Planning Grant: Engineering Research Center For Sustainable Energy Smart Solutions (SUESS)

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

The Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers competition was run as a pilot solicitation within the ERC program. Planning grants are not required as part of the full ERC competition, but intended to build capacity among teams to plan for convergent, center-scale engineering research. This award supports planning for a Center-scale project addressing Distributed Energy Resources (DER). DER such as rooftop solar, electric vehicles, controllable air conditioners and water heaters are connecting in increasing numbers. However, DER requires massive amounts of coordination supported by real-time information flows. There are well-known technical integration challenges with this transition, but just as importantly, there are non-technical challenges that are often overlooked. Specifically, consumers and local communities may not accept DER due to privacy issues, risk perceptions, distributional and procedural fairness. Such concerns can derail the transition to a smart and sustainable energy future. To grow to the requisite scale for real-world impact, renewables and DER require an interdisciplinary approach that integrates technical and socio-behavioral considerations. It is clear that such an effort will require a collaborative, transdisciplinary approach, which is exemplar of convergent research; the merging of approaches and insights from historically distinct disciplines to address problems that exist at the interface of multiple fields. This project supports an interdisciplinary planning process, with engineers and social scientists, industry, and policy makers, led by Cornell and engaging current and new partners to provide national leadership to address this challenge. The grant will plan a Center with the capacity to address the interdisciplinary technical and socio-behavioral challenges to DER integration into smart grids. The PIs will apply innovative research in the science of team science (SciTS), and the design and development of the transdisciplinary research vision toward a shared, crucial, societal objective, which has not been widely applied in engineering research. Solutions at scale will not be adopted without involving social scientists in the engineering design processes up front, and therein lies a core component of the intellectual merit of the proposed planning process. The planning process for a potential Engineering Research Center (ERC) is distinctive in its deep, effective collaboration across a disciplinary chasm that is rarely bridged effectively. Thus, in addition to innovative collaborative research in massively distributed smart electric systems and community psychology, the proposed planning strategy will provide a case application in SciTS and ensure maximal transition of knowledge to societal impact. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.