Arne JacobsonThe past year has been a very productive one for the Schatz Center, and I am grateful for all the good work that our team and partners have done to turn opportunities into successes.
I want to give special acknowledgement to everyone involved in the development and implementation of the Blue Lake Rancheria (BLR) Low-Carbon Community Scale Microgrid. The BLR Microgrid Project was funded by the California Energy Commission, with project leadership by the Schatz Center’s Dr. Peter Lehman (Principal Investigator), Dave Carter (project manager), and Jim Zoellick (co-project manager), in collaboration with the Blue Lake Rancheria’s Tribal Government and many technical partners.
This microgrid project is now a finalist for two award competitions, including the 2017 Platts Global Energy Awards (one of six finalists for the Commercial Application of the Year; the winners will be announced in New York City on December 7) and the Pennwell Projects of the Year Awards (one of three finalists for Best Renewable Project; the winners will be announced in Las Vegas on December 5). In addition, the Blue Lake Rancheria recently received the John D. Solomon Whole Community Preparedness award from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), for which the microgrid was a contributing factor leading to the award. I congratulate the Rancheria, our team, and our partners for all their success so far, and my fingers are crossed for even more good news in December.
I would also like to discuss three key investments that we have been making to lay the foundation for future contributions to clean energy research and development. First, our success at the Schatz Center depends on the efforts and expertise of our faculty and professional staff. We have a talented and experienced team, and, over the past year, we have been fortunate to attract several key new members. On this front, I am pleased to announce that Dr. Nick Lam will be joining us soon as a Schatz Center Research Scientist. Nick specializes in energy access, indoor air quality, and environmental health, and he will play a leading role on our off-grid energy access team. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Health Sciences from U.C. Berkeley, and he is currently working as a post-doctoral research scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We are excited to welcome Nick to the Schatz Center.
In addition, we hired Maia Cheli this past March for a newly created position that includes media relations and coordination of the Schatz Center’s educational programs. Since joining, she has led an effort to revamp our website and expand our portfolio of public relations materials. Early next year, after the new website has gone live, she will turn some of her attention to development and implementation of our Center’s education and outreach activities. We are very happy to have Maia on our team, and we have already benefited greatly from her expertise and hard work.
Among faculty associated with the Center, Dr. Liza Boyle and Dr. Peter Alstone joined us in August 2016, and both are already making substantive contributions. Liza has engaged in proposal development and in research related to the effect of particulate deposition on solar arrays, including work with an engineering undergraduate student, Merissa Coello, that will lead to a journal publication. Peter has been involved in research on innovative new strategies for management of California’s electric grid. Peter is also the team lead for a new $1.5 million project funded by the California Energy Commission (CEC) through their Solar+ program. Dr. Kevin Fingerman, who joined us in 2013, is the lead for a new $1 million CEC-funded project that involves developing tools for assessing the environmental impacts and benefits of biomass power plants in California. We are also very happy to welcome Dr. Sintana Vergara, who joined the Environmental Resources Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor this August and is already working with the Schatz Center team on a proposal for research involving measurement of methane emissions from biomass energy operations. As Director, it is exciting to see the growing contributions of new members as they work together with our existing team.
Second, we continue to expand opportunities for students at the Schatz Center. Since last fall, we have had 13 students working in paid positions and seven students supporting our efforts as volunteer docents. I would like to give a special welcome to students who have joined in the past few months, including undergraduates Bryce Baker, Jo Caminiti, Merissa Coello, Benjamin Kees Goldberg, Matilda Kerwin, Michael Malone, Murielle Manka, Eli Wallach, and Richard Williams, and graduate students Max Blasdel, Thalia Quinn, and Anamika Singh. Thalia and Anamika deserve special mention, as they are this year’s recipients of the Schatz Energy Fellowship and the Blue Lake Rancheria Fellowship for Clean Energy Studies, respectively.
I am pleased to announce that Andrea and Don Tuttle of Arcata are establishing the Donald and Andrea Tuttle Fellowship for Clean Energy Studies. This fellowship will provide $15,000 in funding to one incoming graduate student per year in the Energy Technology and Policy (ETaP) or Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) options of the Environmental Systems Graduate Program. The fellowship is for one year with the potential to renew for a second year. The selected fellow will also receive a position to work at the Schatz Energy Research Center. Our heartfelt thanks go to Don and Andrea for their generous gift. At the Schatz Center, we are committed to expanding opportunities for students in the clean energy field as we work to develop a new generation of leaders, and support from partners like Andrea and Don Tuttle and the Blue Lake Rancheria help us greatly in making progress toward this goal.
Our third investment has been in a new 1,900 square foot “West Wing” addition, built to accommodate our growing staff and capabilities. Construction of the building is nearly complete, and we expect to move in by early December. The new facility will provide us with 14 new work stations, two offices, and a much needed second conference room. We are grateful for the generous support from Louis W. Schatz, Anne and David Katz, Peter and Carolyn Lehman, Christina and Jack West, Jamie Everett, and Joel Lehman, and grant funding from the California Energy Commission, who together made this project possible.
We are thankful to HSU Facilities Management (especially Mike Fisher and Garrett McSorley), Suarez-Kuehne Architecture, Adams Commercial General Contracting, and the many local contractors who made professional contributions to this project. Our new addition is a beautiful building that is well matched to our existing facility in both function and form, and we are excited to move in and get to work in it.
Goodbye until next time.
