Mission 

Integrate power systems research/programs at UCSD

Enhance power systems community at UC San Diego

Facilitate collaborations among students and faculty across departments/centers

Provide feedback to students’ work

Graduate students career mentoring

Research themes

Long-term renewable energy transitions

Control scheme designs for low inertia real-time operations

Market designs better integrated with engineering realities

Integration and control of distributed energy resources (DER)

Safe learning for control in power systems

Optimization, machine learning, big data

Faculty Labs 

$39M NSF Facility: DERConnect (microgrid)

DERConnect establishes, for the first time, a grid-connected, customizable, and dedicated power system with all the required components and distributed energy resource (DER) types for large-scale resilient distribution networks in one place. DERConnect, by 2023, will feature actual (i.e. functional devices at scale in addition to hardware emulators) and advanced DERs; testing equipment linked with a communication system; operation in grid-connected and islanded modes; and real-time remote access. DERConnect controllable loads include Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning systems, lighting, solar photovoltaic, battery energy storage, and EVs. DERConnect will enable near real-time distributed control trials on several levels of hierarchy via multiple separable sub-units and up to 2,500 actual DERs and 2 million independent simulated DERs.