Pre-APEC workshop focuses on engineering energy-efficient facilities
Seventy percent of global energy production is consumed in commercial and residential buildings. Power electronics applications can reduce this substantially. The IEEE PELS Emerging Technologies Technical Committee and PSMA, with leadership from the PSMA Alternative Energy Committee, will sponsor this special one-day workshop in conjunction with the Applied Power Electronics Conference. The event will address the impact and influence and power electronics, addressing these questions and related issues:
How can power electronics control and reduce building energy consumption?
What does it take to reduce average building consumption?
Can it be reduced to zero?
What about emerging dc building systems?
What about energy storage?
Participants are invited to this pre-APEC workshop that is designed to gather a group of experts in power electronics and advanced energy-efficient buildings. Much of the past work on low-energy buildings has emphasized HVAC and envelope design, but the essential actuators and devices employ power electronics. The workshop objectives are to establish key subject matter, identify gaps and technology challenges, discuss market opportunities, and develop a power electronics and electrical systems community for global initiatives in energy-efficient buildings.
Workshop topics include an overview of the two largest zero-net-energy building projects in the U.S., work on emerging methods for dc protection and distribution, and power electronics for sophisticated control of thermal storage. The workshop is intended to lead to a series of conferences to develop power electronics leadership for implementation of low-energy building designs. Since this will be an interactive workshop, the size is limited and early registration is strongly encouraged.
The workshop format mixes invited presentations and small-group discussion. Discussion groups will evaluate technical challenges, establish scope objectives for the technical community, and prepare action items to be addressed by the sponsoring committees and other volunteers. Workshop leaders will prepare a formal report for PELS and for the PSMA membership, which will include all presentation materials and a summary of the discussions and future plans. The general format and activity schedule is similar to prior PSMA-sponsored pre-APEC workshops.
The General Chair for the workshop is Prof. Philip Krein, University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign, who stated,“This workshop will address market opportunities for power electronics and electrical systems in energy-efficient buildings. The interactive format of this workshop will not only provide information from leading players on the emerging technologies but will allow participants to interact and network with leaders in the industry.”
Advance registration is required. The registration fee for PSMA and IEEE members is $150 which includes breakfast, lunch, breaks, room rental, and workshop materials. The registration fee for non-members is $250.
