5 Questions with Dan Schwartz, Director of the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington

Source: https://www.electrochem.org/redcat-blog/5-questions-dan-schwartz

 

ECS will be hosting its first ever OpenCon event on October 1 in National Harbor, MD. OpenCon will be ECS’s first, large community event aimed at creating a culture of change in how research is designed, shared, discussed, and disseminated, with the ultimate goal of making scientific progress faster.

During ECS’s Open Con, Dan Schwartz, director of the Clean Energy Institute at the University of Washington, will give a talk on the open science movement and academia. In addition to speaking at OpenCon, Schwartz will also co-organize the ECS Data Sciences Hack Day.

The following conversation is part of a series with speakers from the upcoming ECS OpenCon. Read the rest of the series.

ECS: When we say “data sciences,” what does this encompass?

Dan Schwartz: “Data science” is shorthand for the scientific and engineering principles that underpin efficient creation, visualization, analysis, and sharing of data. I have a conjecture—unevaluated but euphemistically called “Schwartz’s law” around here—that every PhD I graduate produce more data than the sum of all prior PhDs. Basically, each year cameras and detectors have deeper bit depth, equipment and software get more automated, more of the software tools allow data and simulation to be animated, etc. In short, both experimentalists and simulation people are seeing huge growth in data they need to analyze, visualize, and share with collaborators.

ECS: Specifically, what areas of electrochemistry and/or solid state science can most benefit from the various components of data sciences, such as open data, open source software and cloud-based computing tools, etc.?

DS: I believe we can accelerate progress and improve reproducibility of all ECS science and technology through open data, open software, and access to shared computational resources. A critical part of this is building the ECS community that establishes standards for data repositories, creates, peer evaluates, and improves software tools.

ECS: Give us the postcard version of why ECS needs to do more in the data sciences area.

DS: Data is being generated at unprecedented rates by experimental and simulation-oriented electrochemical and solid-state scientists and engineers. Open data, software, and computational tools have unleashed human creativity in unimaginable ways for some fields of study. Why not define and systematize data sciences to unleash this creativity in the ECS community?

ECS: What do you think about the concern with “scooping” if researchers share their data, and especially if they share their data as open?

DS: Here is a harsh truth. When data and software are open, insightful and effective science and engineering win. If you worry about being scooped in an open playing field, then you are saying you do not want to compete on “insight and effective implementation.”

ECS: What aspects of openness does the University of Washington embrace (e.g., at the eScience Institute)?

DS: My colleagues Jim Pfaendtner and David Beck have created an NSF-funded graduate training program called “Data Intensive Research to Enable CleanTech” to make sure students in the Clean Energy Institute and several partner departments get exposed to the best science and engineering tools and educational practices being developed by our eScience Institute colleagues. A key principle is open science because it supports reproducibility and acceleration for all. Our campus has developed tools to help, like a long-lived archive developed by the University Library System called Research Works. Our graduate school has become more open to new kinds of research products being included in dissertations and theses.

We have a biweekly meeting on the separators in redox-flow batteries hosted by Jon Witt this Thur. 2:30pm @ MoIEs 225.

Since we have the Awards day this Friday, we are going to move the meeting time this week to April 27th from 2:30 to 3:30pm in MolES 215.

Jon is going to give us a talk on the separators in flow batteries. Welcome to join us!

Free the Batteries: Towards Bottom-up Renewable Grid Control

Source: https://www.electrochem.org/redcat-blog/free-batteries-towards-bottom-renewable-grid-control/

This article refers to a recently published open access paper in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, “Direct, Efficient, and Real-Time Simulation of Physics-Based Battery Models for Stand-Alone PV-Battery Microgrids.”

Tesla engineered a good electric car successfully by engineering a car design that can accommodate large battery stacks. Our hypothesis is that the current grid control method, which is a derivative of traditional grid control approaches, cannot utilize batteries efficiently.

In the current microgrid control, batteries are treated as “slaves” and are typically expected to be available to meet only the power needs. Typically, if grid optimization is done at the higher level, and then batteries are used as slaves, including models that predict fade can be used in a bi-level optimization mode (optimize grid operations and at every point in time, optimize battery operation). This way of optimization will not yield the best possible outcome for batteries.

In a recently published paper, we show that real-time simulation of the entire microgrid is possible in real-time. We wrote down all of the microgrid equations in mathematical form, including photovoltaic (PV) arrays, PV maximum power point tracking (MPPT) controllers, batteries, and power electronics, and then identified an efficient way to solve them simultaneously with battery models. The proposed approach improves the performance of the overall microgrid system, considering the batteries as collaborators on par with the entire microgrid components. It is our hope that this paper will change the current perception among the grid community.

“Recently, aggressive and efficient control strategies for grid and renewable grids are heavily supported by the U.S. Department of Energy,” the authors state in the paper. “However, current perception amongst the grid community is that physics-based battery models are too complicated to be used in grid control.”

In our humble opinion, energy and information flow should be bidirectional and a renewable grid should be modeled and controlled simultaneously aiming for the best possible outcomes for all the devices including batteries. This will require strong collaboration between battery and grid modelers, application of nonlinear model predictive control techniques pioneered and championed by chemical engineering and other control communities. Both Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (grid modernization initiative) and the University of Washington have strong leaders in grid control and modeling. We hope to make progress in this topic.

