Computer Engineering Graduate Student University of Puerto Rico - Mayaguez Campus Toa Alta, Puerto Rico
The Solar District Cup (SDC) challenges multidisciplinary collegiate student teams to develop forward-thinking designs for optimized distributed energy systems; therefore, teams must assume the role of a solar-plus-storage developer and present a proposal of the most reliable, resilient, and cost-effective system possible for the district use case assigned by the competition organizers. District use cases are entities (e.g. urban districts, universities campuses, and more.) interested in pursuing distributed renewable energy solutions who are willing to collaborate with National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) by providing energy use data for multiple buildings, electrical infrastructure, and master plans to serve as the basis for the solutions of the teams participating in the competition. Each team competes against other teams in one of three divisions; each division is structured around a single district use case. A division judging panel selects winning teams after the teams submit their final deliverables and present their designs via live video conference. For the 2021-2022 SDC edition, the three voluntary districts were the Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, Ohio State University, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez Campus team was assigned to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory use case, for which the main goal was to design a resilient microgrid system using photovoltaic and energy storage systems. To achieve the final design proposed, a lot of details were considered such as PNNL’s future development plans, flooding areas, weather patterns, and types of terrains. Additionally, several energy storage technologies such as vanadium flow batteries, iron flow batteries, zinc-bromine flow batteries, and li-ion batteries were examined. Along with the technical aspect of the design an economic analysis was done to support the decisions that lead to the final proposed design composed of three microgrids and a diversified portfolio of PV and energy storage systems.
