Chenyu Yang received an NSF award of $451,974 jointly with Sarah Johnston of the University of Wisconsin. The project studies how to improve the process electricity generators use to connect to the power grid in the United States. An obstacle to investments in a low-carbon electricity grid has been the current electricity transmission policy, which was designed for fossil fuel generators. The research team will construct data based on engineering reports and use it to analyze how the design of the interconnection process (which generators use to connect to the transmission infrastructure) acts as a bottleneck to the deployment of renewables. The team will also simulate the effects of alternative policies to quantify the costs and benefits of potential policy reforms.

The project has already employed nine UMD undergraduate students as research assistants, and the award will enable the research team to support more UMD undergraduate and graduate students in the coming three years. More information about the award can be found here and about Professor Yang’s research here. 

10/4/2022