Author: People, Trees, and Power: Learning How to Strike a Balance and Keep the Lights On

Connecticut residents are broadly supportive of tree management practices, but good communication is essential, click here to see what we’re doing to help!

Author: Diversity Internship

Author: The US COVID-19 pandemic in the flood season

Researcher in the Eversource Energy Center recently quantified the compound risk of flooding and COVID-19 at the US county-level. See figure from Shen et al. 2020 (Science of the Total Environment, https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1bugWB8ccoNAZ) showing the compound risk accross the US.

Hotspots of high risk for both types of hazards are concentrated along southern and eastern coastal states and the Mississippi River and its main branches. Researchers argued that although the northeastern coast is also at high risk for flooding, the compound risk is not at a high level because the COVID-19 risk is currently low. The latter might be attributed to the effective and stringent mitigation policies adopted by these states (e.g., New York state and New York City). In computing the pre-flood season expectation, researcehrs used the past records of property flood insurance claims and COVID-19 contraction. Therefore, by the end of 2020 flood season, they plan to revisit this matter by quantifying the interactions between flooding and COVID-19 contraction using real flood hazards and COVID-19 data during the concurrent period.

Author: Flood Inundation Map from Hurricane Laura derived from the Eversource Energy Center RAPID system

Author: Grid Modernization Summit

When you turn on a light or power up your laptop, you might not think about the engineering marvel – the electric grid – that makes it possible. You almost certainly don’t think about the age of the existing grid and the need to move towards more modern systems. To learn more about these systems and the work we do here at the Eversource Energy Center, click here for the full story.

Author: EDITOR’S CHOICE: Resilience Assessment of Overhead Power Distribution Systems under Strong Winds for Hardening Prioritization

Professors Amvrossios Bagtzoglou & Wei Zhang have had their paper titled “Resilience Assessment of Overhead Power Distribution Systems under Strong Winds for Hardening Prioritization” chosen as an Editors Choice feature on the ASCE/ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty Part A page in the ASCE Library. To see this paper please click here.

Author: CPES Excellence in Energy Award Winner Peng Zhang

CPES is thrilled to announce it is presenting two Excellence in Energy Awards at the holiday party on Tuesday, December 11, 2018. Please click here for more details.

Author: Yan Li Honored with 2018 Rising Star Award!

Connecticut Power and Energy Society (CPES) has announced that Yan Li, a UConn Ph.D student has been awarded the 2018 rising star award for her help in shaping the energy landscape in Connecticut and the New England Region. Her work includes inventing new technologies that have significantly increased the hosting capacity of distributed energy resources! Please see the full announcement at the following link. Click Here.

Author: Eversource Invests an Additional $7 Million!

James Hunt, senior vice president for regulatory affairs at Eversource

Eversource Energy has announce that they will be investing an additional $7 million in our center to continue to lead research in the field. In particular the fund will be used to create a state-of-the-art grid simulator among other research endeavors. The work done in this center has helped to provide vital and timely science-based solutions to a broad range of real-world challenges at the intersection of weather, climate and energy since the partnership was initially formed in 2013.

Author: Prof. Peng Zhang awarded $800K by NSF to research Smart Programmable Microgrids

Eversource Energy Center researcher Peng Zhang, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has received $800,000 from the National Science Foundation to research microgrids. This award comes on the heels of the Center’s revamping research to increase resilience of the present and future grid, and recognizes Prof. Peng and his team’s work as a trusted source of information for utility customers and communities. This technology could lead to more autonomous and flexible energy networks through smart programmable microgrids (SPM). SPM’s are scaled versions of regular power grids but serve much smaller communities by integrating local sources of renewable energy that would not be sufficient to power a larger distributed energy resources grid. Because power is produced and stored locally, it can be distributed to critical service centers in the event of a disaster and is more energy efficient. Professor’s Zhang SPM software includes security features that would enhance resilience to power grid cyber-attacks. The full story of Professor Zhang’s NSF awards is posted here.