Mexico needs to update its power grid, and with a $26 million grant and the help of an ASU engineering professor, the job has finally gotten the economic jolt it needs for work to begin.
Professor Stephen Goodnick and his group of renowned power engineering associates have received a $1.6 million portion of the three-year grant to put to work their expansive knowledge of Mexico’s energy infrastructure.
ASU’s work will be aimed at helping update interconnections between the neighboring country and the U.S.—an area of expertise held by ASU that is said to be virtually unparalleled anywhere else in the world.
Also to be explored will be the potential future use of micro-grids, along with a search for energy efficiencies and ways to bring renewable-energy sources into the grid, according to Goodnick.
Goodnick is a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, deputy director of ASU LightWorks and a senior sustainability scientist in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability.
“These are the areas our power systems engineering people, who lead one of the top power systems research consortiums in the country, excel.” — ASU professor Stephen Goodnick
According to Goodnick, all of the points of interest being addressed through the study represent areas of expertise held by ASU’s power-systems engineering people, who lead one of the top research consortiums in the country. The $26 million grant awarded to the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey by Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology and its Secretary of Energy, is designed to address the energy economy in Mexico.
It is designed to help build infrastructure, perform research and conduct educational activities, preparing Mexico for its energy future.
The grant was announced as part of the launching of the Binational Laboratory for Intelligent Management of Energy Sustainability and Technology Education at Tec de Monterrey’s Mexico City campus on April 6.
Mexico is in the midst of privatizing and updating its energy industry — fossil fuel and electrical generation industries — at a time when it is moving toward using more renewables. It is hoped that the grant will help the country explore its energy options and how it can connect with its neighbors.
For its $1.6 million share, ASU will apply its renowned expertise in power engineering to the project. The University of California, Berkeley is also involved in the project.
Goodnick noted that another part of the project will be looking into the integration of renewable-energy technologies, such as solar and wind, into the grid system. Renewable-energy sources are variable energy sources that cannot be dispatched like fossil-fuel-based sources, so the renewable systems need energy storage capacity to provide a steady amount of power on demand, he said.
The project also will look into development of micro-grids, which can be deployed in remote areas of the country where there presently isn’t transmission infrastructure.
“These are the areas our power systems engineering people, who lead one of the top power systems research consortiums in the country, excel,” Goodnick said of the Power Systems Engineering Research Center, which is led by Vijay Vittal, the Ira A. Fulton chair of Electrical Engineering.
