- Johns Hopkins - Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute

The Electric Power Innovation for a Carbon-free Society (EPICS) Center is an NSF Global Center for use-inspired research addressing global challenges in climate change and clean energy that is led by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and based out of the Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI). EPICS in the UK and Australia are funded by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) and are led by Imperial College London and University of Melbourne. Georgia Tech, University of California-Davis, University of Strathclyde, University of Edinburgh, Monash University, and Resources for the Future are also collaborators.

The transition from traditional electric power grids, powered mainly by large fossil-fuel generators, to clean-power power grids with wind, solar, and batteries, necessitates overhauling power system economics, operation and control, with crucial emphasis on inverters demanding the development of new services, tools, and methods for effective system functioning and studies.

EPICS will develop computing, economic, engineering, and policy methods and tools to enable a 100% emissions-free power grid. The center’s research interests are divided into four thrusts, which will:

Harness the latest advances in computer technology to enable decision-making tools to handle the unpredictable nature of renewable energy resources like wind and solar.
Find ways to accommodate wind, solar and storage resources into the grid, which requires learning how to operate large numbers of inverters that connect these resources and the grid.
Develop economic analysis principles tailored for making decisions about how to design and then reliably operate 100% renewable power grids.
Use insights from the above efforts to develop strategies for achieving net-zero power grids globally, and use them to reduce and eventually eliminate carbon emissions from other economic sectors, including transportation and buildings.

Through collaboration with global partners, this agenda will produce material changes to today’s power system management and institutions (e.g., electricity markets, policy, and regulation) that allow for harvesting the full potential of inverter-based variable renewable energy resources (VRE), energy storage and distributed energy resources (DER) technologies without sacrificing efficiency, affordability, reliability, resiliency, and the pace of achieving climate pledges.

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Thrust 2

Thrust 3

Thrust 4

EPICS Leaders

Benjamin F. Hobbs

Theodore M. and Kay W. Schad Professor of Environmental Management, Johns Hopkins University; EPICS Global Director

Mark O’Malley

Leverhulme Professor of Power Systems, Imperial College London; EPICS Global Director

Pierluigi Mancarella

Chair Professor of Electrical Power Systems, University of Melbourne; EPICS AU Director

Yury Dvorkin

Associate Professor, Departments of Civil and Systems Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering; EPICS US Director

Balarko Chaudhuri

Reader in Power Systems, Imperial College London; EPICS UK Director

EPICS Team

The EPICS team is comprised of 26 researchers from eight universities, one government agency and one nonprofit across the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Each researcher is an expert in at least one area of engineering, economics, policy and government or socio-technology implications, and many are knowledgeable in multiple topics.

EPICS News

EPICS Summer School on IBR-Dominated Power Systems – Imperial College London

The decarbonization agenda pushes the power system to rapidly transform from fossil fuel-based synchronized generation to renewable-powered Inverter-Based Resources (IBRs) that…

EPICS Job Opening: UK Project Manager, Imperial College London

Click here for more information and to apply to the position. The Electric Power Innovation for a Carbon-free Society (EPICS) Center…

New JHU Center Aims for 100% Renewable Energy Power Grids

The Ralph O’Connor Sustainable Energy Institute (ROSEI), in collaboration with partners from around the globe, has established a new center focused on helping…

Global Partners

Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium	G-PST’s visionary goal is to dramatically accelerate the transition to low emission and low cost, secure, and reliable power systems, contributing to >50% emission reductions over the next 10 years, with $2 billion of government and donor support for technical, market, and workforce solutions that unlock $10 trillion+ of private sector investment. Its mission is to bring together key actors to foment a rapid clean energy transition at unprecedented scope and scale by providing coordinated and holistic “end-to-end” support and knowledge infusion to power system operators across the 5 Action Pillars.
Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG)	ESIG is a nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to chart the future of grid transformation and energy systems integration. ESIG does this by serving as a trusted and objective convener of the engineering and technical community, providing information, education and peer-to-peer networking to support total energy systems integration and operations. ESIG accomplishes this through the collaborative efforts of our members—grid and market operators, utilities, power producers and energy operators, system and component manufacturers, government laboratories, universities, consulting firms, forecasters, developers and other energy organizations.
Future Power Market Forums (FPMF)	FPMF began in May 2020 as a joint project of the Columbia University SIPA Center for Global Energy Policy and Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering. The Future Power Markets Forum website hosts materials on proposals for electricity market structure and design and a research library of relevant papers. Forum contributors, representing a balanced group of the sector’s practitioners, researchers and regulators, offer commentary on the issues and proposals. The focus of the project is on market designs that maintain system efficiency and reliability with a high penetration of variable generation.

Partner Affiliates

National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL)	NREL has decades of focused leadership in clean energy research, development, and deployment. No other institution has the long-standing expertise and breadth of knowledge that will form the foundation of the clean energy transition. From their work in basic sciences to systems engineering and analysis, their researchers are focused on solving market-relevant problems that result in deployable solutions. Their partnerships ensure the work is relevant and applicable to the energy problems that people are trying to solve. They are trusted clean energy leaders, and their work will guide the nation in achieving ambitious goals in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and a decarbonized clean energy future.
Electric Power Research Institute	EPRI is an independent non-profit energy research, development, and deployment organization, with three specialized labs. EPRI also maintains an employee presence in more than a dozen countries in Europe/Middle East/Africa, as well as Asia, and the Americas through its subsidiary EPRI International Inc. and its Ireland-based research arm, EPRI Europe DAC. EPRI’s trusted experts collaborate with more than 450 companies in 45 countries, driving innovation to ensure the public has clean, safe, reliable, affordable, and equitable access to electricity across the globe.
Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI)	ESRI is the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, location intelligence, and mapping. Since 1969, they have supported customers with geographic science and geospatial analytics, what they call The Science of Where. They take a geographic approach to problem-solving, brought to life by modern GIS technology. They are committed to using science and technology to build a sustainable world.
Denmark Technical University (DTU) – Wind and Energy Systems Department and Power and Energy Systems Division	The DTU group that is collaborating with EPICS is led by Nicolaos A. Cutululis. The group’s research has been in the broader area of integration of wind power, focusing on secure operation of electric systems with 100% renewable sources. In the past few years, Cutululis has been focusing more on integration of offshore wind power, HVDC transmission, offshore grids and electrical infrastructure design and optimization.
University of Victoria – Sustainable Energy Systems Integration & Transitions Group	The SESIT Group develops and applies models to understand the sustainable energy system transition. Research questions include: How should the rise of the grid edge be leveraged? What are the most promising climate mitigation solutions considering a broad spatial-temporal scale? How can energy systems integration – coordinating energy systems operation and planning across multiple pathways and scales – unlock flexibility?
University of California, Berkeley – Energy and Resources Group (ERG) and Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL)	EPICS will be working with two groups from University of California, Berkeley: Energy and Resources Group (ERG) and Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL). The mission of ERG is a sustainable environment and a just society. It is a collaborative community of graduate students, core faculty, nearly 200 affiliated faculty and researchers across the campus, and over 600 alumni across the globe. RAEL is an intellectual and practical innovation hub where the drivers of sustainable energy systems encounter the mix of scientific and technical, policy, and market opportunities and barriers that communities and the world face are the subject of academic linking to the wider world. Its projects range from involvement from small communities struggling to meet energy access needs, to large-scale regional grids where technologies, policies, and usage patterns are all in play to build energy systems we need for participants and or the planet.