FOR RELEASE: Feb. 5, 1997
Contact: Larry Bernard
Office: (607) 255-3651
Internet: [email protected]
Compuserve: Larry Bernard 72650,565
http://www.news.cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University is the lead institution in a new
national center for research on electric power systems.
Established by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Power Systems
Engineering Research Center (PSerc) comprises Cornell, the University of
California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the
University of Wisconsin at Madison and Howard University. It is funded by
the NSF, electric utility companies, the Electric Power Research Institute
and the participating educational institutions. The NSF will provide about
$200,000 per year for five years.
"Its purpose is to help the electric-power industry achieve the
high-performance capability necessary to meet the challenges created by
recent legislation concerned with restructuring the nation's
electric-energy systems," said Robert Thomas, Cornell professor of
electrical engineering and center director. "The movement toward a
restructured industry with open access transmission presents unprecedented
opportunities to evolve a new way of doing business while maintaining the
high level of system reliability of the past. The center is involved in a
multidisciplinary effort designed especially for addressing the technical
challenges brought about by the restructuring enterprise."
"This multi-university center, a nucleus for what will be a greatly
expanded effort, will produce broad research results that will have
significant impact on the power industry," said Alexander J. Schwarzkopf, a
director of the NSF's Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers
Program.
PSerc will seek to advance education and research in the expanding field of
electric-power systems, to address issues arising in an increasingly
competitive electric-power marketplace and to facilitate informed
discussion of technical problems that stem from policy options affecting
industry restructuring. Some of the center's tasks include:
-- Analysis of new transmission roles, such as fast control of power flow;
-- Development of new tools for design and analysis of the new regimes;
-- Exploration of new roles for information, communication and measurement
systems;
-- Investigation of large-scale and distributed generation and
delivery-system reliability;
-- Exploration of containment of dynamic disruptive system phenomena.
More information on PSerc is available at:
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