Electric Power Innovation for a Carbon-free Society (EPICS) Center

Project Details

The global electric power sector is responsible for 42 per cent of global carbon emissions. To achieve sustainable and carbon-free societies requires a 100% emissions free power-grid.

The transition towards a 100 per cent renewable energy power grid is necessary to decarbonise the global electric power sector and support climate-critical decarbonisation of other economic sectors and end users such as transport, heating/cooling, industry and many other domain

This transformation and transition will have major societal implications. Socio-technical approaches are necessary to examine and take into consideration the socio-technology implications.

The EPICS team is comprised of 26 researchers from nine universities, one government agency and one nonprofit across the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Each researcher is an expert in at least one area of engineering, economics, policy and government or socio-technology implications, and many are knowledgeable in multiple topics.

Research focus areas will overhaul grid management tools, facilitating operations and infrastructure planning with inverter-based resources and society-scale decarbonization. The socio-technology aspect will consider potential social implications and how socio-technical approaches can be incorporated into technical models.

Insights from this research will be used to develop strategies for achieving net-zero power grids globally to reduce and eventually eliminate carbon emissions from other economic sectors, including transportation and buildings.

Researchers

Dr Reihana Mohideen

Collaborators

University of Melbourne

• Pierluigi Mancarella, Melbourne Energy Institute
• Luis Nando Ochoa,Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Johns Hopkins University

• Ben Hobbs, Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI)
• Yury Dvorkin, Departments of Civil and Systems Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering

Imperial College London

• Balarko Chaudhuri, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Mark O’Malley, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

CSIRO

• John Ward
• Juilo Bralavsky
• Rahmat Heidaihaei
• Taj Khandoker

Monash University

• Behrooz Bahrani

Funding

National Science Foundation (NSF) through its Global Centers Competition Award