A federal grant will be used by Bradley University to develop new solutions to solar energy storage concerns.
Bradley received the $950,000 federal grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology as part of a spending package signed by President Biden March 9.
David Zietlow, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Bradley, said the money will be used to fund a solar energy research lab.
The lab will be housed in Bradley’s Business and Engineering Convergence Center and will be used to train 32 students each year. The main purpose will be to find ways to create continuous energy from solar.
“With a coal fired plant, or a fossil fuel plant, as long as you're feeding fuel to it, you have power, right? So it's like you can get continuous power,” Zietlow said. “But with solar, you get that rated power only at solar noon, on a sunny day. So if it's a cloudy day, or if it's later in the day, you don't get as much power. So the goal of this lab is to take that intermittent source of solar, and come up with ways to provide continuous power.”
Students will learn the operation of photovoltaic cells, which are used in solar panels, and battery storage. They’ll also learn about backup systems, such as gas turbines. Zietlow said gas turbines produce about half of the carbon-dioxide coal-fired plants do, making them more desirable as a backup option.
“It's kind of an intermediate solution, but engineers are problem solvers,” he said. “And so we're looking to solve problems. And part of the solution will be an intermediate solution, I believe. Then the other thing that's a key part of this lab is to replace furnaces that use natural gas, or oil, replace those with heat pumps, which use electricity.”
Solar is in demand in the Peoria area
Batteries currently exist to store solar energy, but not many companies make them. They’re often too costly for people making the switch to solar to afford.
Benjamin Tiger, founder of Solar Panther in Peoria Heights, said one battery can cost $15,000, and only powers a house for about eight hours. He said this means people typically need four to five batteries for a single-family home. About 5% of his clients purchase batteries.
Tiger said his company does about 500 roofing and solar projects a year. With recent increases in energy costs, more people are making the switch. He said solar projects cost anywhere from $20,000 to $100,000.
He said people raise concerns about cost and if they’ll get enough sun to power their homes.
“Here in Illinois, people don't think we get much sun compared to a state like California,” he said. “But we actually get quite a bit of sun as long as your roof pitch faces south, east or west, you're in good shape. If you have a north facing pitch, you're probably not getting much sun there.”
Tiger said federal and state tax credits are also incentivizing more people to purchase solar panels.
He said people in the industry want to see improved batteries and solar panels built into roof shingles. But one of the biggest needs right now is skilled labor.
“We need people that know what they're doing,” he said. “And as the Boomer generation retires, which is what a lot of our labor force has been the past 30 years, we need younger people to take the mantle and become more handy.”
Combatting climate change
Zietlow said there’s going to be a bigger demand for people in the solar field, and for people creating storage batteries, in the next decade. He said the work will be interdisciplinary.
“This is going to be training, chemistry majors, mechanical engineering majors, and electrical engineering majors on how to integrate intermittent sources and provide reliable electric power,” he said.
Funding will not be released until this September. Zietlow said they’ll then have to wait for the equipment to be delivered. He anticipates the program will be able to start by September 2025.
Zietlow said the main goal of the project is to fight against climate change with renewable energy sources.
“It does get us more green, but I think the global warming issue is a global issue,” he said. “And so even if the United States improves our carbon footprint, we've got to get other countries to come alongside us.”
For example, Zietlow mentions when the U.S. and other countries switched refrigerants from Freon to R134a to stop the depletion of the ozone layer in the 1990s. Zietlow said he worked on that as part of his doctoral work.
“All these countries got together and came up with guidelines and worked together to reduce and ban some of the refrigerants that were eating up the ozone,” he said. “And the success is the ozone layer is replenishing itself. It's getting thicker, the ozone hole is getting smaller.”
Bradley switching to solar
Bradley will also be utilizing solar power in the coming year. The university is partnering with Nexamp solar farms to power all of their campus buildings.
LeRoy Neilson, utilities supervisor at Bradley, said the university will serve as an anchor account. Residents and businesses in the area can also sign on.
“It provides a financial benefit to the university plus it helps contribute to the overall sustainability and green energy efforts in the state of Illinois,” he said.
Bradley is expecting to save around $115,000 annually in energy costs. The energy from the solar farm goes directly onto the grid and will be delivered to the university through already existing infrastructure.
They will still be connected to the main grid in case there is ever an issue with the panels.
“It's a complex system, but it utilizes a diversified technology of different ways of producing electricity,” he said. “So we know that coal fired plants are being phased out. They're still nuclear power, they're still power generation facilities that use natural gas. But what's taking place is that those types of facilities are becoming less in demand when they're being supplemented by solar and wind power.”
The solar farm is still being constructed, but Bradley will make the switch when it’s completed.
