USP) students in their senior BS year and will be continuing for Ph.D. studies at University of Kentucky. Their research this year is supported through an NSF REU and a NASA REU, respectively. Hope is a sophomore BS student, one of the youngest IEEE PES awardees, and her research this year is supported by the L. Stanley Pigman endowment. Each IEEE PES Scholarship recipient receives $2,000 and membership to IEEE PES.

These awards continue the success enjoyed in recent years by UK and PEIK students. Also included in the photo is Stewart Evan Jones, who received in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 the IEEE PES national scholarship as an undergraduate USP student and is now a Ph.D. student and GAANN fellow at UK where he worked on research projects sponsored by large utilities TVA and LG&E and KU. All four students are part of the SPARK Lab affiliated with PEIK and are advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, IEEE Fellow, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK and PEIK Director. 

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is headquartered in New York City and is the world's largest association of technical professionals with more than 400,000 members. The Power and Energy Society (PES) is the oldest and one of the largest societies within the IEEE with approximately 40,000 members. Earlier this year, the EE and PEIK students have established a new chapter of IEEE PES at UK.

PEIK Researchers Participate in the Online IEEE ECCE 2020 Congress and Report on Government and Industry Sponsored Research

October 12, 2020

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and University of Kentucky (UK) College of Engineering faculty, including: Don Colliver, Aaron Cramer, Jiangbiao He, Dan M. Ionel, and Yuan Liao, and postdoctoral researcher Peng Han, together with research students, including: Oluwaseun Akeyo, Rosemary Alden, Huangjie Gong, Evan S. Jones, Murat Kesgin, Damien Lawhorn, Donovin Lewis, Pranoy Kumar Singha Roy, and Yibin Zhang contributed papers and presentations to the IEEE ECCE 2020 Congress and the IAS Annual Meeting. The papers cover topics of smart grids and homes, renewable energy devices and systems, energy storage, power electronics, electric machines, and recent research projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and directly by industry and utilities, including: ANSYS, Inc., Regal Beloit Corp., Schneider Electric, and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).
 
The Energy Conversion Congress and Exhibition (ECCE) is the largest annual joint event of the IEEE Industry Applications and IEEE Power Electronics Societies, which typically attracts approximately 2,000 attendees. The Industry Applications Society (IAS) Annual Meeting was co-located with ECCE and the two events, which were originally scheduled for Detroit, MI, have been organized on-line due to pandemic conditions.

PEIK Reports Annual Record for Graduate Certificates Issued

October 2, 2020

Over the last academic year, 2019-2020, UK College of Engineering awarded seven students with the graduate certificate in Power and Energy and one graduate certificate in the newly established online Power Systems graduate certificate program. The graduate certificate in Power and Energy provides students with state of the art knowledge in power and energy areas and shows the graduates dedication to this area of study. For more information about the graduate certificate visit https://www.engr.uky.edu/power/power-and-energy-institute-kentucky/education/graduate-certificate-power-and-energy
 
The Power Systems graduate certificate program is designed to provide students with the core knowledge and latest advancements in power systems analysis, modeling, operation, control, optimization, and integration of renewable energies, and produce well trained graduates in this specialty. For more information about the online Power Systems graduate certificate visit https://www.engr.uky.edu/power/power-and-energy-institute-kentucky/education/power-systems-online-graduate-certificate. 
 
Dr. Yuan Liao, PEIK faculty and EE Professor, serves as the director for both graduate certificate programs. The high number of recently awarded certificates sets an annual record and is reflective of the strengthening of the graduate program in power and energy.

SPARK and PEIK Researchers Participate in the Online IEEE ICRERA 2020 Conference and Present on Progress with NSF, NASA, and Power Utility Sponsored Research

September 30, 2020

SPARK and PEIK researchers from University of Kentucky attended the 9th edition of the International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications, ICRERA. The event was originally planned for Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom and, due to pandemic conditions, was held online on September 27-30, 2020. The ICRERA conferences typically attract large world-wide attendance with hundreds of participants. The program included many parallel sessions on specialized topics.

From UK, USP and PhD students Rosemary E. Alden, Donovin Lewis, and Evan S. Jones, authored and presented papers on timely topics of artificial intelligence applied to smart buildings and energy usage, electrification of transportation with a feasibility study for large cranes, and energy profiles for high efficiency buildings and solar PV distributed generators. The three research projects covered by the papers were sponsored by NSF, NASA, and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), respectively.  Paper co-authors from UK included PhD candidates Huangjie Gong and Damien Lawhorn, and faculty: Dr. Don Colliver, F-ASHRAE, BAE Professor, Director of KIAC, and Dr. Dan M. Ionel, FIEEE, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, Director of SPARK and PEIK. Authors' versions of the manuscripts are available on the SPARK Lab website.

PEIK Faculty, Dr. Joseph Sottile, and Mining Engineering Colleagues Receive Contract from NIOSH

September 17, 2020

Dr. Joseph Sottile, Director of the Undergraduate Certificate in Power and Energy, Mining and Electrical Engineering Professor, together with Associate Professor Steven Schafrik and Mining Engineering Foundation Professor and Chair Zach Agioutantis, both in Mining Engineering, received a $650,000 contract from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The project, which will advance underground mine equipment autonomous operation, will span two years.  
 
The research will focus on shuttle car navigation at, or near, the continuous miner during cutting and loading operations, because this represents a particularly hazardous situation. The main objective is to develop autonomous navigation concepts for navigating a shuttle car from the continuous miner change point to the continuous miner coal-discharge conveyor under various situations representing realistic mining conditions.  These developments will be demonstrated with a shuttle car and continuous miner in a realistic environment. The results of the project will enhance miner health and safety, and the concepts developed are expected to be applicable to other mining applications.

Electrical Engineering and PEIK Undergraduate Researcher, Rosemary Alden, Receives Best Poster Award at 2020 IEEE PES GM

August 28, 2020

Rosemary E. Alden, a Senior Electrical Engineering (EE) Bachelor and Science (BS) and University Scholars Program (USP) student, was recently awarded the First Prize in the Undergraduate Student Poster Contest organized during the 2020 IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) General Meeting (GM). The conference, which is the flagship annual event of PES, one of the largest societies within IEEE, typically gathers more than 2,500 participants. This year’s edition was originally scheduled for Montreal, Canada and was held online due to the pandemic conditions.

The award-winning poster, “Tradeoffs in Forecasting of Residential Electric Loads with Data from Smart Meters and Intelligent Circuit Breakers”, covers Rosemary’s most recent research on advanced topics of smart buildings and grids. Last year, her earlier work on smart plugs for electric power monitoring was published in an IEEE conference proceedings paper at ICRERA 2019 and also received at UK an Honorable Mention in the Oswald Undergraduate Research Competition. Rosemary is a national IEEE PES Plus Initiative Scholar and currently serves as the Chair for the new IEEE PES Student Chapter at UK.

As an USP student, Rosemary is integrating her BS and PhD studies, and is also pursuing the PEIK certificate. Her research in the current academic year will be supported by an NSF REU supplement to the collaborative project “Crosslayer Optimization of Energy and Cost through Unified Modeling of User Behavior and Storage in Multiple Buildings”, which is led at UK by Drs. Simone Silvestri and Dan M. Ionel and at Marquette University by Dr. Cris Ababei. Rosemary started her research at UK in the fall of 2018 in the SPARK Laboratory and is advised by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, FIEEE, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and PEIK Director.

Dan M. Ionel, PEIK Director and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, Receives the Veinott Award from the IEEE Power and Energy Society

August 7, 2020

Dan M. Ionel, Ph.D., IEEE Fellow, Professor of Electrical Engineering and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, has received the prestigious Cyril G. Veinott Award. This is the highest distinction for electromechanical energy conversion, conferred to only one individual each year, by the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES), which has approximately 40,000 members and is one of the largest societies within the IEEE, the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology. The Veinott Award is normally presented at the annual IEEE PES General Meeting, which this year was scheduled in Montreal, Canada, but due to current pandemic conditions was held online. 

Dr. Ionel, who joined UK in 2015, currently teaches EGR 240 - Global Energy Issues, a core requirement for the Power and Energy Undergraduate Certificate, and a very popular class with almost 200 student enrollments each year. He also teaches advanced undergraduate and graduate EE elective courses at the 500 and 600 level on topics of renewable energy, electric power systems, electric and hybrid vehicles and aircrafts.

His immediate research group, the SPARK Laboratory, is working on projects with a total multi-million dollar budget sponsored by NSF, DOE, NASA, and directly by industry and power utilities, and includes more than 10 researchers, most of whom are PhD students. Dr. Ionel is currently developing the new SPARKS Laboratories, which are located in the recently modernized Grehan Hall, and benefit of large support from the university, industry, utilities, and private donors.

