2018 Scholars at Work Conference Program

Program for the 2018 Scholars at Work Conference at Minnesota State University, Mankato on March 30, 2018

Helping Students RISE to Their Full Potential: The Research Immersive Scholastic Experience in Biology (RISEbio) Program and How It Can Help Our Students Succeed

The Department of Biological Sciences is developing and implementing the “Research Immersive Scholastic Experience in Biology” (RISEbio) program. RISEbio is a National Science Foundation-funded scholarship and support program that is targeting incoming biology freshmen. The goal of RISEbio is to increase student academic success through: (1) increasing student social integration and support, (2) developing student technical and professional skills, and (3) implementing a freshman immersive research program. In this talk, we will describe the RISEbio program, how it is designed to support student success, our model for integrating authentic research projects in to the freshman curriculum, and our vision to expanding the RISE program across the university

Best Practices in Sponsored Programs: Applying for & Managing Grants

Best practice develops as a result of effort & experience, and this panel presents a variety of expertise in all aspects of the grant process. This discussion will include topics such as: how to identify funding fit, tips for writing a competitive proposal, strategies for successful award management, and more – along with time for Q&A

Novel hybrid design For microgrid control

This paper proposes a new hybrid control system for an AC microgrid. The system uses both centralised and decentralised strategies to optimize the microgrid energy control while addressing the challenges introduced by current technologies and applied systems in real microgrid infrastructures. The well-known 3-level control (tertiary, secondary, primary) is employed with an enhanced hierarchical design using intelligent agent-based components in order to improve efficiency, diversity, modularity, and scalability. The main contribution of this paper is dual. During normal operation, the microgrid central controller (MGCC) is designed to undertake the management of the microgrid, while providing the local agents with the appropriate constraints for optimal power flow. During MGCC fault, a peer-to-peer communication is enabled between neighbouring agents in order to make their optimal decision locally. The initial design of the control structure and the detailed analysis of the different operating scenarios along with their requirements have shown the applicability of the new system in real microgrid environments

Microgrid Environmental Impact

Power plants have bad impacts on the environment. One of these impacts is Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emission resulted from power plants that depend on fossil fuel, oil and natural gas. Renewable energy is considered as an important solution for this problem since it is classified as clean and environmentally friendly source of energy and helps reducing the dependency on conventional power plants. High renewable energy penetration into power systems is a big challenge that can be solved by deploying the concept of smart Micro-Grids. This paper presents a study on how much reduction of CO2 emission can be resulted from deploying smart micro-grid concept on a university campus, German Jordanian University (GJU) campus was taken as a pilot. The micro-grid is meant to operate according to an optimum resource scheduling framework that guarantee a minimum operational cost while achieving high local power availability

Optimal Energy Management and Scheduling of a Microgrid in Grid-Connected and Islanded Modes

Microgrids are becoming one of the main components of future smart grids. Ensuring their optimal and stable operation is of crucial importance and can be a challenging task. In this paper, two optimization algorithms are implemented for scheduling the microgrid operation in grid-connected and islanded modes, according to the priorities and objectives in each mode. For achieving an optimal operation at each mode, the proposed scheme is able to shed loads, define the generation level of the photovoltaics and regulate the charging/discharging level of the Energy Storage System (ESS). The effectiveness of the proposed scheduling is demonstrated through an analytical real-time simulation, where various transitions between the grid-connected and islanded modes are considered. The results indicate that the proposed scheme is able to regulate successfully the energy flows of the microgrid even under various transitions