Generation and storage technology operations, design, & simulation
Matthew Mullin and team Helios won the $25k EnergyTech UP bonus prize for their heliostat concept tech-to-market plan. The competition is sponsored and managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions. The competition includes: 184 student teams representing 124 schools competing in EnergyTech UP 2023. The teams—made up of multidisciplinary groups of …
The Department of Mechanical Engineering at UW-Madison has recognized Tyler Lee with the F.M. Young award. This award is given every year to a graduating senior member of the Mechanical Engineering honor society Pi-Tau-Sigma to recognize academic achievement and commitment to the engineering profession. This year’s award was given to Tyler Lee, an undergraduate researcher …
Congratulations to Grace Stanke, winner of the 2023 Miss America competition! Grace worked with Dr. Wagner at ESOL and Dr. Ben Lindley, Director of the Reactor Technology Integration Group, to develop a multi-effect distillation model. Her work enables simulation of an integrated energy system that includes a desalination process in conjunction with nuclear and solar …
The Solana Solar Generating Station is the largest solar plant using parabolic trough technology in the world and is located near Gila Bend, AZ, just outside the Phoenix metro area. Dr. Wagner, Matt Tuman (graduate researcher – MS), Tyler Lee (Faustin-Prinz researcher), and Mark Malkin (Program Director for InterPro at UW-Madison) traveled to the plant …
Members of the ESOL were among the approximately 400 attendees at the SolarPACES 2022 conference in Albuquerque, NM. Dr. Wagner’s group submitted and presented four technical papers covering research advances in solar power plant simulation and development of a power-hardware-in-the-loop testbed. Conference activities included a tour of the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) at …
Dr. Wagner was recently a guest on the Illuminating Science podcast, where he and host John Binkley talked in depth about concentrating solar power and the work ongoing at the ESOLab. The full episode is also available on the ESOLab Resources page. Episode description: Dr. Mike Wagner is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at …
We’re excited to welcome two graduate researchers to the ESOLab team starting Spring 2021! Brian White (left) graduated with his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UW-Madison in Fall 2020. His research involves design and performance modeling of a new integrated energy system concept that pairs a nuclear lead-fast reactor (LFR) with dispatchable renewables in a …
The ESOLab has been named as one of several grant awardees under the Solar Energy Technologies Office of the Department of Energy – Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program. As principal investigator, Dr. Wagner will lead a team including researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab and at industry partner BrightSource Energy. The project …