SIU student team in finals of U.S. solar power competition
A team of students from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale is among the finalists in the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition.
Competitors design systems that integrate solar, storage and other technologies for a real-world district or campus, developing skills essential for clean energy.
The ultimate goal of the competition is to design a solar power system for Ohio State University's medical campus - a system that maximizes energy offset and financial savings over the life of the design, said Nelson Fernandes, a senior in mechanical engineering and project manager for the SIU Solar District Cup Team from Skokie.
Other team members include SIU students Stephen Schulte, a senior in computer science from Mascoutah; Olivia Sapp, a senior in electrical engineering from Benton; and Aron Taylor, a junior in mechanical engineering from Carbondale.
Also on the team is Gustavo Felicio Perruci, an SIU alumnus working on his doctorate at the University of Texas at Dallas, plus other members from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Broward College in Florida.
The team submitted its proposal for a photovoltaic roof system to the competition in late fall and won a place in the finals, along with 34 other teams from the initial 65. The students will submit their final plans in mid-April.
Fernandes said the team is looking forward to the challenge.
"We will incorporate energy storage into our design for enhancing the financial savings, which is considered smart grid technology," he said.
Now in its third year, the Solar District Cup aims to inspire a new generation of renewable energy innovators to create distributed energy systems that support a flexible, resilient power grid. The competition challenges multidisciplinary, student-led teams to develop solutions for renewable energy needs. So far, the contest has engaged around 300 students this year.
The SIU team, which also is one of just two finalist teams that includes students from other universities, is a subgroup of the Green Roof Team, named after an innovative sustainability project atop the Agriculture Building. Started in 2010, it features space for native plants, growing vegetables and flowers and conducting research while demonstrating the benefits of sustainable roofs.
Communication among the teammates, each of whom brings certain skills to the table, is key, Fernandes said. And as a multi-university team, this presented challenges.
"We meet weekly virtually and have been performing at a high level since August 2020 on our renewable energy and machine-learning engineering projects," Fernandes said.
Kanchan Mondal, director of the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Materials Engineering at SIU, originally brought the competition to the team, encouraging the cross-university collaborative approach.
"With our different experiences, we have a wide range of skills that enabled us to tackle each aspect of the competition, including engineering design, engineering analysis, finance and project management," Fernandes said.
Sponsors and advisers of the team include Southern Illinois businesses C.H. Electrical in Pittsburg, Supplied Energy in Greenville and AES Solar in Carterville.