Dr. Nathan Weise, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been awarded a $500,000 grant by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The grant is part of Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy’s program called Building Reliable Electronics to Achieve Kilovolt Effective Ratings Safely — also known as “BREAKERS.”
BREAKERS seeks to develop new medium-voltage, DC devices to better manage power by eliminating electrical faults, improving efficiency and reaction times, and potentially enabling greater proliferation of energy storage and renewable resources.
Weise said his project, “Ultra-Fast Resonant DC Breaker,” will develop a direct-current, transformational, state-of-the-art breaker. It will combine the advantages of a vacuum interrupter with a wide-bandgap based resonant current source and novel actuator topology.
“(It) will be scalable across voltage and current in medium voltage DC applications,” Weise said. “Such as power distribution, solar, wind and electric vehicles.”
“We are excited that Dr. Weise and his team were selected to receive this competitive award from the Department of Energy,” said Dr. Kristina Ropella, Opus Dean of the Opus College of Engineering. “His leadership and scholarship in the area of power electronics has earned him well-deserved recognition among his peers.”