POSE: Phase I: OSE for Consumer and Academic Scale Renewable Energy Adoption

Impact Allies Inc, Vero Beach FL

Investigators

Abstract

This project is funded by Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) which seeks to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. The past decade has been characterized by a momentous shift in the energy landscape with over $2.6 trillion invested in the exponential growth of renewable energy (RE). More than 80% of all new electrical generation added in 2020 was from RE sources. However, a great bulk of this addition was for utility (>5MW) and distributed scale generation (>500kW) and not at the consumer level integration. The main mission of this research project is to scope an open-source ecosystem (OSE) which will increase consumer adoption and support academic teaching and research in the RE space. The project’s novelties are providing consumers, researchers, and educators with intuitive, easy to operate open-source software and hardware to control, connect, and modify RE systems, along with access to large open data sets to analyze variables that affect various solutions. The project’s impacts are 1) addressing the legal, security, sustainability, reliability, and training areas needed for a successful OSE around the software, hardware, and data platforms, and 2) enabling pathways for development by growing the user base and creating a community of practice that will demonstrate uses of the products and support ease of mass adoption across multiple sectors in the academic and consumer RE space. Enhancing these platforms and communities makes the individual consumer and institutional level researcher and educator compete with industry giants in the RE space and serves as a force multiplier in the United States’ quest for energy independence and reduction in greenhouse gasses. Beyond RE, these platforms have applicability to and can be modified by developers in other relevant fields needing similar solutions such as water ecology and water remediation, small batch manufacturing, and a host of agrisciences. At the consumer and academia levels, significant barriers to RE implementation remain that need to be addressed. This project’s team of researchers is focused on three items that have been identified by industry, academia, government, and consumers as critical gaps to broader development and usage of renewables: 1) open-source free Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) interfaces to control and monitor renewable energy assets (software), 2) open-source hardware applications for diagnostic, smart relay, and microinverter purposes to affordably connect, operate, and modify renewables (hardware), and 3) access to large data sets to research and understand all variables associated with renewable integration (data sets). The project’s scoping activities include training, ecosystem discovery, governance structure, community building, and planning for scale and sustainability. 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.