Development of a Multidisciplinary Renewable Energy Laboratory for  Research and Education

Jacques Belanger; Andrew Davol; Huy A Duong; Trent Hamilton

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: ECCD Technical Session 3: Energy and Multidisciplinary
Tagged Division: Energy Conversion and Conservation
Page Count: 8
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34449
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/34449
Download Count: 336

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Paper Authors

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Jacques Belanger California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

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Jacques Belanger is a mechanical engineering educator with 20 years of private sector experience in consulting and renewable energy. He was a co-founder of Cool Earth Solar, a photovoltaic solar company pursuing solar energy concentration approach. He worked at Cool Earth Solar for 10 years where he was in charge of solar tracking and thermal management. He’s joined Cal Poly in 2017, specializing in thermal sciences, renewable and nuclear energy. In the private sector, he developed an extensive experience training junior engineers just coming out of college. More recently, he has been involved in supervising graduate students and coordinating group based senior projects.

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Abstract

This research and education project was developed in the context of our new Energy Concentration that is now offered to Mechanical Engineering (ME) students at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo). The paper will discuss how the project was developed, the learning experience of the student participants, the technical achievements of the multidisciplinary team, the resources being utilized and how the system will be used going forward for renewable energy research and education. Dr. Belanger, with ten years of experience in the solar industry prior to joining Cal Poly, understands very well the importance of combining both the “learn by doing” philosophy of Cal Poly and the multidisciplinary aspects of the renewable energy industry into the student development process.

The project is centered on the establishment of a well instrumented micro-grid on campus consisting of solar panels, both tracking and fixed, a small wind turbine and battery storage. During the summer of 2018, a team of two sophomore students coming from the Computer Engineering Program and the ME Program were tasked to modify an existing dual-axis solar tracker and develop a sun tracking controller for it. The multidisciplinary team of professors and students were able to implement a manual control and all the necessary upgrades to the dual axis tracker. The autonomous tracking controller was fully implemented during the academic year 2018-19 by the same team of students and professors.

During the summer of 2019, a comprehensive plan for the implementation of the micro-grid was completed including modeling of a small off grid home to size the components of the system. To reach our goal of building the micro-grid we have initiated a Senior Design Project group of four students to build a versatile fixed mount for solar panels during the 2019-2020 academic year. Using an independent study, we are also including a student interested in instrumentation design. Recently we have contacted the Wind Energy Club at Cal Poly to help design a data acquisition system for the wind energy component of the new micro-grid.

The paper will show how we are integrating on campus resources such as the Cal Poly Summer Undergraduate Research Program, which funded the work in the summer of 2018, senior projects, independent studies, on campus research grants and external funding sources such as PG&E (a driving force behind our new energy concentration) into this project.

Citation
Format

Belanger, J., & Davol, A., & Duong, H. A., & Hamilton, T. (2020, June), Development of a Multidisciplinary Renewable Energy Laboratory for Research and Education Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34449

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - This research and education project was developed in the context of our new Energy Concentration that is now offered to Mechanical Engineering (ME) students at Cal Poly (San Luis Obispo). The paper will discuss how the project was developed, the learning experience of the student participants, the technical achievements of the multidisciplinary team, the resources being utilized and how the system will be used going forward for renewable energy research and education. Dr. Belanger, with ten years of experience in the solar industry prior to joining Cal Poly, understands very well the importance of combining both the “learn by doing” philosophy of Cal Poly and the multidisciplinary aspects of the renewable energy industry into the student development process.  

The project is centered on the establishment of a well instrumented micro-grid on campus consisting of solar panels, both tracking and fixed, a small wind turbine and battery storage.  During the summer of 2018, a team of two sophomore students coming from the Computer Engineering Program and the ME Program were tasked to modify an existing dual-axis solar tracker and develop a sun tracking controller for it. The multidisciplinary team of professors and students were able to implement a manual control and all the necessary upgrades to the dual axis tracker. The autonomous tracking controller was fully implemented during the academic year 2018-19 by the same team of students and professors.

During the summer of 2019, a comprehensive plan for the implementation of the micro-grid was completed including modeling of a small off grid home to size the components of the system. To reach our goal of building the micro-grid we have initiated a Senior Design Project group of four students to build a versatile fixed mount for solar panels during the 2019-2020 academic year.  Using an independent study, we are also including a student interested in instrumentation design. Recently we have contacted the Wind Energy Club at Cal Poly to help design a data acquisition system for the wind energy component of the new micro-grid.

The paper will show how we are integrating on campus resources such as the Cal Poly Summer Undergraduate Research Program, which funded the work in the summer of 2018, senior projects, independent studies, on campus research grants and external funding sources such as PG&amp;amp;E (a driving  force behind our new energy concentration) into this project.

AU  - Jacques Belanger
AU  - Andrew Davol
AU  - Huy A Duong
AU  - Trent Hamilton
CY  - Virtual On line 
DA  - 2020/06/22
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Development of a Multidisciplinary Renewable Energy Laboratory for  Research and Education
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/34449
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--34449
ER  -