Since 2015, together with his research students and collaborators, Dr. Ionel co-authored more than 100 journal and conference papers, on topics of alternative and renewable energy technologies, battery energy storage, electric machines and power electronic drives, electric power systems, smart grids and buildings, and 3 books, including “Renewable Energy Devices and Systems – Simulations with MATLAB and ANSYS” published by CRC Press.

More information and Dr. Ionel’s acceptance speech for the Veinott Award are available on the SPARK website (http://sparklab.engr.uky.edu/). At UK, Dr. Ionel also serves as the Director of the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) (https://www.engr.uky.edu/power), a multi-disciplinary organization with more than 15 affiliated faculty from different Departments of UK’s College of Engineering.

IEEE Power and Energy Society 2020 General Meeting - SPARK and PEIK Student Presentations and Best Poster Award

August 7, 2020

This week, SPARK and PEIK researchers participated in the largest annual conference of the IEEE Power and Energy Society. The event, which typically gathers approximately 3,000 participants and was originally scheduled for Montreal, Canada, was held online due to the pandemic conditions.

UK students presented on research sponsored by large utilities and by the National Science Foundation (NSF), respectively:

• Akeyo, O.M., Patrick, A., and Ionel, D.M., “Study of Large Solar PV Penetration on a Proposed Generation and Transmission Benchmark System”
• Gong, H., Jones, S.E., and Ionel, D.M., “An Aggregated and Equivalent Home Model for Power System Studies with Examples of Building Insulation and HVAC Control Improvements”
• Alden, R., Ababei, C., and Ionel, D.M., “Tradeoffs in Forecasting of Residential Electric Loads with Data from Smart Meters and Intelligent Circuit Breakers”.

All presentations were very well received. Rosemary Alden’s work was awarded the First Prize in the Undergraduate Student Poster Contest. Rosemary, who is a University Scholar Program student is integrating her BS and PhD studies at UK, and her research in the next academic year will be supported by an NSF REU supplement.  

The image accompanying this article was taken at UK E-Day in February, prior to the implementation of social distancing guidelines. From left to right, students: Evan S. Jones, Damien L. Lawhorn, Rosemary E. Alden, Akeyo M. Oluwaseun M, and Huangjie Gong, all advised by Dan M. Ionel, Ph.D, IEEE Fellow, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK and PEIK Director.

PEIK Reports Success with Many Certificates Issued and Scholarships Awarded

July 30, 2020

Over the last academic year, 2019-2020, UK awarded 39 students with the Undergraduate Certificate in Power and Energy. This certificate program consists of a series of foundational courses supplemented by a broad array of elective courses related to power and energy developed to prepare the students for a successful career in industry and the electric utilities.  The list of majors for the students who were issued the certificate this year includes Chemical and Materials Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Mining Engineering. A total of 130 students have received the Undergraduate Certificate in Power and Energy over the last three years.

Recently, the UK College of Engineering has awarded 16 E.ON Scholarships for PEIK to eligible students who demonstrated strong interest in power and energy studies. These annual scholarships that continue to be supported by the endowment established years ago at UK by E.ON, on behalf of Kentucky Utilities, provide recipients between $2,000 and $3,000 annually and may also grant an additional $2,000 for use on a power and energy related study abroad trip during the school year or the following summer.

Louisville Gas and Electric and Kentucky Utilities (LG&E and KU) continue to be strong supporters of UK and PEIK teaching, research, and outreach programs. For more information on the Undergraduate Certificate in Power and Energy scholarships, visit the PEIK website [PEIK Undergraduate Certificate Webpage] and [PEIK Scholarship Webpage].

PEIK and LG&E and KU Expand Research Collaboration on Renewable Energy and the Smart Grid

July 8, 2020

PEIK and LG&E and KU have recently expanded their collaboration program with a sponsored research project to include, alongside the integration of large solar PV power plants in the generation and transmission system, new topics of electric power distribution and smart grid technologies. Mr. Aron Patrick, Manager of Technology Research and Analytics for LG&E and KU, serves as the industrial project lead, and Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and PEIK Director, is the project PI at University of Kentucky.

Over the last year, the PEIK and LG&E and KU researchers successfully analyzed the impact of large PV penetration on the companies’ generation portfolio. Using historical solar irradiance profiles from multiple sites distributed across the state of Kentucky, the study was able to estimate the maximum amount of intermittent renewable energy sources the service area can sustain without the need for significant upgrades to the existing infrastructure. This work can be adopted for vast utility applications including specifications for new generation units, utility-scale energy storage capacity requirements, and necessary transmission line upgrades for increased solar PV penetration.

LGE&E and KU and PEIK also collaborate on teaching with lectures and demonstrations by utility experts for the multidisciplinary core required class for the Power and Energy certificate at University of Kentucky, EGR 240 “Global Energy Issues”, and contributions to the advanced engineering classes on special topics of electric power engineering. The two organizations also work together on professional and STEM outreach in support of the regional community.

SPARK and PEIK Researchers Report on DOE and NASA Sponsored Projects at the IEEE ITEC 2020 Conference

June 29, 2020

SPARK and PEIK researchers attended last week the IEEE ITEC 2020 Conference, which was held online, and reported on progress and achievements on two projects sponsored by DOE and NASA, respectively. Huangjie Gong and Damien Lawhorn, ECE PhD candidates, presented their papers: "Optimization of Aggregated EV Power in Residential Communities with Smart Homes" and "A Network Graph Technique for the Design of Electric Aircraft Power Systems", which are co-authored by their PhD advisor, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK and PEIK Director. Authors' versions of the manuscripts are available on the SPARK Lab website. 

Rodger Reiswig of Johnson Controls Delivers PEIK Online Seminar on Power Over Ethernet

June 26, 2020

On June 25, 2020 Rodger Reiswig, Fellow and Vice President of Industry Relations for Johnson Controls presented on the topics of power over ethernet and related impacts on industry codes and standards. The seminar also covered the convergence of these topics with the life safety industry, systems integration, and user interaction and specifically how regulations and procedures must adapt to allow technological developments. The presentation concluded with a future outlook on how the internet of things is expected to impact the life safety industry. 

Awards and Recognitions for UK Engineering Students on Topics of Power and Energy

June 11, 2020

The excellent progress of College of Engineering students and their achievements have been recently recognized at UK and nationally. The list of our new awardees includes:
•    Rosemary Alden, H. Alex Romanowitz Memorial Award from the ECE Department and National Science Foundation REU Student 
•    Trevor Arvin, ECE Research Symposium Best BS Student Presentation
•    Tyler Cultice, ECE Undergraduate Research Fellowship
•    Damien Lawhorn, ECE Research Symposium Best PhD Student Presentation
•    Donovin Lewis, ECE Undergraduate Research Fellowship
•    Ben Luckett, Robert L. Cosgriff Award from the ECE Department
•    Nelson Penn, National Science Foundation REU Student
•    Eura Shin, National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.

The students have worked with their faculty advisors, Drs. Jiangbiao He, Dan M. Ionel, Simone Silvestri, and Himanshu Thapliyal on topics of power and energy.

Dr. Joseph Sottile, PEIK Director of Undergraduate Studies, announced that more than thirty PEIK certificates will be issued this year. The E.On scholarships for PEIK will be awarded later this summer by UK College of Engineering.

NSF Sponsored PEIK Project on Smart Buildings and Grid Expands with REU Supplement

June 10, 2020

The National Science Foundation (NSF) project: “Crosslayer Optimization of Energy and Cost through Unified Modeling of User Behavior and Storage in Multiple Buildings”, which has been awarded last year to PEIK researchers, Dr. Simone Silvestri, CS Assistant Professor, and Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and PEIK Director, as PI and co-PI, respectively, has been recently expanded with a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) supplement. This will allow UK undergraduate and University Scholars Program students in CS, Nelson Penn, and in EE, Rosemary Alden, to be actively engaged, later this summer and throughout the next academic year, in research alongside PhD students and their faculty advisors.

This NSF project studies newly proposed transformative concepts of "human-in-the-loop", social-behavioral models, machine learning, and large-scale modeling of buildings and electric power distribution systems, leading to the development of highly efficient and reliable smart homes and grids. The research is expected to also strengthen PEIK's partnership with regional utilities, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and National Labs.

PEIK Online Seminar on Energy Storage Systems Presented by Schneider Electric's Keith Waters

May 29, 2020

On May 28, 2020, Keith Waters, Industry Standards Manager at Schneider Electric presented on the topic of performance standards of Energy Storage Systems (ESS) used to supply secure power to larger systems. The seminar focused on the NFPA 70 (National Electric Code) Articles 705 (Interconnected Electric Power Production); 706 (Energy Storage Systems); and 710 (Stand Alone Systems). Also included was a brief overview of the current state of NEC adoption. The seminar concluded with a brief discussion of other standards that will impact ESS codes/standards’ future.

