$5M Industry-university Partnership Targets Smart Grid, Photovoltaics

A $5 million industry-university partnership has been established by Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC) aiming to bringing clean, reliable, and efficient energy systems and technologies to the marketplace.

Dubbed the Energy Research Initiative (ERI), SRC said the effort will team companies from semiconductors and other energy-related sectors with university research centers to address the world's need for smart alternative energy sources and to prepare students with the technical skills required for the burgeoning industry. SRC announced the partnership today noting founding industry members include ABB, Applied Materials, Bosch, First Solar, IBM, Nexans, and Tokyo Electron. SRC also made note of Purdue University and Carnegie Mellon University as active in ERI.

Initial research will address the need for new modeling and simulation tools to support the development of improved photovoltaic devices and the development of systems and technologies to allow for an efficient, reliable, and secure smart grid electricity infrastructure with integrated renewable energy resources.

"The pervasive use of simulation in semiconductor process development, device design, and system analysis has been a critical factor in the success of the electronics industry," SRC Executive Vice President Steven Hillenius said in a statement. "Similar capabilities do not exist for technologies in support of solar-powered systems. Likewise, today's smart grid simulation capabilities are also limited, and new transformational approaches are required to enable significant integration of renewable energy resources into the grid.

"The development of these capabilities is beyond the scale of a single company or even industry, making the cooperation between industry and academia critical to delivering the benefits of alternative energy on a global scale," Hillenius continued.

SRC said that industry members of the ERI will dedicate engineering and other resources and participate in the selection of appropriate research projects, however, did not offer further detail on the roles of the founding companies.

ERI research will be undertaken by a global network of universities comprised of several university centers, starting with centers at Purdue and Carnegie Mellon. Each center will have its own research focus and area of expertise, with close coordination to complement the respective programs.

A photovoltaic research center will be established at Purdue to address the performance, cost, reliability, and manufacturing challenges of photovoltaics technologies. Purdue has extensive experience in modeling/simulation. Purdue's national Network for Computational Nanotechnology framework will also be leveraged to provide enabling analytical models and simulation tools for photovoltaic manufacturers.

A separate smart grid research center will be established at Carnegie Mellon to support the incorporation of renewable energy resources and provide modeling, simulation, and control tools needed to manage, optimize and secure the power grid, SRC said. The center will develop the DYMONDS (dynamic monitoring and decision systems) required to create a new paradigm for the electricity infrastructure. In addition, SRC said that personal energy systems will be focused on.

ERI will be managed by a SRC subsidiary called The Energy Research Corp, which was formed in 2009 to create opportunities between the semiconductor industry and energy sector.

SRC