Moving Forward with Microgrids

Collaborative Project Results in Innovative New Solar Vehicle Prototype

Por UNC Asheville

12 de June de 2023

UNC Asheville students, faculty, staff and community partners recently collaborated to create an innovative prototype for a new fleet of solar-powered work vehicles that could play a key role in reducing campus carbon emissions.

Students from the departments of computer science, mechatronics engineering and environmental studies completed the model vehicle this spring, upcycling an end-of-life workcart. Not only did they outfit it with a lithium iron phosphate battery, but also with an entire self-sufficient solar charging system, with its own solar panel on the roof. It never has to be plugged in, and even has an A/C system that enables it to be a mobile power source for charging electric tools and other carts.

Localized, self-sustaining energy systems like these with no need for power from the national grid are called “microgrids” and they are one component of UNC Asheville’s Climate Action Plan to reach carbon neutrality by 2050.

The microgrid vehicle prototype is equipped with an onboard telematics system — a computer that is able to measure the location, mileage, state of charge and solar energy input, all uploaded into a cloud database in real time. This online Fleet Management System will help supervisors create further efficiencies.

The model system created at UNC Asheville is scalable, and the computer science seniors who helped develop it left documentation for replication as part of their capstone projects before graduating last month.

“The scalability and the implications of this project are really cool,” says Luke Foster ‘23, one of the computer science students who helped develop the system. “I love the concept of creating a self-sustaining microgrid. I’m sure people have built systems like this, but the information is not readily available on the internet. We had to figure it all out on the fly. It made me better at coding, designing systems and working with people.”

Trevor Goldston shows off the microgrid vehicle at the "Electrify Your Ride" expo during UNC Asheville's Greenfest.

The computer science students had to use eight different coding languages to make the system work. “Figuring out how everything plays nicely together is something I’m definitely hoping to bring to future projects and careers,” says Cameron Martensen ‘23, another participating computer science senior.

For Foster, the project sparked an interest in pursuing work in the automotive industry and a passion “to push what I’ve learned as far as I can in a professional setting.” On a more personal level, he shares that one day he hopes to have his house automated with the information he’s learned from doing this, “because it’s applicable to everything once you learn to make things play off of each other and make a user interface.”

Microgrids and the Bigger Picture

The student project is an outgrowth of a larger effort by the UNC Asheville Microgrid Research Group to collaborate with community partners to advance the implementation of microgrids across campus and beyond.

The group includes passionate volunteers with years of expertise in the industry such as UNC Asheville alumnus Keith Thomson ‘89, a systems engineer who provided mentorship to the students on the prototype.

“Giving back to the community which has given so much to my family is what I love being a part of,” says Thomson. “We want to make it easier to have clean air and water by demonstrating the utility of the electrification of buildings and vehicles, so that we have more microgrids and less pollution.”

One of the UNC Asheville students that Thomson has been working closely with is Trevor Goldston '25, a mechatronics engineering student who focused on the mobile microgrid project during a summer internship last year. He took the lead on developing a voltage box that he hopes will be replicated in more work carts across campus as well as other organizations.

UNC Asheville alumnus Keith Thomson ‘89 and student Trevor Goldston

To help make it happen, he is currently volunteering with the Microgrid Research Group to develop a template for reworking cart electric systems “so that anyone, not just an engineer, could read it and know how to do the assembly. We want to develop an ease of manufacturing,” he says.

The group hopes the microgrid fleet project will be a stepping stone toward implementing much larger microgrids that would serve the larger Asheville community. A proposal in the UNC Asheville Climate Action Plan calls for outfitting the Sherrill Center with a solar array, battery energy storage and load management systems, creating a behind-the-meter microgrid that would not only reduce carbon emissions, but also serve as a resilient emergency shelter during natural disasters.

Many who serve on the UNC Asheville research group also volunteer with the Critical Services Microgrid Group, which has sought to work with city and county officials on plans to outfit the Asheville Police and Fire departments and other agencies with resilient microgrid systems.

UNC Asheville is also partnering with Warren Wilson College, collaborating to expand the microgrid fleet and management system. Warren Wilson currently has a fleet of solar microgrid work vehicles in service, but none yet have the new advanced Fleet Management System developed by the UNC Asheville computer science students.

Student Trevor Goldston and Moorthy Muthukrishnan, engineering faculty, at the Appalachian Energy Summit.

The inner workings of the microgrid vehicle.

UNC Asheville Interim Chancellor van Noort takes a test drive.

Moorthy Muthukrishnan and computer science students Luke Foster '23, Caleb Styles '23, and Cameron Martensen '23

Looking to the Future

In the long-term, many of the solar and microgrid projects outlined in the UNC Asheville Climate Action Plan would pay for themselves by saving energy costs. For example, installing a solar panel system at the Sherrill Center is estimated to cost approximately $694,700 and save over $2.25 million in energy costs over a 30-year period.

Still, getting the initial funding for these larger projects is proving to be challenging, according to Alison Ormsby, UNC Asheville acting director of sustainability. Adding work vehicles to the microgrid fleet will be comparatively easy, as enough solar panels to outfit all of the campus work carts have already been donated, although Ormsby is still in need of funding to purchase more batteries.

“We’d really like to expand this project and make progress with the bigger projects proposed in the Climate Action Plan,” says Ormsby. “The mobile microgrids are a great educational tool and real world project. It’s great to have interdisciplinary departmental collaboration, and for these community volunteers to mentor students and help with projects. You can tell that the students are really proud. It’s a great prototype for the kind of work that UNC Asheville needs to reduce our carbon emissions and to prepare students for sustainable futures.”

The microgrid project is certainly playing a formative role in Trevor’s career plans.

“It’s really been life changing. I knew coming out of high school I liked engineering, but I didn’t exactly know what industry I wanted to work in,” he says. “This work gave me a glimpse of the future. It helped affirm for me that I want to apply engineering to something that benefits the world. Using engineering to better the environment seems like a noble way to spend your life.”