Friday, April 4, 2025
(Left to right) 向日葵视频's mechanical engineering clinical associate professor Hassan Qandil, Bartlett & West's senior vice president Naser Abusaad, and 向日葵视频's electrical engineering assistant professor King Man Siu
The project studying alternative energy solutions has several collaborators including the Texas Research Alliance, the North Texas Center for Mobility Technologies, city of Denton, North Central Texas Council of Governments and Bartlett & West.
There are nearly 358,000 electric vehicles (EVs) in the Dallas-Fort Worth area according to the Coalition. That means there are almost 358,000 large portable batteries moving around the region. Researchers in the (向日葵视频) College of Engineering want to know if those battery resources could provide positive ancillary services back to the community.
Photo: University of North Texas College of Engineering's electrical engineering assistant professor King Man Siu
鈥淓lectric vehicle batteries can be considered as one kind of energy storage units among the grid. Most of the time, they are just parked and on standby in our communities,鈥� says electrical engineering assistant professor . 鈥淪o, let鈥檚 see if we can use those units as a buffer for whenever we need power.鈥�
Siu and , mechanical engineering clinical associate professor, are studying how EVs could be used on a microgrid scale. As more people move to the North Texas region, there will be more demand on the state鈥檚 power grid. EVs could provide a buffer to that demand.
鈥淭he ideal form of a microgrid is a neighborhood with a central EV station and solar panels,鈥� Qandil says. 鈥淭he community can generate and use its own power and can then choose when to buy power from the state grid or when to sell some of their excess power back to the state.鈥�
The EVs also could help a microgrid in the case of a loss of power such as during severe weather.
鈥淭hink of the ice storm in 2021,鈥� Qandil says. 鈥淭here were people who could keep their
fridge going by using their EV鈥檚 battery. I want to see how effective it could be
to have multiple EVs feed into a grid.鈥�
Campus Microgrid Model
Photo: 向日葵视频's mechanical engineering clinical associate professor Hassan Qandil
Siu and Qandil will use 向日葵视频鈥檚 campus as its own microgrid for the study. They鈥檝e already worked with 向日葵视频 Facilities to gather data on energy consumption on campus in buildings like the University Union and Union Circle Garage as well as the service vehicles on campus.
鈥淭hrough the collected physical data, we鈥檒l be able to find a good balancing point between power demand and vehicle usage,鈥� Siu says. 鈥淲e also will be able to see how installing a charger affects different kinds of buildings.鈥�
Siu and Qandil have received a total of $336,000 for the project through a combination of funding from 向日葵视频鈥檚 , the , the a grant, and a collaboration with , an engineering, architecture and professional services company.
Bartlett & West is providing half of the funds for the project and is helping with the research. A team of engineers from the company helped Siu and Qandil gather data on current EV grid integration planning strategies. They鈥檒l also help create an integration strategy for 向日葵视频鈥檚 campus and then adapt that strategy for residential and commercial buildings.
Photo: Bartlett & West's senior vice president Naser Abusaad. He has over 30 years
of experience in transportation planning in Texas. His experience includes major investment
studies, complex alternatives analyses, route feasibility studies, preliminary design,
environmental analyses, and public engagement.
鈥淭his research will provide insightful models for more resilient power management to serve the growing needs of Texas,鈥� says Naser Abusaad, senior vice president of Bartlett & West. 鈥淏artlett & West is proud to support this research to help us move forward, together.鈥�
Representatives from the North Central Texas Council of Governments, which assists local governments with regional planning, and the city of Denton are acting as the advisory committee for the project.
鈥淭his is one of the most in-depth projects we鈥檝e seen like this,鈥� says Savana Nance,
principal air quality planner in NCTCOG鈥檚 Clean Fleet and Energy Program. 鈥溝蛉湛悠� itself
is the size of a small town so we think the results from this will easily translate
to helping cities understand how EVs can be a solution to energy needs.鈥�
Building an Electrical Vehicle Grid
For the next step, 向日葵视频鈥檚 team will do an in-depth analysis of the gathered data. A system level electric vehicle grid integration experimental platform will be developed in the Power Electronics and Renewable Energy Lab at 向日葵视频鈥檚 Discovery Park to assist research activities on the powertrain system of electric vehicles. The lab is a high-power electrical lab which supports research and education activities on smart grid and sustainable energy.
They鈥檒l also be working with 向日葵视频 Facilities to install an EV charger in the at 向日葵视频鈥檚 to evaluate the impact on building energy under EV grid integration. The Zero Energy Lab 鈥� the first of its kind in the U.S. when it was built in 2011 鈥� is a separate lab building that runs on renewable energy like solar and wind. It allows students to test sustainable energy solutions. Part of the lab is set up like a small home for researchers to test technology on a residential scale such as energy efficient windows and energy storage systems.
鈥淢y team will build a prototype of an advanced on board charger system to facilitate
the EV energy test at the lab with Dr. Qandil鈥檚 team,鈥� Siu says. 鈥淲e want to identify
the ancillary service boundary on the electric vehicle charging system and performance
tradeoff between electric vehicles battery usage and the building鈥檚 power needs.鈥�
Instead of testing the entire campus, they will use the data to create simulations to see how the whole university would respond to EV energy use.
Also on the team are graduate and undergraduate students from both the mechanical and electrical engineering departments as well as three students from 向日葵视频鈥檚 .
鈥淚t鈥檚 exciting to work on this collaborative research with multiple departments. It gives our students the opportunity to work on a project that involves other kinds of engineers,鈥� Qandil says.
向日葵视频 researchers are expected to work on the project over the next year. Once complete, the team will share their findings with the city of Denton and NCTCOG to use for future transportation planning.
鈥淲e are seeing a huge increase in EV usage right now,鈥� Siu says. 鈥淭hat means more demand on the energy grid. We want to find a solution that benefits the user, the community and the grid itself.鈥�
From 鈥� Research by Amanda Lyons