IEEE Buffalo Section and Power & Energy Society presentation Saturday March 27, 2021

#Power #Electronics #March #2021

Challenges and Opportunities in the Balance of Systems for Photovoltaic Energy

Speaker:         Dr. Robert S. Balog

            Professor and Director of the Renewable Energy and Advanced Power Electronics Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University

Date:               March 27, 2021

Time:              12:00 PM – 1:00 PM EST

Place:              On-line meeting. Please RSVP and the meeting link will be on the events page.

Organizer:      Power & Energy (PE)

Abstract:

For years photovoltaic systems were all about the cells – specifically their cost and efficiency. It can be said that today’s cells are good enough and cheap enough. This talk examines the other costs and performance issues in photovoltaic systems – the so called balance of systems - to explore other technologies and considerations that warrant attention if photovoltaic systems are truly to become ubiquitous.

Speaker Bio:

Robert S. Balog received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, USA in 1996, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA, in 2002 and 2006, respectively. He joined Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA, in 2009 where he is currently a tenured full Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Director of the Renewable Energy and Advanced Power Electronics Research Laboratory (www.REAPERlab.com), and co-director of the National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center on Next Generation Photovoltaics. He also holds a joint faculty appointment with Texas A&M University at Qatar where he is currently in-residence. Prior to joining A&M, from 1996 to 1999 he was an Engineer with Lutron Electronics, Coopersburg, PA, USA where he developed lighting controls and systems. From 2005 to 2006, he was a Research Consultant with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, Engineering Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, Champaign, IL, USA where he was involved in researching concepts for military microgrids. From 2006 to 2009, he was a Senior Engineer at SolarBridge Technologies, Champaign, IL, USA where he was a co-inventor and lead the technical development team for a module-integrated microinverter he developed while a graduate student at the University of Illinois. As a non-equity technology founder, he invented the original technologies, directed the initial engineering team, and was part of the executive team that secured the $6 million Round A funding from a Tier I venture capital firm. His current research interests include power electronic converters and balance-of-systems technologies for solar photovoltaic energy, microinverters for ac photovoltaic modules, arc fault detection for dc and photovoltaic systems, highly reliable electrical power and energy systems including dc microgrids, and power electronics at the grid edge including reactive power and harmonic power compensation in distribution systems.

Dr. Balog is a Registered Professional Engineer in the states of Illinois and Texas. He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) where he is currently serving as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Power Electronics Society (PELS)* and co-Chair of the Mentorship Committee. He has previously served as an elected Member-at-Large of the Administrative Committee, chair of the Membership committee, and inagural chair of the Graduates of the Last Decade committee (now called Young Professionals). He was the Technical Program Chair for the 2016 IEEE Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition which is internationally recognized as one of the two flagship conference on power electronics. He received the inaugural IEEE Joseph J. Suozzi INTELEC Fellowship in 2001 for his work on power electronics in telecommunications systems. Has been a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Sigma Xi, National Society of Professional Engineers, American Solar Energy Society, and Solar Electric Power Association. He was recognized as an external member of the Hungarian Academy of Science in 2011 and was the recipient of the 2011 Rutgers College of Engineering Distinguished Engineer Award. Dr. Balog is an inventor on 20 issued U.S. patents and received a 2017 Texas A&M System Technology Commercialization Patent Award. He has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed conference and journal papers, is co-author of the book “Microgrids and other Local Area Power and Energy Systems” published by Cambridge University Press in 2016 and has written multiple book chapters. His h-index is 41 and has been cited over 6,500 times in the scientific literature.

 * IEEE is offering a discount of up to 50% on student and graduate student member dues.  This discount is being offered immediately to all renewing and first-time student members.  PELS will also be offering the same discount.  Use the following codes for IEEE: FUTURE50  and for PELS: PELS50FUTURE  during the online check-out process.   Students who recently renewed or joined can reach ot to the IEEE Contact Center at:  contactcenter@ieee.org and request a credit on future membership dues