Computer Science and PEIK Undergraduate Researcher, Eura Shin, Receives National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship

May 20, 2020

Eura Shin, a recent computer science BS graduate, has been selected to receive a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship. NSF Fellows receive a three-year annual stipend of $34,000 along with a $12,000 cost of education allowance for tuition and fees for a research-based master's or doctoral degree in a STEM field. Annually, the NSF awards approximately 1,500 fellowships from an applicant pool of over 12,000.
 
Shin, a Lewis Honors College member from Morehead, Kentucky, will pursue a PhD in computer science at Harvard University. Since the spring 2017 semester, Eura worked with computer science assistant professor and PEIK faculty, Simone Silvestri, on research projects related to machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) for energy in smart homes and grids.

Schneider Electric's Remi Bolduc Delivers PEIK Online Seminar on Harmonics Mitigation

April 21, 2020

On April 20, 2020, Remi Bolduc, Competency Centre Manager at Schneider Electric, presented on topics of high frequency components of voltage and current low voltage distribution networks. The seminar reviewed the nature of harmonics, how they are generated, and how to quantify them. Other subjects included the main harmonic standard in North America (IEEE 519-2014), directly relevant utilities grid code requirements, and available harmonic mitigation solutions. The presentation was concluded with a discussion on active harmonic filtering followed by a Q&A session.

SPARK Lab Expands Research on Electric Machines and Drives with QM Power Company

April 7, 2020

The SPARK Laboratory, which is affiliated with the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) and operates within the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department at the University of Kentucky (UK) College of Engineering, has recently expanded its collaboration with QM Power, Inc through the award of a multi-year directly sponsored project. QM Power, a start-up company based in Kansas City, MO, had its initial research and development supported, among others, by the Department of Energy (DOE), NASA, and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and more recently successfully raised substantial private investment capital. SPARK and QM Power already collaborate on a DOE sponsored project for the future generation of machines and drives for electric vehicles.

Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, Director of the SPARK Lab and of the PEIK Institute, will serve at UK as the principal investigator (PI) for the project leading a team of researchers. At QM Power, Mr. Joe Flynn, principal inventor and CTO, and Dr. Hari Harikumar, CEO, will serve as the technical and business project leads, respectively. The new project will analyze and optimize some of QM Power's innovative and patented technologies and designs by employing the SPARK Group premier expertise in electric machines and drives, low frequency electromagnetics, and applied evolutionary computational intelligence.

University of Kentucky and PEIK Measures Related to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

April 1, 2020

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, University of Kentucky in-person events have been cancelled or postponed. This includes our planned spring PEIK Distinguished Speaker seminars, as well as student and faculty field visits to power and energy utility and industrial sites. Instruction has now moved online with more details being available on UK’s dedicated website.

https://www.uky.edu/coronavirus/

Simone Silvestri, Computer Science and PEIK Faculty, Receives Prestigious  NSF CAREER Award

March 24, 2020

Dr. Simone Silvestri joined the Computer Science Department within the College of Engineering at University of Kentucky as an Assistant Professor in 2017 and shortly afterwards he also become a PEIK faculty member. Dr. Silvestri recently received the prestigious National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. The award recognizes and supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their academic organizations.

The project for this NSF CAREER award is entitled "Energy Management for Smart Residential Environments through Human-in-the-loop Algorithm Design". The residential sector is responsible for more than 20% of the total energy consumption of the United States, and this amount has been constantly increasing for several decades. Smart residential environments (SREs) are a new paradigm that envisions homes equipped with smart appliances based on the paradigm of the Internet of Things. SREs offer tremendous potential to reduce the energy consumption of the residential sector; however, previous work in this context has largely overlooked the complexity of human behaviors and perceptions when interacting with such systems. 

The award will support Dr. Silvestri’s long term research goal of laying the foundations for a new field of study at the intersection of computer science and social sciences, where social-behavioral theories and models are integrated into new algorithmic, machine learning and optimization solutions for cyber-physical systems to specifically consider user behaviors, perceptions and psychological processes in the design and operation of these systems. The research will enable further development of collaboration with faculty from different academic organizations and with PEIK’s industrial and utility partners.

PEIK and ECE Students Establish New IEEE PES and IAS Joint Chapter at UK

March 5, 2020

A new IEEE Student Branch Chapter of the Power and Energy Society (PES) and of the Industry Application Society (IAS) has been recently established at UK following a formal process initiated last fall by a group of enthusiastic undergraduate and graduate ECE and PEIK students. The chapter was approved by the IEEE international organization in late December and started its activities at UK in the current spring semester.

The newly elected executive committee members of the student chapter, who were photographed after the 2020 E-Day at UK, are: Evan S. Jones, Damien Lawhorn, Rosemary Alden, Oluwaseun Akeyo and Huangjie Gong (left to right). Dr. Dan M. Ionel, IEEE Fellow, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, SPARK and PEIK Director, serves as the faculty advisor. Together with other members of the chapter, the students directly supported the stands and demonstrations of PEIK and LG&E and KU, which attracted record attendance. In addition to active participation in outreach initiatives, the students also plan other events for professional development and networking with the wider engineering community.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is the world's largest association of technical professionals with more than 400,000 members worldwide. At UK, the new PES and IAS Chapter further develops the tradition of the IEEE Student Branch that has been very active and successful for many years and reflects the growing number of students and the strong interest in electric power engineering.

PEIK and LG&E and KU Expanded Displays and New Demonstrations at UK's E-Day 2020

February 27, 2020

On Saturday February 22nd, PEIK’s and LG&E and KU’s joint exhibit stands at the Engineering Day, E-Day, which were organized in the atrium of the RGAN Hall, attracted a record number of visitors. Altogether, this annual edition of the UK College of Engineering event had approximately 3,000 attendees.

New this year, were the PEIK and LG&E and KU collaboration with undergraduate and graduate student members of the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) and Industry Applications Society (IAS) joint chapter newly established at UK, and an electric city model built by the students. Faculty and students also demonstrated older displays, which were back by popular demand, including the full-size electric bike with flashing lights and computer tablet interface, the "world's largest wind turbine" – an enlarged and modified Lego replica of Vestas V-164, a levitating and wireless supplied electric bulb, a Faraday flashlight, and a video with aerial views of real-life utility-size power systems and renewable energy installations, including Kentucky's largest electric battery and solar PV LG&E and KU power plant. 

Awards for PEIK and CS Research Students in Computer Science on Energy Topics

February 17, 2020

Two CS students working with PEIK Faculty Simone Silvestri on energy related projects have recently received awards and recognition for their research. 

Eura has worked with Dr. Silvestri  since 2017 on energy management systems based on machine learning and artificial intelligence. She has also published a paper that appeared in the proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on COMmunication Systems & NETworkS (COMSNETS), 2020, and another paper that is currently under review. Thanks to this work, Eura won a prestigious Barry Goldwater Scholarship and received the Honorable Mention for the Computing Research Association's (CRA) Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award for 2020. Eura plans to earn a Ph.D. in computer science and pursue a position as a professor of computer science. 

Seun Adekunle, a high school student from the Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, has worked with Dr. Silvestri on a project to interface a smart outlet with a web server and a smart phone application. Seun  won the second place for his poster at the  KY State Science Fair, Energy: Physical category. 

PEIK to Set Up New Laboratories in Modernized Grehan Hall

January 29, 2020

The Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky, PEIK, which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary since being established with support from a large DOE grant, will be setting up new laboratories on UK’s campus in the newly modernized Grehan Hall. Recently, this building has been undergoing major renovations to serve as an expansion for the fast growing UK College of Engineering. The additional 45,000 square feet of building space includes allocation for new PEIK laboratories covering research topics of alternative and renewable energy technologies, battery energy storage, electric machines and power electronic drives, electric power systems, smart grids and buildings. PEIK's developments benefit of large support from the university, industry, utilities, and private donors.

New DOE Sponsored Project for SPARK and PEIK at UK to Research a New Generation of Motors and Drives for Electric and Hybrid Vehicles

December 9, 2019

The new project, which has been competitively awarded under the US Department of Energy, Advanced Vehicle Technologies Research Program DE-0002014, seeks to develop revolutionary concepts that will significantly increase the power density and decrease the cost of motors and drives for high efficiency electric and hybrid vehicles. The research will consider novel magnetic flux doubling machine configurations with permanent magnets in the stator and special reluctance rotors and multi-phase power electronics converters with Silicon Carbide (SiC) Wide Band Gap (WBG) devices. 

The multi-year project benefits of a $750,000 budget with cost share and additional support to be provided by partner industrial company, QM Power, Inc. Academic collaborators will include colleagues from the EPIC Center at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. At UK, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, SPARK and PEIK Director, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, will serve as the principal investigator (PI) and lead a team including postdoctoral scholar Dr. Peng Han and research assistant students. 

