WiMNet Lab takes part in a $6.4M Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office project titled “Autonomous and Resilient Operation of Energy systems with RenewaAbles (AURORA)”. The project is led by Siemens where the PI is Dr. Ulrich Muenz. Prof. Gil Zussman is one of the co-PIs, and other participants include NREL and Holy Cross Energy.

The project’s objective is to advance solar energy’s role in strengthening the resilience of the U.S. electricity grid. This project will create an innovative Energy Management System that can coordinate distributed microgrids to work together. The system will utilize diverse technologies to increase grid resilience against natural disasters or cyber-attacks as well as autonomously restore power during a blackout using smart inverters.

The contributions of WiMNet lab to the project will build on the work in the area of resilience of power grids and on recent collaboration of Dr. Jonathan Ostrometzky with NREL. For more details see Siemens’ press release.