Community Energy and Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment have announced a joint academic-industry research partnership to study the US energy transition.
The two parties will identify an optimal buildout plan for scaling carbon-free power over the next decade to meet climate challenges.
Community Energy and Princeton University will develop a technical blueprint for rapid and affordable emissions reductions to the grid while securing reliable electricity supply.
Researchers will focus first on the PJM system, the grid that controls electricity flows for all or part of 13 states, including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland.
The second phase of work with Princeton will assess and identify key policies that will be important to incent the necessary power resources.
The research will be led by Jesse Jenkins who runs Princeton’s Zero Carbon Energy Systems Research and Optimization Laboratory, in collaboration with the Andlinger Center’s Energy Systems Analysis Group.
Barry Rand, associate director for external partnerships at the Andlinger Center, said: “We are thrilled to partner with Community Energy and investigate questions that the industry faces on the national energy transition. The partnership exemplifies how the Andlinger Center translates new knowledge to be useful for practitioners.
“The company’s perspective will bolster our efforts to provide meaningful insights on how the grid could become low-carbon and which technologies we need to scale to get there,” said Rand, who is also an associate professor of electrical engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.
Jesse Jenkins, adds: “Community Energy will be a good partner because they know the important tradeoffs and practical challenges in renewable energy development.
“Knowledge of land use, development constraints and synergies with agriculture and farmland preservation will help our research team develop computer models of the grid that are more realistic and achievable in the near term.”