Ionel to Serve as the Steering Committee Chair for the IEEE IEMDC Series of Conferences

December 9, 2019

Dr. Dan M. Ionel, SPARK and PEIK Director, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, has been elected as the Steering Committee Chair for the IEEE International Conference on Electric Machines and Drives (IEMDC) series. The most recent edition of IEMDC has been held this year in San Diego, CA, and the next event is scheduled for Hartford, CT. Established in 1997 in Milwaukee, WI, as a bi-annual series, IEMDC is IEEE’s oldest and largest conference devoted entirely to electric machines and power electronic drives.

An IEEE Fellow, senior Past Chair of the IEEE PES Electric Motor Subcommittee, and inaugural Chair of the IEEE IAS Renewable Energy Systems Conversion Committee, Dr. Ionel, also served as the General Chair for the IEEE IEMDC 2017 Anniversary edition held in Miami, FL. Dr. Ionel joined UK, the ECE Department and the PEIK Institute, in the fall of 2015, after more than 25 years in industry. At UK, the electric machines and power electronic drives research of his SPARK group is sponsored by NSF, DOE, NASA, and directly by industry.

Sekulic Inducted into 2019 Class of Fellows of the American Welding Society

December 3, 2019

Dr. Dusan Sekulic, Secat J. G. Morris Aluminum Professor of Mechanical Engineering and PEIK faculty, was recently inducted into the 2019 Class of Fellows of the American Welding Society. His election as an AWS Fellow came in recognition for a career of significant achievements in the technical and research arenas that has enhanced the image and impact of the welding industry.

Earlier this year, Dr. Sekulic’s paper "Microstructure refining of a Mo-Ni Brazing Filler by Nanoparticle Doping” received the  "Robert L. Peaslee Award" by the AWS, which recognizes the manuscript considered the best contribution to the science or technology of brazing published in the AWS Welding Journal during previous calendar year. Co-authors of the paper include H. Fu, D. Busbaher, A. Rabinkin, E. Leone, and T. Preuss. 

The America Welding Society is a nonprofit organization with a global mission to advance the science, technology and application of welding and allied joining and cutting processes, including brazing, soldering and thermal spraying. AWS strives to move the industry forward in both thought and action, as well as inspire new generations to see the exciting career opportunities available today.

SPARK and PEIK Keynote and Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Renewable Energy Research and Applications, ICRERA 2019

December 2, 2019

A keynote for the ICRERA 2019 Conference, which was held on Nov 3-6 in Brasov, RO, was delivered by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, SPARK and PEIK Director, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power. Recent editions of ICRERA were held in Birmingham, UK, in 2016, were Dr. Ionel also served as a keynote speaker, in San Diego, CA, in 2017, and in Paris, FR, last year. Next year’s ICRERA will be held in Glasgow, UK https://www.icrera.org/. Dr. Ionel’s keynote for this edition was entitled “Recent Technology Developments for Utility-Scale and Distributed Battery Energy Storage Systems”.

One of SPARK group’s papers from UK and PEIK: “Overview of Flywheel Systems for Renewable Energy Storage with a Design Study for High-speed Axial-flux Permanent-magnet Machines" with contributions by EE PhD students Murat Kesgin and Narges Taran and postdoctoral scholar Dr. Peng Han, won a best paper/poster award. Two other SPARK papers with contributions by EE PhD students Evan Jones and Huangjie Gong and EE USP PhD student Rosemary Alden, covered topics of net zero energy microgrids and communities, and smart plugs and circuit breakers for buildings, respectively. The PDFs for the keynote and for the papers are available on the SPARK website http://sparklab.engr.uky.edu/.  

Distinguished Speaker PEIK Seminar by Kentucky PSC Commissioner Talina Mathews

November 25, 2019

On Monday, November 25th, Commissioner Talina Mathews of the Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) gave a presentation as part of the PEIK Distinguished Speaker seminar series. Commissioner Mathews firstly discussed the background and history of the PSC. She also described the process of utility rate making and outlined PSC updates taking effect from the 2019 legislative session. The presentation concluded with an overview of electricity generation and pricing trends for Kentucky and more broadly, the U.S.  

Commissioner Mathews was appointed to the Kentucky PSC in 2017. In addition to nearly two decades of government service, she has worked in the private sector with an engineering consulting firm and served as the director of member services and advocacy at the Organization of MISO States and has held several adjunct teaching positions in economics and public policy. Commissioner Mathews earned a Doctor of Philosophy and a Master of Arts in economics from the University of Kentucky. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in economics and mathematics from Berea College.

New Research Project on Virtual Power Plants for Electric Distribution Systems Sponsored by TVA

November 4, 2019

Tennessee Valley Authority, TVA, has awarded a new research project to UK PEIK Institute and SPARK Laboratory researchers to study over the next year virtual power plants for the distributed energy resources aggregation and demand response optimal controls. The project will evaluate the potential beneficial impact of coordinated operation of appliances, including HVAC systems and water heaters, solar PV, battery systems, and electric vehicles on the future electric power distribution systems for communities. Drew Frye, Program Manager of Grid Edge & EV Strategy, Enterprise Research & Technology Innovation, serves as the TVA project lead and Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and PEIK Director as the principal investigator (PI) at UK. The project team at UK includes Huangjie Gong and Evan Jones, PhD students, and Rosemary Alden, USP PhD student. The research will utilize the capabilities developed at UK for the large-scale co-simulation of buildings and electric power distribution systems, which have been described in recent papers presented at large conferences such as IEEE ECCE, PES GM and ICRERA.

Electrical Engineering and PEIK Students Continue Success with IEEE PES National Scholarships at UK

November 4, 2019

Rosemary Alden and Donovin Lewis, UK electrical engineering and PEIK undergraduate students, were recently awarded the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Plus national scholarship. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is headquartered in New York City and is the world's largest association of technical professionals with more than 400,000 members. This year, only 135 students nationwide and 21 from the entire Southeastern IEEE Region were selected to receive such an award.

Rosemary and Donovin are enrolled in the University Scholars for Ph.D. program at UK and conduct research in the SPARK Lab, which is directed by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, IEEE Fellow, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman in Power and PEIK Director. Rosemary currently leads the initiative to establish a new IEEE Power and Energy Society Chapter at UK. Donovin serves as an electrical engineering team lead for the UK Solar Car, which currently holds the speed record for solar electric vehicles at the Circuit of the Americas racetrack in Austin, Texas. Included in the photo, on the right side, is Stewart Evan Jones, who received in 2017/2018 and 2018/2019 the IEEE PES national scholarship as an undergraduate student. Evan, who was a University Scholar at UK, graduated with two BS degrees in Electrical and in Computer Engineering, respectively, and with the PEIK certificate in the summer of 2019, and now continues at UK with Ph.D. studies and research in electric power engineering in the SPARK Lab.

PEIK and ECE Faculty, Dr. JiangBiao He, Received the 2019 IEEE IAS Andrew W. Smith Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award

October 14, 2019

Dr. JiangBiao He, PEIK faculty member and ECE Department Assistant Professor at University of Kentucky, received the prestigious 2019 IEEE Industry Application Society (IAS) Andrew W. Smith Outstanding Young Member Achievement Award at the IAS Annual Meeting, which was recently held and co-located with this year edition of the IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Expo (ECCE), in Baltimore, MD. This award recognizes outstanding contributions to the profession through involvement in IEEE IAS activities by a society member who is less than 35 years of age. Only one awardee is selected every year from the very large international IEEE IAS community that has approximately 14,000 members.

Dr. He’s research, teaching and professional outreach covers topics of power electronics, electric motor drives, renewable energy and electrification of transportation. He joined University of Kentucky in January 2019 after working in industry for Eaton Corporate Research & Technology and for Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee, WI and most recently for GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY.

PEIK and ECE Faculty to Collaborate on Electric Power Engineering Topics on GAANN Grant

October 4, 2019

PEIK researchers and ECE faculty, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, PEIK Director and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and Dr. Aaron Cramer, Kentucky Utilities Associate Professor, will serve as Program Co-Director and Director of Studies, respectively, on a new Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to the ECE Department at University of Kentucky. Dr. Mike Johnson, Professor and ECE Department Chair, will lead as the Program Director and Dr. Janett Lump, ECE Professor, will coordinate the teaching experience for the new GAAN Program.

The three-year $600,000 GAANN grant will provide funds to support graduate students pursuing doctoral degrees in research areas related to electrical and computer engineering at UK. The general aims of this GAANN fellowship program are to educate and train doctoral students in electrical and computer engineering, with a focus on increasing the number of traditionally underrepresented students, including women and first-generation students, seeking impactful careers in research and teaching. A minimum of one GAANN Ph.D. fellowship will be allocated to electric power and will benefit of direct support from the SPARK Program, TVA Professorship, and PEIK.

PEIK Represented at the Kentucky Governor's Conference on Energy and the Environment

September 22, 2019

On September 20, 2019 the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) was represented at the Kentucky Governor’s Conference on Energy and the Environment at the Lexington Convention Center by Dr. Dan Ionel , and Jason Souders, PEIK/KIAC/FEEDER Coordinator. PEIK had an exhibition booth providing information on the program’s education, outreach and research activities and facilitating engaging discussions with attendees, current and prospective supporters. The materials on display reported on last year's main achievements, including: new faculty, graduate students, and awards, record number of PEIK undergraduate certificates, latest research projects sponsored by DOE and NSF and directly by industry and utilities.

