Building partnerships for development of sustainable energy systems with atmospheric measurements

Building partnerships for development of sustainable energy systems with atmospheric measurements

Daniel Foti, University of Memphis (Principal Investigator)

Ranganathan Gopalakrishnan, University of Memphis (Co-Investigator)

Alexander Headley, University of Memphis (Co-Investigator)

Atmospheric dynamics often plays a critical role in the sustainability and reliability of diverse forms of energy production.  This is especially relevant with the growing number of deployments of renewable energy,

renewable energy

Renewable energy comes from unlimited, naturally replenished resources, such as the sun, tides, and wind. Renewable energy can be used for electricity generation, space and water heating and cooling, and transportation.

Source: U.S Department of Energy Source

which harness aspects of the environment for power production.  While the University of Memphis has a strong research background in energy systems, we have little experience working with Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division (EESSD) and their associated User Facilities.  Of particular interest to us is the Atmospheric Science Research and the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility due to requirements to address surface layer interactions and physical phenomena.   One of the major challenges for understanding and developing energy systems and management is to address how to include and/or model accurate atmospheric conditions across disparate spatial and temporal scales.  These conditions are often required at the lowest levels of the atmospheric boundary layer, but can also include higher atmospheric conditions where aerosols

aerosols

Small particles or droplets, such as wildfire smoke, volcanic gases, or salty sea spray, that float in the air. They are emitted by both natural events and human activities.

Source: NASA Global Climate Change Source

affect cloud development.  The objective of this work is to develop partnerships with national laboratories for collaboration on environmental science and its intersection with sustainable energy systems, as well as to leverage the ARM user facility data repositories to enhance our research capabilities in energy systems and their inter-dependence on environmental systems for future engagement with EESSD.  Specific research thrust areas are the following:

1.     Leverage and model atmospheric boundary layer condition measurements for input into simulations and models of energy systems such as wind and solar farms;

2.     Employ atmospheric aerosol measurements for validation of transport modeling; and

3.     Build partnerships emphasizing development of sustainable energy solutions for the Mid-South region.     The Southeast region has been identified a high-priority science location for atmospheric measurements due to number of unique conditions. With the new deployment of the third ARM Mobility Facility to our region of the country, we anticipate the availability of data repositories from the facility to be beneficial for developing sustainable energy solutions in the Mid-South.