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Reference
S. B. Lee, C. Pathak, V. Ramadesigan, W. Gao, and V. R. Subramanian, “Direct, efficient, and real-time simulation of physics-based battery models for stand-alone PV-battery microgrids”, J. Electrochemical Society, 164 (11) E3026-E3034 (2017)

Five Questions for Technical Editor Venkat Subramanian

Source: https://www.electrochem.org/redcat-blog/five-questions-technical-editor-venkat-subramanian/

Venkat Subramanian is the Washington Research Foundation Innovation Professor of Chemical Engineering and Clean Energy at the University of Washington. His research efforts focus on computational models to bridge next-generation energy materials to battery management systems. Subramanian has recently been named a new technical editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society, concentrating in the electrochemical engineering Topical Interest Area.

What do you hope to accomplish in your role as technical editor?
I am humbled and honored to be a Journal of The Electrochemical Society technical editor and I hope to help improve the impact factor and reach of our journal without losing the rigor we are known for. In particular, the electrochemical engineering topical interest area serves a critical role of taking fundamental electrochemistry to industrial applications. My current aim is to promote both traditional and new industrial applications of electrochemistry across different scales.

What are some of the biggest barriers for authors and for readers in the current publishing model?
Once I had a proposal rejected in my early academic career wherein the reviewer criticized me for not being aware of a recent article. I called the program officer to convey my unfortunate situation of not having access to the specified journal at my institution. While there are interlibrary loans or other such mechanisms, they are not optimal for making progress in research. Research requires instantaneous and immediate access. If you don’t have it, you lose out to your competitors who have such access. Note that every proposal is (and should be) reviewed on its merit and not resources available at a particular institution. Open access is critical for researchers and scientists.

What is the role of the Journal Impact Factor in scientific publishing?
Whether we like it or not, perception matters. Many academic departments have become highly interdisciplinary. Impact factor plays a big role in tenure and promotion decisions and there may be only one faculty member working in the field of electrochemistry. While I personally don’t read or benefit much from journals with high impact factor*, I will strive hard to promote and improve the impact factor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society and the perception about ECS journals in the scientific community.

What sets the Journal of The Electrochemical Society apart from others like it in the field?
ECS and the Journal of The Electrochemical Society are inclusive and open to accepting folks and researchers from various fields. ECS is friendly towards students and I very much appreciate the fact that ECS has not increased student membership fees and student registration fees drastically.

To give an example, a classic paper on battery modeling as applied for lithium-ion batteries was published in the Journal of The Electrochemical Society in 1993 by Professor John Newman’s group. While there are hundreds of follow-on papers (many published in very high impact factor journals), even as of today, this is the standard model and improvements to these models have been minimal in my humble opinion.

What role do you think electrochemistry has in solving some of society’s most pressing issues?
This is an opportune time to consolidate and enhance the status and role of electrochemistry and electrochemical engineering in chemical and other engineering, chemistry, and material science curricula and departments across the country.

In recent years, energy research has had a resurgence of interest due to concerns about humanity’s environmental footprint, due to issues such as the large-scale production of carbon dioxide and concerns about security and rapid global development. Technological innovations will be essential in addressing this global challenge. For fossil fuel systems, the emphasis has been on carbon dioxide mitigation, and control of fine particle and other pollutant emissions. The development of next-generation biofuels from plant-based sources will require a systems approach to account for all of the associated environmental, human, and economic costs.

Advances in materials to accelerate the development and implementation of cost effective solar-based technologies and energy-storage technologies will be essential. The training of a future workforce of broadly educated engineers and scientists, with strong technical skills will be essential. In this important area of research, electrochemists and electrochemical engineers are needed to play an active role in addressing these challenges.

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*Subramanain’s current research involves mathematical formulation, simulation, and optimization. Most math oriented publications are typically not published in high-impact journals.

New Additions to UW Battery Testbed Facility

Source: https://www.electrochem.org/redcat-blog/new-additions-battery-testbed-facility/

Powin Energy, a company focused on creating dynamic energy storage solutions, recently announced their plan to install a 30 kW/40 kW-hour battery system at the University of Washington’s Washington Clean Energy Testbeds. The testbed facility was developed by UW to scale-up, prototype, test, and validate new clean energy solutions. Powin Energy hopes to assist the researchers at the facility in their quest to develop clean energy innovation.

“We’re excited about this installation at the University of Washington because it will give our technology a more rigorous workout than most real-world installations that don’t approach the far ends of usage parameters,” Virgil Beaston, CTO of Powin Energy, said in a statement.

Venkat Subramanian, technical editor of the Journal of The Electrochemical Society and UW professor, discussed this energy storage opportunity, stating the he and his team could “use the Powin BESS to measure the performance of energy devices and algorithms when integrated into real and simulated system environments.”

Powin’s partnership with UW comes after the company’s development of its newly patented Battery Pack Operating system, which was designed to make its way into the utility-scale storage market. The company has already installed a 2MW/8MW-hour battery system in Irvine, CA.