As per the event organizers, the Governor's Conference brings together some of the nation's and state's top minds in the energy and environment arenas. The conference sessions reflect current issues affecting energy development and environmental stewardship in Kentucky.

NSF Grant for Research on Human Behavior, Energy Efficiency, Storage and Management in Buildings

September 19, 2019

PEIK researchers, Dr. Simone Silvestri, CS Assistant Professor, and Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and PEIK Director, will serve as PI and co-PI, respectively, on a new collaborative NSF grant: “Crosslayer Optimization of Energy and Cost through Unified Modeling of User Behavior and Storage in Multiple Buildings”. The project will study newly proposed transformative concepts of "human-in-the-loop", social-behavioral models, machine learning, and large-scale modeling of buildings and electric power distribution systems, leading to the development of highly efficient and reliable smart homes and grids.

The new three-year project has a budget of approximately $500,000, includes collaboration with colleagues from Marquette University, and is also aimed at strengthening PEIK's partnership with regional utilities. The research builds upon preliminary results from Dr. Silvestri's research team, and specifically by postdoc researcher Dr. Atieh Khamesi, by undergraduate student Eura Shin, who recently received the 2019 prestigious 2019 Goldwater scholarship, and by high school student Seun Adekunle. The research will employ and further develop the simulation capabilities established in Dr. Ionel's SPARK group, which include contributions by Dr. Vandana Rallabandi, former postdoc researcher at UK and now Lead Research Engineer with General Electric R&D, and Huangjie Gong, electrical engineering Ph.D. student at UK.

PEIK Issues Record Number of Undergraduate Certificates, E.On Scholarships

July 17, 2019

For the 2018-2019 academic year, PEIK issued an all-time record of 57 certificates in power and energy. The PEIK certificates, which are built upon a series of foundational courses supplemented by a broad array of more advanced elective courses related to power and energy, prepare the students for a successful career in industry and the power utilities. The list of majors for the students who were issued PEIK certificates this year includes: Chemical and Materials Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical and Mining Engineering.

Recently, the UK College of Engineering has awarded 16 E.On Scholarships for PEIK to eligible students who demonstrated strong interest in power and energy studies. These annual scholarships, which continue to be supported by the endowment established years ago at UK by E. On / Kentucky Utilities, provide recipients with $2,500 annually and may also grant an additional $2,000 for use on a power and energy related study abroad trip during the school year or the following summer. 

For more information about scholarship eligibility visit PEIK scholarship webpage or contact Ms. Mary-Michael Deskins, College of Engineering Scholarship Director (marymichael.deskins@uky.edu). For more information about PEIK certification visit the PEIK Undergraduate Certificate webpage, the PEIK Graduate Certificate webpage, or contact Dr. Joseph Sottile (joseph.sottile@uky.edu), PEIK Director of Undergraduate Studies , or Dr. Yuan Liao (yuan.liao@uky.edu), Director of the Graduate Certificate. For more information on PEIK and on how to get involved, contact Dr. Dan M. Ionel, PEIK Director (dan.ionel@uky.edu). 

UK Solar Car Team Sets Speed Record and Wins Third Place in Formula Solar Grand Prix 2019

July 9, 2019

On July 4-6, 2019, the UK Solar Car Team competed in the Formula Solar Grand Prix, taking 3rd place. UK’s latest car, Gato Del Sol VI, also completed the fastest lap, beating the all-time track speed record by 42 seconds. The Formula Sun Grand Prix (FSGP) is an annual track competition that is held on grand prix or road style closed courses. This year’s race took place on the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX. The competition is open to teams from around the world and truly tests the limits of the vehicles in handling curves, braking, and acceleration. The winner of FSGP is determined by the total number of laps completed over the three days of racing. At this edition, UK’s car completed 153 track laps with a total of 524 miles. The PEIK supported UK Solar Car Team recently celebrated its 20th anniversary continuing its longstanding tradition of providing hands-on opportunities for engineering and allowing students to develop and demonstrate their creativity and technical skills.

New Online Certificate in Power Systems

June 17, 2019

The University of Kentucky College of Engineering is now offering a graduate certificate in power systems that will be available entirely online and is designed to provide students with the core knowledge and latest advancements in analysis, modeling, operation, control, optimization and integration of renewable energies. In addition to being exposed to the various theories, students will master the tools and techniques for planning, problem solving and operating power systems. The new program is directed by Dr. Yuan Liao, Electrical & Computer Engineering Professor and PEIK’s Graduate Studies Director. For more information visit on how to apply visit the PEIK website.

DOE FEEDER Summer Institute 2019 at University of Arkansas

June 10, 2019

This year’s edition of the DOE FEEDER Summer Institute took place at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, AR, and the program theme was Power Electronics. The five-day event provided students from seven FEEDER participating universities, including UK, the opportunity to learn about approaches to mitigate the effects of electromagnetic interference in inverters for DER applications, including solar PV and electric vehicles. Also covered were new technologies for load management, power factor control, voltage variation reduction, and fault detection for the electric power grid. The summer program was led on campus by Dr. Roy McCann, Professor of Electrical Engineering at University of Arkansas. Drs. Larry Holloway and Yuan Liao lead the FEEDER program at UK.

Tours of the research facilities in Fayetteville, AR, included an NSF supported medium and high voltage testing facility for Grid-connected Advanced Power Electronics Systems (GRAPES). The testing of a PV inverter demonstration was followed by a presentation from the local power utility, Ozark, and a visit of their solar farm. The student program concluded with a soldering project to build a phone charger powered by a battery that is recharged by a small solar panel.

PEIK participation included Rosemary Alden, University Scholars undergraduate student (in the photo, the first on the left in the front row), Jesus Montero, a recent BS graduate and PEIK Certificate awardee (front row center), and Huangjie Gong, Ph.D. student (last on the right). The Foundations for Engineering Education for Distributed Energy Resources (FEEDER) summer program was funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US Department of Energy, under the Grid Engineering for Accelerated Renewable Energy Deployment program (GEARED) and also supported by PEIK. 

PEIK Power and Energy Experiences Course Sees Another Successful Year

June 7, 2019

The 2019 edition of the PEIK Power and Energy Experiences course for UK students was organized with the generous support of partner power utility, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The class took place in the first part of the summer term and included a one week field trip, which provided the students with an immersive experience through daily visits of regional facilities for generating, transmitting, distributing and managing electricity. Tours included a coal fired power plant, hydroelectric generation, natural gas power generation, solar, a biogas gas generation facility, natural gas combined cycle generating facilities, and an electric distribution substation. Tour attractions this year featured various TVA power generation facilities including Paradise Combined Cycle Plant, Shawnee Fossil Plant, and the Kentucky Dam.

The course, which is an elective for the PEIK undergraduate certificate and a requirement for the PEIK graduate certificate, also included an online module covering the theoretical background. Course instructor, Dr. Jeff Seay of the Chemical Engineering Department, led a large class of undergraduate and graduate students from diverse engineering disciplines. Earlier this year, PEIK completed with record student attendance and with the generous support of partner power utility LG&E-KU the Efficient and Renewable Electric Power Systems Operations course, which included campus and on site lectures, and field visits to production and research facilities.

PEIK Welcomes A.O. Smith Corporation as New Platinum-level Partner

May 9, 2019

The Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky is very happy to announce that A. O. Smith Corporation has joined the group of PEIK partners at the platinum level. The two organizations look forward to collaboration, especially on topics of advanced energy and power systems, smart grid and building technologies. Dr. Robert Heideman, A.O. Smith Senior Vice President - Chief Technology Officer, will formally serve on the PEIK Industrial Advisory Board and Mr. Ronald Bartos and Dr. Stephen Memory, A. O. Smith Directors of Research, will closely collaborate with PEIK faculty and researchers. A. O. Smith Corporation is a global leader applying innovative technologies and energy efficient solutions to products manufactured and marketed worldwide. The company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of residential and commercial water heating equipment and boilers, as well as a manufacturer of treatment products for residential and light commercial applications. The Power and Energy Institute (PEIK) was created in 2010 with initial support from the Department of Energy (DOE) and continues its mission of teaching, research and outreach at University of Kentucky in direct partnership with industry and utilities.  

PEIK Researchers Collaborate on DOE-1740 Project on Advanced Power Electronics Designs for Solar Applications  

April 29, 2019

The new research project with collaboration from the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) researchers is part of the US Department of Energy DOE-1740 program that will help the industry develop new technology to improve the devices that serve as the critical link between solar photovoltaic (PV) arrays and the electric grid. The project entitled "Solar Power Electronics Modular Integrated Node Platform" is led by Flex Power Control, a California based company, and also includes collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL). DOE will provide funding to design, develop, fabricate and test a novel power electronics platform capable of integration and synchronization with associated technologies, including stationary energy storage, electric vehicle (EV) charging, and site load management. Advanced power electronics and cloud-based analytics would be incorporated into the platform in order to optimize operations and extend the operating life of the system. 

