Arne Jacobson
I am honored to write my first newsletter column as Director of the Schatz Energy Research Center. The faculty, staff, and students who work at SERC are a talented and dedicated group of people, and it is a privilege to work with such a fantastic team.
As I start in this new role, I am conscious of the large shoes I am attempting to fill. Peter Lehman has directed SERC boldly and effectively since it was founded in 1989. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to collaborate closely with Peter over the years to come as he continues to play a leading role in his position as Founding Director.
Under the leadership of Peter and long time Co-Director Charles Chamberlin, SERC has built a reputation for taking on innovative and challenging renewable energy and energy efficiency projects that make a difference for the environment and society, carefully measuring and analyzing energy system performance, and building things that work. It was, in fact, these characteristics that attracted me to SERC, first as an Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) master’s student back in 1992 and later—after completing a PhD in Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley—as a faculty member in the ERE department in 2005. These traits are now deeply embedded into the culture of who we are at SERC, and we will, of course, strive to build on them.
Since becoming a Co-Director at SERC in 2007, I have worked with Peter, Charles, and the broader team to develop three key themes at the Center. First, we have worked to increase student involvement in SERC projects. Second, we have taken on interdisciplinary projects that combine technical rigor with policy and social science analysis. And third, we have diversified our portfolio of projects; for example, we now have a robust set of international efforts that complement our local, state, and nationally oriented projects. These will continue to be high priority themes going forward.
The lead story in this issue exemplifies the marriage between SERC’s longstanding core capabilities and the emerging themes we have been working to add. The GridShare project involves the application of smart grid concepts to improve the quality of electrical service from a village scale renewable energy mini-grid in Bhutan. Successful implementation involved collaboration with international partners and an interdisciplinary approach that spanned technical, socio-economic, and educational activities. The project was also a student-led effort that provided significant opportunities for learning and professional development for both graduate and undergraduate students.
Closer to home, in this issue we also report on an analysis of infrastructure needs for plug-in electric vehicle infrastructure for Humboldt County; the release of RePowering Humboldt, a strategic plan for scaling up renewable energy use over the next two decades here in Humboldt County; and progress on the HSU hydrogen fueling station upgrade. It is exciting to be involved in this diverse and meaningful set of projects. I look forward to many more in the years to come.
