The Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) of the California Energy Commission has declared a grant of $1.4 million for UC San Diego to speedup the growth and usage of green renewable energy in California.
UC San Diego will utilize the funding to perform a research to improve solar forecasting, to install solar powered electric vehicle charging facilities, energy storage systems integrating solar power and installation and to assist the grid operators with improved IT architecture.
Out of the total grant, Jan Kleissl, environmental engineering professor at UC San Diego will get a CEC funding of $469,447 to pursue his solar forecasting research. Kleissl and his team will utilize sky imaging tools and work along with the local as well as national weather forecasting institutions to bring forth a technique for optimal solar forecasting. The research will exclusively utilize ensemble forecasting techniques to foresee the changes from the inputs received to measure the cloud cover accurately for every 15 minutes to estimate the power production from the installed solar systems. According to Kleissl, improved solar forecasting accuracy will cut down the usage of standby generators and consequent carbon dioxide discharges.
The remainder of the CEC funding will be utilized to create a solar energy storage facility to provide power charging facility for green electric vehicles and to improve the IT architecture of the grid operators. The funding will lend to the “Tailpipe Endgame” project of the University to utilize its planned 4 MW clean energy over the micro-grid of UC San Diego to provide direct charging facility for the electric cars within the campus to attain zero tailpipe emissions.
UC San Diego will also utilize the grant to speedup the usage of software over its micro-grid for the greater usage of digital information and controls expertise to better the efficiency, security and reliability of the electric power grid.