Melaine Rickard

Large-scale use of distributed renewable energy resources can significantly improve U.S. energy security and independence, as well as global environmental health. The Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM) Systems Center’ vision is to allow users to manage their individual energy needs using innovative solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicles. In turn, residential and commercial customers could sell excess power generated by their alternative energy sources back to the power companies, or store the energy for later use. Solving the energy crisis demands not only renewable energy itself, but new infrastructure to deliver and manage these resources. Incorporating millions of new energy generation sources requires extensive transformation of the nation’s electrical grid infrastructure. Ms. Rickard will collaborate with the FREEDM Systems Engineering Research Center at NC State University and The Science House to develop curricula that highlight the importance of this research. She will study switching devices that monitor and control highly-variable power loads, electric power storage devices and the transport of energy produced by renewable sources including electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.