Senior Design Projects
ECS193 A/B Winter & Spring 2019
User Interface for an Electric Microgrid Research Project
| ********** | |
| Marco Pritoni | |
| LBNL |
Project's details
| User Interface for an Electric Microgrid Research Project | |
| Microgrids are a group of localized sources of electricity and loads that can operate in grid-connected mode or islanded mode. Solar energy, wind energy and biomass are quite commonly used sources of electricity in microgrids. They provide additional reliability in scenarios where the utility grid ( e.g. PG&E operated grid ) has failed and also are used to provide electricity access to regions where conventional grid is not present. As part of a research project funded by the California Energy Commission, a microgrid is being built at a gas station and a department store attached to it in Humboldt County in northern California. Solar panels, Tesla Powerwall batteries are being installed, along with network connected thermostats, environmental sensors and over-the-network controllable grid tie inverters and battery controllers. A software-based building operating system will be used for data acquisition and storage. The operation of these devices is controlled through Model Predictive Control, a technique that builds models on historical data and generates future control signals for appliances and the battery based on temperature, cloud cover, price of electricity forecasts etc. | |
| This project aims at developing a web-based User Interface that can run as a service over the building operating system. Authorized users at the gas station would use this UI to monitor operations and obtain the current status of PVs, batteries, refrigerators and HVAC systems and issue control signals in case of an emergency. The UI needs to integrate with the microgrid software to obtain data from devices and a timeseries database and also to send signal back to the devices. LBNL is looking for a team of students to help design and develop this UI. The students will also have the opportunity to work with LBNL scientists and researchers at Humboldt State University and UC Berkeley. | |
| Expected outcome is a functioning version of the UI that will be deployed either on the actual server at the gas station or a test server at LBNL. The software package includes detailed and well commented code with logging and instructions on how to use it and install it at multiple sites. | |
| Javascript, Python, Databases UI development and willingness to learn and collaborate with professionals. | |
| ********** | |
| 30-60 min weekly or more | |
| Client wishes to keep IP of the project | |
| Attachment | Click here |
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| Team members | N/A |
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| N/A |