ZBB Energy Corp. has been awarded a competitive bid contract from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (UWM) to supply the energy lab at the university's college of engineering and applied science with advanced energy power and storage solutions.
ZBB's technology will be used by a multi-university team of researchers conducting renewable energy studies for the Wisconsin Energy Research Consortium (WERC).
A team of researchers led by UWM Associate Professor Adel Nasiri, as well as researchers from Marquette University and the Milwaukee School of Engineering, received multiple research grants, including support from the National Science Foundation and the National Energy Technology Lab, to focus on discovering new energy-storage methods and power-converter topologies for wind turbines.
The multi-university team will utilize ZBB's ZESS POWR power and energy control center (PECC) and ZESS 50 technology to study ways to create the next generation of renewable energy sources and technology.
The ZESS POWR PECC is a hybrid power system that converts any combination of wind, solar, hydro or other generating sources to independently optimize the control of each generating source while providing a ‘steady-state’ power output to the electrical loads or directly to the grid.
The ZESS 50 technology is a zinc-bromide flow battery designed to serve as an advanced energy-storage device and is constructed from environmentally friendly materials that provide for a long service life and advanced performance when compared with traditional chemical batteries, according to the researchers.
The WERC research project will utilize ZBB technology in a two-phase effort. The first phase of the project will study individual wind turbines. These results will be applied in a phase two study to remodel an entire wind farm system to improve reliability and put wind farms on equal footing with conventional fuel sources, such as coal- and gas-fueled power plants.
SOURCE: ZBB Energy Corp.
