SRS RN: Sustainable Transportation Electrification for an Equitable and Resilient Society (STEERS)

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

The US is in the midst of a massive transformation as both the electric grid becomes much more renewable and transportation becomes much more electrified, a change that will touch just about everyone. This NSF project goals are to ensure that this change is done in a way that is fair and technically sound, considering the need and well-being of all, done in a way that ultimately provides a more resilient and equitable society. The project is transformative by bringing together a broad team of researchers from four universities, coupled with a diverse group of outside advisors, to focus on sustainable transportation electrification in Texas, a state that is extremely diverse and has its own electric grid. The goals will be achieved by utilizing the team’s broad expertise in the many different areas needed to ensure success. The intellectual merits include fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion, developing criteria for success, developing the required research and education agenda, and doing pilot studies. The broader impacts of the project include helping to guide the equitable, sustainable and resilient electrification of transportation by engaging with a wide variety of partners, including government, community organizations and the business community. The purpose of this project is to develop a convergent team and associated proposal focused on the sustainable, equitable and resilient electrification of transportation. This is needed because society is beginning a massive transformation as the electric grid becomes much more renewable and as transportation becomes much more electrified. The convergent work proposed here is to ensure that this transformation is done so as to benefit all members of society. The specific focus is the supra-aggregation associated with the connected urban-rural systems in the electric grid covering most of the state of Texas, with results applicable to the rest of the country. The team has broad expertise in the many required areas including the electric grid, renewable generation, transportation, urban studies, community planning, sociology, risk analysis, large-scale computing and data analytics, demographics, and education. The portfolio of research and education will be broad, leveraging the strengths of the convergent team with key aspects including developing better modeling and simulation, developing theories of change and more generalization theories, broad stakeholder participation, and equity with the goal of advancing knowledge. The effort has a strong focus on education to all, and should result in overall societal benefit given its broad focus on the electric and transportation infrastructures. 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.