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PSE Renewable Energy Lab

EME Building, Room 240

Dr. Javier Guerrero Sedeno
j.guerrerosedeno@wsu.edu

The Renewable Energy Laboratory and renewable energy class, both supported by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) have become an essential part of our power track curriculum. The construction and deployment of new connection panels and the incorporation of new RPM meters have improved the laboratory experiences. The development of this class with its lab is one of the many reasons why WSU is  considered one of the few institutions with curriculum in clean energy technology.

Avista Energy Conversion Lab (ECL)

EME Building, Room B54

Dr. Saeed Lotfifard
s.lotfifard@wsu.edu

Pre-lab computations, MATLAB programming, and simulations are emphasized and have become a significant part of the course experience.  Through pre-lab computations and computer simulation, the students are required to demonstrate their command of the theoretical concepts before they conduct the actual experiment.  After the experiment is completed, each individual student is required to write a complete technical report in the proper engineering format including calculations, simulations, actual experimental results, and a detailed discussion comparing experimental and theoretical results.

The improvements introduced during the Spring 2013 semester to this laboratory have resulted in enhanced teaching activities. The students who take this laboratory are required to complete the following experiments:

  1. Single-phase and three-phase analysis
  2. Single-phase transformer
  3. Three-phase transformer
  4. Induction machine
  5. Synchronous machine
  6. DC machine
  7. Design Project

Protective Relay Lab

EME Building, Room B54

Brent Carper
brent.carper@wsu.edu

The relay lab is an essential part of the power system protection curriculum. Our students gain extensive learning about commercial relays and software, including regular hands-on experience. Without exception, the students who take this lab comment that it is an excellent complement to the formal lecture in the field (EE493). Due to the style of teaching, with examples solved on actual power systems and protection situations, the combination of these two classes gives WSU students real-world power engineering experience.

Smart Grid Demonstration and Research Investigation Lab (SGDRIL)

ETRL Building, Room 309

Dr. Anurag Srivastava
anurag.k.srivastava@wsu.edu

The electric power system is moving toward Smart Grid (SG) development for improved reliable, secure, and economic operation. Implementation of such a system requires enhanced testing and validation of smart grid technologies, including newly developed algorithms and devices. SGDRIL’s mission is to test and validate these devices and algorithms at generation, distribution, transmission, and home network levels. This testbed utilizes a number of hardware and software tools, including a real time digital simulator, phasor measurement units, relays, digital fault recorder, and automation controllers.

Laboratory for Integration of Power Electronics (LIPE)

EME Building, Room B58

Dr. Ahmed Abu-Hajar
ahmed.abuhajar@wsu.edu

The Laboratory for Integration of Power Electronics (LIPE) hosts world-class equipment that enables design, test, and validation of control, integration, and management strategies for integration of power electronics in the power system such as reactive power compensation, flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS), integration of renewable energy resources, and microgrid applications. LIPE has state-of-the-art equipment including high-resolution, 11-bit phosphor oscilloscopes, high-speed Scopecorders (Yokogawa), real-time digital simulator (RTDS), electronically controllable AC and DC loads, National Instrument cRIO controllers (three chassis with several modules each for digital/analog IO), and several power supplies including a 15 kW controllable three-phase power supply. The lab can also interface to the Smart City Testbed at ESIC. The available software tools include PSCAD/EMTDC, LabVIEW, PSS/E, PSLF, and MATLAB/SIMULINK. An additional OPAL-RT real-time simulator also adds to the existing OPAL-RT and RTDS simulators.

GE Grid Solutions Smart City Testbed (SCT)

EME Building, Room 6

Dr. Mani Venkatasubramanian
mani@wsu.edu

The Smart City Testbed allows researchers, students, and industry to test new designs and operational strategies that cannot be performed on the power grid. This electric-energy grid testbed enables people in industry and academia to study the impact of incorporating smart city innovations like demand-side participation (smart meter), utilization of renewable resources, and integration with wide-area transmission grids into the electric energy distribution grid. The Testbed contains a flexible power system that accommodates the unique characteristics of renewable energy resources such as intermittency, lack of inertia, and susceptibility to violation of operational limits. The Smart City Testbed is a comprehensive, advanced facility, allowing researchers to study the ‘systems’ aspects, i.e., complex interactions between subsystems and components, and defense measures against cyber intrusions.  A 72 kW solar array on the WSU Pullman campus has been completed and measurements from the PV array are acquired and delivered to the Smart City Testbed. As part of the testbed, the Distribution Management System incorporates data from Avista’s distribution system which serves Pullman. In addition, smart meters installed on campus buildings enable real time acquisition of energy consumption data by the Testbed for research purposes.

Synchrophasor Applications and Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL)

EME Building, Room 31

Dr. Mani Venkatasubramanian
mani@wsu.edu

The Synchrophasor Applications and Intelligence Laboratory is an environment where students, staff and faculty architect, design, and prototype software supporting operation and control of the power grid using synchrophasor measurements. Major activities in the lab consist of research related to real-time stability monitoring and control, wide-area communication, and cyber-security, as well as modeling and simulation of cyber-physical infrastructure systems. The laboratory provides a shared work space that encourages and facilitates collaborative research activities. Notable resources of the lab include: high performance computation, both conventional and GPU-based; high-speed internal and external network connections; and power system sensor devices such as phasor measurement units that can be deployed in hardware-in-the-loop simulations or emulations.