Three Engineering Technology faculty members, Driss Benhaddou (Lead), Lei Fan, and Jian Shi, collaborated with HARC-Houston Advanced Research Center (lead institution), Rice University, and Furgo to receive a $1.9M grant from Department of Energy (DoE), Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO). The grant will fund a collaborative project between these institutions, “Advances on CHP District Energy and Microgrids Development: Simplified Tool for Rapid Deploying Feasibility Analytics for Non-Technical User.”
The goal of the project is to develop a simple-to-use tool that will enable non-technical users to determine the feasibility of implementing renewable energies in district energy and microgrids. The tool will use Lidar's advanced smart sensing technology and weather forecast to develop technical and financial strategies for such implementations.
The UH researchers from the College of Technology will have a budget of $400,484 from the grant to develop optimization techniques that reduce the tool's computation time and improve Lidar’s advanced smart sensing technology. As part of the collaboration, the University of Houston will provide access to high performance computer resources through its Core facility for Advanced Computing and Data Science (CACDS).