At UK, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and PEIK Director, and Dr. Yuan Liao, ECE Professor and PEIK Director of PEIK Graduate Certificate, serve project PI and co-PI, respectively. The UK research will build upon PEIK recent developments covered in publications such as, "Net Zero Energy Houses with Dispatchable Solar PV Power Supported by Electric Water Heater and Battery Energy Storage", Proceedings, IEEE ECCE 2018, Portland, OR, (Sep 2018), which include contributions by Dr. Don Colliver, BAE Professor at UK and KIAC Director, Dr. Vandana Rallabandi, former postdoc researcher at UK and now Lead Research Engineer with General Electric R&D, and Huangjie Gong, electrical engineering Ph.D. student at UK.

TVA's Amy Henry Talks Integrated Resource Planning at PEIK Distinguished Speaker Series 

April 25, 2019

On April 24, 2019 Amy Henry discussed the current draft of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which has been released for public review. TVA is currently developing its 2019 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) through a process that involves wide participation and engagement inclusive of stakeholders, experts, and the public. The IRP provides long-term direction on how TVA can best meet future demand for electric power and shapes how TVA provides low-cost, reliable electricity; supports environmental stewardship; and fosters economic development in the Tennessee Valley for the next 20 years. TVA is updating its 2015 IRP due to continuing changes in the utility industry. Such changes include abundant, lower-cost natural gas, decreased cost of renewable generation, and increased focus on energy conservation efforts. Amy Henrgy manages TVA’s Enterprise Relations & Strategic Partnerships team, which is responsible for strategic engagement of stakeholders around various issues including TVA’s energy resources, energy efficiency, distributed generation, natural resource stewardship, and other key issues.

PEIK EE PhD Candidate Ms. Narges Taran, Receives Dean's Outstanding Doctoral Student Award 

April 17, 2019

Ms. Narges Taran, shown in the photo together with Dean Rudy Buchheit, received the 2019 UK College of Engineering Outstanding Doctoral Student Award. Narges is a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering, who started her studies at UK in January 2016 as the first PhD student in the newly established SPARK Lab led by Dr. Dan Ionel ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power.

Narges’ research in electric power engineering focuses on electric machines and power electronic drives and includes contributions to special motor topologies, such as axial flux coreless and torque magnifying, the use of new carbon nanotube conductors and wide band gap devices, electromagnetic field finite-element analysis and large-scale optimization methods. She has already established an outstanding publication record with more than 25-peer reviewed publications, including 6 journal articles and many major international conference proceedings papers, including one that received a Best Paper Award at IEEE ECCE 2016, the largest joint technical conference of the Power Electronics and Industry Applications Societies. Narges has also co-authored two chapters of the latest edition of the well-known Standard Handbook for Electrical Engineers published by McGraw Hill, and has served as a reviewer for more than half a dozen well known journals and conferences. At last year’s inaugural UK ECE Graduate Research Symposium, Narges received the award for Outstanding Graduate Poster. Her research work has been sponsored by both NSF and by global leading industrial companies, including Regal Beloit Corp. and ANSYS, Inc. 

New Research Project on Renewables Integration Sponsored by LG&E-KU

April 10, 2019

LG&E-KU has recently awarded a project to UK PEIK Institute and SPARK Laboratory researchers to study the integration of variable renewable resources into the legacy electric power system with emphasis on large solar photovoltaics (PV) farms and applicability to Kentucky specifics. Mr. Aron Patrick, Manager of Technology Research and Analytics for LG&E-KU, serves as the industrial project lead, and Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and PEIK Director is the project PI at UK. The research builds upon recent academic collaborative work, which is featured in publications, such as "Incorporating Battery Energy Storage Systems Into Multi-MW Grid Connected PV Systems," IEEE Transactions on Industry Applications, vol. 55, no. 1, pp. 638-647, Jan.-Feb. 2019, and includes contributions by Dr. Nick Jewell, Senior Research Engineer with LG&E-KU and Adjunct Professor at UK, Dr. Vandana Rallabandi, former postdoc researcher at UK and now Lead Research Engineer with General Electric R&D, and Oluwaseun Akeyo, electrical engineering Ph.D. student at UK.

UK Energy Club Visits LG&E-KU

April 2, 2019

On March 29, student members of the University of Kentucky Energy Club toured the LG&E-KU E.W. Brown Power Plant. Situated on the banks of Lake Herrington, near Harrodsburg, KY, this site showcases four technologies for electricity generation — a hydroelectric plant, an operational coal-fired unit, seven combustion turbines, and a universal solar facility. Mr. Aron Patrick, LG&E-KU Manager for Research and Analytics served as the main host and organizer. Guided by subject matter engineering experts, the UK Energy Club group toured the various energy production facilities, including the state’s largest solar PV array and battery storage system. The trip was sponsored by LG&E-KU and PEIK.

European Expert, Dr. Ion G. Boldea, Delivers PEIK Distinguished Speaker Seminar on Renewable Energy Systems

March 28, 2019

On March 27th,  Dr. Ion Boldea presented on Renewable Energy Large Variable Speed Generators – European Trends. The seminar provided a panoramic view of various electric machine and power electronic designs and their controls in hydro and wind energy conversion applications. Recent systems that reached industrial stage and new developments were discussed in terms of their topologies, relative merits and demerits. Dr. Boldea is Professor of Electrical Engineering at University Politehnica of Timisoara, Romania, a member of the Romanian Academy, a Life Fellow of IEEE and the 2015 IEEE Nikola Tesla awardee. Over the years, he has visited UK on a frequent basis since the 1970’s when he first came to Lexington, KY as an IEEE Fulbright Fellow. More than one hundred students and members of the professional community have attended the event.

PEIK and LG&E-KU Continue Successful Collaboration on Teaching

March 25, 2019 

Over the academic spring break, the UK students enrolled in the Efficient and Renewable Power Systems Operations class have completed the daily field tours of LG&E-KU’s sites and facilities. This second edition of the course attracted record undergraduate and graduate student enrolment and was instructed by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and Dr. Nick Jewell, Senior Research Engineer with LG&E-KU and Adjunct Professor with the ECE Department at UK.

The visits included the LG&E-KU E. W. Brown facilities for coal, natural gas, and hydro power plants, the largest solar PV power plant in Kentucky together with the multi-MW electric battery research demonstrator, a high voltage transmission substation in Middletown, KY and the state-of-the-art transmission control center in Simpsonville, KY. The class benefited of the on-site lectures as well as of the detailed tour explanations and discussions directly with subject matter engineering experts. The practical aspects complemented very well the theoretical class lectures held on campus during the first part of the semester. The continued successful collaboration between LG&E-KU and PEIK provides students with an opportunity to strongly link the academic teachings with the industrial practice and furthers the development of the next generation of power systems engineers.

Undergraduate Research Fellows on Topics of Electric Power

March 22, 2019

Three electric power engineering students: Rosemary Alden, Evan Jones, and Luke Wormald are working on exciting projects as part of a new Undergraduate Research Fellowship program initiated last fall by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Rosemary's project, “Smart Plug and Smart Home Energy Management System”, is sponsored by the ECE Department, the TVA professorship endowment, and the SPARK program. Evan's project, “Renewable Energy-Based Microgrid in Rural Eastern Kentucky”, is sponsored by the Schneider Electric Company through a donation for the ECE Department. Luke’s project “Studying Low-Cost Battery Management Systems” is sponsored by the ECE Department and the L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power endowment. The students are mentored by Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and Director of the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK).

Each fellowship, which granted $5,000 per student, was awarded following a proposal and selection process. The three undergraduate students currently perform their research on electric power topics in the SPARK Lab and enjoy being part of a larger group that includes Ph.D. students and post-doctoral researchers. Preliminary results will be presented in late April at the UK Showcase of Undergraduate Scholars and the ECE Research Symposium, while research will continue into the summer.

PEIK and LG&E and KU Joint Displays at UK's E-Day Attract Record Attendance

February 25, 2019

On Saturday February 23rd, PEIK and LG&E and KU jointly exhibited at the Engineering Day on UK’s campus. The initiative was reflective of the growing close collaboration between the two organizations on teaching, research, and outreach to the professional and STEM students communities, and of the UK CoE support for multidisciplinary engineering. Altogether, the entire E-Day event, hosted nearly 3,000 visitors.

PEIK students demonstrated their “world’s largest wind turbine”, a LEGO replica of the world’s most powerful wind turbine, Vestas V-164, which was “engineered” with an enlarged tower model to a record total height of 5.5ft. Other displays included a full-size electric bike for stationary demonstrations, and miniatures for electric cars and solar PV systems. Video displays featured real-life utility-size power systems and renewable energy installations, including Kentucky’s largest 10MW PV power plant and 1MW/2MW battery from LG&E and KU’s E.W. Brown site. The PEIK and LG&E-KU E-Day displays were located in the atrium of the RGAN building next to the UK’s Solar Car exhibits and attracted record attendance.

