Center for Emerging Energy Technologies Joins MSL
The Center for Emerging Energy Technologies (CEET) at the University of New Mexico has joined MSL, the inaugural research university in the consortium. CEET facilitates collaborative research in the inherently interdisciplinary field of emerging energy technologies, a perfect complement to MSL’s cross-sector structure. The Center is a meeting place for faculty, students and practitioners from the School of Engineering, other UNM divisions, and participants outside the university to work together to find the solutions to one of society’s most pressing needs: sustainable energy. In particular, CEET provides an environment to foster large-scale research efforts, involving Universities, Industry and the National Labs.
CEET strives to support the full cycle of innovation, from the conception of a specific energy material to its manufacture and deployment in various forms of energy infrastructure, across the three main domains of materials, devices, and systems. Research groups working in basic scientific discovery are cognizant of efforts in devices and systems, while at the other end of the scale, systems researchers are aware of developing trends in materials and devices. Current onhealthy research activities include a project sponsored by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), under which CEET is helping the utility industry to catalog and maintain millions of power distribution assets.
CEET also operates the microgrid research and testing facilities at the Mesa del Sol mixed commercial-residential development in Albuquerque, a significant addition to MSL’s facilities network. The fully functioning microgrid was originally created by Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). The system comprises a 50 kW parking lot canopy solar PV system, and a microgrid enclosure containing an 80 kW fuel cell, a 240 kW natural gas-powered generator, a lead-acid battery bank, hot and cold thermal storage, an absorption chiller, and an electric air-cooled chiller for shifting thermal loads.
The Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Los Alamos corridor features a dense concentration of intellectual capital and assets. Joining MSL Members Sandia and Los Alamos National Labs and the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities, CEET completes a highly effective nexus working in the microgrid domain, and will offer additional collaborative opportunities to the full consortium.