PEIK Welcomes New Faculty Jiangbiao He

January 23, 2019

PEIK is pleased to announce the addition of new faculty member Jiangbiao He. Dr. He is an Assistant Professor and the first recipient of the L. Stanley Pigman Faculty Fellowship in the electric power area within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at University of Kentucky. Dr. He previously worked in industry, most recently as a Lead Engineer at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY focusing on the development of high-performance power electronic systems for aviation and renewable energy applications. At GE, he contributed to the development of the world’s first megawatt-scale medium-voltage high-frequency propulsion drive for hybrid-electric aircrafts. In addition, Dr. He also worked on the power converter reliability investigation for GE’s 12-MW Haliade-X offshore wind turbine system design. Previously, he was with Rockwell Automation and, before that, with Eaton Global Research & Technology working on regenerative motor drives and SiC-based high-efficiency power converters, respectively. Dr. He’s research interests include high performance power electronic systems, electric motor drives, and renewable energies. He has published more than 50 technical journal and conference papers in electric power energy area, in addition to more than 10 patent applications. 

As an active IEEE Senior Member, Dr. He has been appointed as Editor or Associate Editor for several prestigious journals in electric power area. He also has served as the Secretary of the Standards Sub-committee for IEEE Industrial Drives group and organizing committee member on large international conferences, including ECCE-2018, IEMDC-2019 and ITEC-2019. 

PEIK Adjunct Faculty Dr. Nicholas Jewell of LG&E and KU Named 2018's Top Innovator by Public Utilities Fortnightly

January 17, 2019

Dr. Nick Jewell, LG&E and KU Senior Research Engineer and UK ECE Adjunct Professor, was selected to receive this national distinguished recognition for his innovative work on LG&E and KU's E.W. Brown Energy Storage Research and Demonstration site, which incorporates a utility-scale 1MW/2MWh battery system, advanced MW-level power electronics converters, controllable test load, and advanced data measurement and SCADA systems. The experimental work at the site looks to develop solutions for both technological issues with the developing technology, as well as interconnection and integration difficulties that utilities may face with distributed energy resources.  The work also contributed directly to the new Energy Storage Integration Council (ESIC) Energy Storage Test Manual, coordinated by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). The energy storage facilities are located next to Kentucky's largest PV power plant, 10 MW, as well as traditional coal, gas, and hydro generation operated by LG&E and KU.

Public Utilities Fortnightly’s selection of 2018's Top Innovators was based on more than 160 nominations representing 37 companies. Ultimately, only a dozen individuals or teams were selected for this prestigious professional recognition.

At UK and PEIK, Dr. Jewell collaborates closely with faculty on teaching, including on-campus lectures and expert guided field tours at operational power systems facilities, and on advising graduate student research, especially on topics of energy storage and renewable energy integration. Last year, Dr. Jewell published four technical papers together with UK faculty and students that are reflective of the growing collaboration between PEIK and LG&E and KU on research topics, in addition to teaching and outreach activities.

Electrical Engineering and PEIK Student, Stewart Evan Jones, Receives IEEE National Scholarship

November 27, 2018

Stewart Evan Jones, a UK engineering student was recently awarded the renewal of his annual IEEE scholarship from the Power & Energy Society Plus Initiative, a signature program of the IEEE Foundation. Evan’s IEEE scholarship was initially granted in 2017. This year, he is one of only 30 students in the entire Southeastern IEEE Region selected to receive such an award. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) is headquartered in New York City and is the world’s largest association of technical professionals with more than 400,000 members.
 
Evan who is a native of McCreary County, started his studies at UK on a Kentucky Governor's Presidential Scholarship in 2015, he is now also a Pigman scholar, and will be graduating in May 2019 with a dual BS degree in electrical engineering and in computer engineering, a minor in mathematics and with the PEIK certificate in power and energy. He has a passion for electric power engineering, worked as an intern with East Kentucky Power Cooperatives (EKPC) for the last couple of years, and is now also conducting undergraduate student research in the SPARK Laboratory with Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor, L. Staley Pigman in Power and an IEEE Fellow. Evan, who is already registered in the University Scholar Program, plans to continue with PhD studies in electrical engineering at UK starting in the fall of 2019.

NSF Research Grant for a New Generation of High-efficiency Electric Machines for Wide Band Gap Power Electronic Drives

November 12, 2018

ECE faculty and PEIK researchers, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, Professor, L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and PEIK Director, and Dr. Aaron Cramer, Associate Professor and EE Director of Graduate Studies, will serve as PI and Co-PI, respectively, on a recently awarded NSF grant for research on transformational concepts for a new generation of electrical machines and controls. These will be especially developed for ultra-high energy efficiency and for the very recent advancements in wide band gap power electronic devices, such as SiC and GaN, and will include two novel axial flux permanent magnet machine topologies, one coreless and one incorporating a torque magnification effect. The potential impacts are most significant as the electric motors account for more than 60% of the electricity consumed and electric machines and associated power electronic drives represent a multi-billion dollar industry.

The new three-year project benefits of a budget of approximately $375,000. The research builds upon preliminary results and publications including an IEEE ECCE award winning paper with contributions by postdoctoral researcher Dr. Vandana Rallabandi and Ph.D. candidate Narges Taran. This grant renews UK’s long tradition of NSF projects on advanced research on electric machines and controls initiated almost half a century ago by Professors Nasar and Boldea. In recent years, Dr. Ionel’s and Dr. Cramer’s research on related topics at UK has been funded by NASA, ONR, and directly by leading industrial companies.

LG&E and KU's Bellar presents PEIK Distinguished Speaker Seminar at UK 

November 6, 2018

On November 5th, 2018 Lonnie Bellar, Chief Operating Officer at LG&E and KU presented a seminar at the University of Kentucky titled “Engineering Innovation and Recent Developments at LG&E and KU”. The seminar included an overview of the resources, history, and activities of LG&E and KU, which provides service to 1.3 million customers in Kentucky and Virginia. The presentation covered the company’s well-established facilities as well as recent advancements in the automation of electric power distribution. One section discussed the benefits of solar power and introduced the main technical specifications of Kentucky’s largest solar PV facility recently developed by LG&E/KU on its E. W. Brown site. The final part of the presentation outlined opportunities for students to become involved in the LG&E/KU engineering co-op program and potential engineering career paths.

PEIK represents at KY Governor's Conference on Energy and the Environment

October 15, 2018

On October 11 and 12, 2018 the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) participated as exhibitors at the Kentucky Governor’s Conference on Energy and the Environment at the Lexington Convention Center by Dr. Donald Colliver, Professor of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, and Director of KIAC, and Jason Souders, PEIK/KIAC/FEEDER Coordinator. PEIK had an exhibition booth providing information on the program’s education, outreach and research activities and facilitating engaging discussions with attendees, current and prospective supporters.

As per the event organizers, the Kentucky Governor’s Conference is bringing together some of the state’s top minds in the energy and environment arenas. Some will be speakers and presenters, other will be there to participate and network. Sessions will look at how we can make wise choices about the energy we use on a daily basis, how we safeguard the environment now and for future generations while enabling growth, and how an aging water infrastructure and legacy of waste dumps throughout the Commonwealth are presenting funding challenges. 

PEIK presents NEC and NFPA 79 Workshop 

October 5, 2018

A workshop on the National Electric Code and NFPA 79 was presented on October 2nd by Mr. Keith Waters, Industry Standards Manager at Schneider Electric. Organized by PEIK, Schneider Electric, and IEEE, the dual workshop outlined updates to the national electric code. The recent update process included 4002 public inputs, 1513 public comments, 5 new articles, 19 code making panels.  The workshop reviewed the changes and allowed for discussion on current activities involving the 2020 NEC. The workshop was well attended with more than 30 specialists from various industrial and engineering professions. The instructor, Mr. Keith Waters, holds a BSEE degree from the University of Kentucky and is a licensed Professional Engineer and a Certified Energy Manager. He has been with Schneider Electric for 32 years in roles of increasing responsibilities. Keith is currently a NEMA representative to NEC Code Making Panel 11 and also serves on PEIK's Industry Advisory Council.

New E. On Scholarships for PEIK Success

September 14, 2018

The UK College of Engineering and the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) have recently awarded more than twenty new E. On scholarships, which are reflective of our commitment for providing opportunities and support for junior and senior engineering majors. The students who were selected to receive this merit-based scholarship demonstrated strong interest in power and energy and already completed at least three courses towards the multi-disciplinary engineering PEIK certificate.

These annual scholarships continue to be supported by the endowment established years ago at UK by E. On / Kentucky Utilities. More information is available on PEIK website:https://www.engr.uky.edu/power/education/scholarship-opportunities

PEIK educates the next generation of power and energy engineers at UK and offers both Undergraduate Certificates and Graduate Certificates. In addition to fundamental multi-disciplinary courses on Power Generation, Power Systems, and Power Policy and Economics, PEIK faculty at UK also offers more specialized courses on Smart Grid, Power Protection, Electric Distribution, Sustainable and Renewable Energy, and many others with a total of more than a thousand annual enrolments.

UK Power and Energy Researchers Earn Best Paper Award

August 13, 2018

At the IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting in Portland, OR this summer, Dr. Aaron Cramer received a Best Paper award on behalf of his former graduate student Dr. YuQi Zhang and himself. They earned the award for a paper titled “Unified model formulations for synchronous machine model with saturation and arbitrary rotor network representation,” which appeared in IEEE Transactions on Energy Conversion.

The editorial board of the journal selected this paper from among papers published in 2016–2017. The paper presents methods to improve the understanding of the behavior of electric generators in advanced power systems. The award was presented to Dr. Cramer during the meeting of the Electric Machinery Committee (EMC) by Nil Nilsson, the EMC Awards and Recognition Chair, and by Kay Chen, the EMC Chair. Dr. Zhang successfully completed at UK her Ph.D. in electrical engineering earlier in the summer.

Annual PEIK Power and Energy Experiences Class and Field Trips in Collaboration with TVA and EKPC

July 26, 2018

The annual edition of the Power and Energy Experiences course, which is offered by UK as part of the PEIK program, was organized with the generous support of the partner power utilities Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC). The class took place in the first part of the summer term and included a one week field trip, which provided the students with an immersive experience through daily visits of regional facilities for generating, transmitting, distributing and managing electricity.

Tours included a coal fired power plant, hydro generating and pumped storage installations, a land fill gas generation facility, a non-operational nuclear power plant, coal fired, hydroelectric and natural gas combined cycle generating facilities, and an electric distribution substation. New tour attractions included this year TVA's large operations center in Chattanooga, and EKPC's multi-MW solar PV farm, one of the largest in Kentucky, near Winchester, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The course, which is an elective for the PEIK undergraduate certificate, and a requirement for the PEIK graduate certificate, also included an on-line module covering the theoretical background. Course instructor, Dr. Jeff Seay of the Chemical Engineering Department, led a large class of undergraduate and graduate students from diverse engineering disciplines. Earlier this year, PEIK completed with the generous support of partner power utilitiy LG&E-KU the first edition of the Electric Power Systems Operations course, which included campus and on-site lectures, and field visits to production and research facilities. 

DOE FEEDER 2018 Summer Program — Awards for PEIK Students

June 20, 2018

Hosted at the University of South Carolina, the Foundations for Engineering Education for Distributed Energy Resources (FEEDER) summer program theme for 2018 was “transactive power flows”. Held June 11-15, 2018, the program gave students an opportunity to develop algorithms for scheduling and trading power, with the aim of gaining familiarity with the concept of microgrids, local power trading, power use scheduling, energy storage and real time computing.

Our own PEIK students, Oluwaseun Akeyo, currently Ph.D. student and M.S. '17, and Mahsen Al-Ani, M.S.'18, were part of the team that received the “Best Presentation” award for their “Hot House Team in Transactive Power Flow” project. Their modeling and simulations studies resulted in a control system for a smart house with solar PV and batteries that maximize the financial advantages of distributed generation and energy storage. Additionally, Ahmad Ghaweta, PEIK Ph.D. student, was part of a team that earned a best performance algorithm award.

The FEEDER summer program is funded by the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, US Department of Energy, under the Grid Engineering for Accelerated Renewable Energy Deployment program (GEARED). Electrical and computer engineering professors Larry Holloway and Yuan Liao lead the FEEDER program at UK as part of a national Consortium, which includes twelve Universities.

PEIK Professor Jeffrey Seay Wins 2018 Lutes Award

April 20, 2018

At the annual Tau Beta Pi Award Banquet held April 17, Jeffrey Seay was named the 2018 winner of the Henry Mason Lutes for Excellence in Engineering Education Award. Seay is the PJC Board of Trustees Engineering Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Kentucky College of Engineering Extended Campus in Paducah.

Since leaving industry to pursue an academic career in 2008, Seay has sought to achieve excellence in all aspects of teaching. His efforts have been recognized with the 2013, 2017 and 2018 Outstanding Teaching Awards in Chemical Engineering at the Paducah campus, as well as the 2017 Provost Outstanding Teaching Award. In 2013, Seay was recognized at the national level as the inaugural recipient of the AIChE Sustainable Engineering Education Award.

In Paducah, Seay has taught an exceptionally broad range of core courses in chemical engineering including senior capstone design. In addition, he has developed an elective in the area of sustainable power and energy that has been delivered in both traditional and online formats, serving large numbers of students in Lexington and Paducah.

Beyond the classroom, Seay is a strong proponent of engineering education through undergraduate research, experiential learning and international opportunities. Recently, Seay was named a Fulbright Specialist and granted an appointment as Visiting Associate Professor at Makerere University in Uganda, where he has taught his sustainability elective and participates in the co-advising of graduate students.

PEIK and LG&E/KU Closer Collaboration to Include Teaching

April 2, 2018

The Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky (PEIK) at UK and Louisville Gas and Electric -- Kentucky Utilities (LG&E-KU) have further expanded their collaboration, this time on teaching activities, by offering a new course on Electric Power Systems Operations, Dr. Dan M. Ionel, ECE Professor and L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power, and Dr. Nick Jewell, Senior Research Engineer with LG&E-KU and Adjunct Professor with the ECE Department at UK, served as instructors for a class of more than twenty undergraduate and graduate students.

The first part of the spring semester was devoted to in-class lectures to ensure the theoretical background for the daily field trips, which took place during the midterm week of academic break. The visits included LG&E-KU EW Brown facilities for coal and natural gas power plants, the high voltage transmission substations, the largest solar PV power plant in Kentucky, and the large electric battery research demonstrator. The weekly tour concluded in Simpsonville, KY, with a visit of LG&E-KU's state-of-the-art control center. The class benefited of the on-site lectures as well as detailed tour explanations and discussions directly with subject matter engineering experts.

The students very much enjoyed the opportunity to link the academic teachings with the industrial practice. This successful initiative builds upon the on-going collaboration between UK and LG&E-KU for the co-op and internship programs and for joint research on advanced topics of electric power systems. 

New Book from Wiley and IEEE Press

March 1, 2018

Drs. Dan M. Ionel and Vandana Rallabandi, with ANSYS authors and collaborators, are co-authors of a recently published textbook Multiphysics Simulation by Design for Electrical Machines, Power Electronics, and Drives, published by IEEE Press. The text provides and extensive overview of electric machine design optimization and its integration with power electronics and drives. Combining the knowledge of experts from academia and the software industry, this text delivers the multi-physics know-how based on practical electric machine design methodologies. Case studies are included from industrial practice and research and development projects.

The text is available now in traditional and eBook format.

Cheng Named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

January 22, 2018

University of Kentucky Professor Y.T. Cheng has been named a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the organization announced Tuesday.

Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional accolade bestowed solely to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and welfare of society.

With the election of the 2017 class there are now 912 NAI Fellows, representing over 250 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes. The 2017 fellows are named inventors on nearly 6,000 issued U.S. patents, bringing the collective patents held by all NAI Fellows to more than 32,000 issued U.S. patents.

Yang-Tse Cheng is a Professor of Materials Science and professor of physics and astronomy (joint appointment) at the University of Kentucky. Prior to joining UK in the fall of 2008, he was a technical fellow and laboratory group manager for engineered surfaces and functional materials at the General Motors R&D Center.

Alumnus Stan Pigman Receives Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters

January 3, 2018

Mr. L. Stanley Pigman, UK alumnus and long-time supporter of PEIK, received the honorary doctoral degree at the Commencement Ceremony on Friday, December 15. An engineer and entrepreneur, Mr. Pigman graduated from UK as a first-generation college student in 1981 with a degree in mining engineering. After working with Sierra Coal, a subsidiary of General Electric, he joined with two colleagues to form Sugar Camp Coal, and eventually his own company, Pigman Coal Sales. He built several more businesses that own and lease coal properties.

In 1999, Mr. Pigman established a scholarship program at UK for undergraduate engineering students from Kentucky with financial need. Since then, he has expanded the program and is very involved with the recipients. Overall, more than 80 Pigman Scholars have benefited from the generosity of Mr. Pigman and his wife, Karen.

In addition to the scholarship program, the Pigmans also sponsor a leadership development institute for UK students, support student technical activities, including the UK solar car team, and graduate student research on power and energy topics. Mr. Pigman’s generous donations made possible the establishment of the endowments for the L. Stanley Pigman Chair in Power and for L. Stanley Pigman Faculty Fellowship.