Why it’s Hard to Compare Electricity Use Between Electric Cars and Household Appliances
Kristin Hugo/PolitiFact
President Joe Biden has called for 50% of all cars sold in the United States to be electric by 2030. The Inflation Reduction Act aims to help that goal by including a $7,500 tax credit to encourage Americans to buy electric cars. Read More.
People Keep Dying Rigging Microwave Transformers Into DIY Wood-Burning Machines
6/27/2022
Caroline Delber/Popular Mechanics
In an alarming video published last week, food scientist and YouTube personality Ann Reardon discusses a dangerous craft hack called “fractal wood burning,” which creates striking designs in a slab of wood that look a bit like lightning strikes. Read More.
Dominguez-Garcia’s New Textbook Addresses Uncertainty in Complex Engineered Systems
5/20/2022
Laura Schmitt
ECE Professor Alejandro Dominguez-Garcia has authored a new textbook for researchers interested in understanding the impact that uncertainty has on large-scale engineered systems like the electric power grid. Read More.
ORE Catapult and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Join Forces on Floating Wind Challenges
2/22/2022
The Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult is set to bring UK expertise to the development of the US floating offshore wind sector through a collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Read More.
Enough Power for EVs?
2/4/2022
Tom Kacich/The News-Gazette
“With the rush to move to all electric vehicles, have the electric power generation companies been consulted? With all of the coal fired power plants being phased out, and no new nuclear plants coming online, will wind and solar be able to pick up the load? Worst case is we are building another bottle-neck that could raise utility rates for all of us, and make electric vehicles much more expensive.”
“It is a little hard to call it a ‘rush,'” said Phil Krein, a professor emeritus at the Grainger Center for Electric Machinery and Electromechanics at the University of Illinois. Read More.
Haran named as new POETS director
2/1/2022
MechSE
Professor Kiruba Haran has been named the new director of the Center for Power Optimization of Electro-Thermal Systems (POETS) in The Grainger College of Engineering. Read More.
Zhang Earns NSF CAREER Award to Develop Novel Power System Optimization Techniques
1/19/2022
Laura Schmitt
With more than 7,700 power plants, 3,300 utilities, and 2.7 million miles of transmission lines, the U.S. power grid is an extraordinarily complex system that constantly balances the supply and demand of electricity nationwide. Read More.
Students Experiment with ECEB Solar Panels to Understand Challenges of Solar Energy
1/7/2022
Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE students extracted power for the first time from the ECEB Solar Panels as a part of their Power Electronics Laboratory (ECE 469) experience. One of the unique features of the ECE Building is the easy accessibility to its roof-top solar panels that can be used for research and teaching. This year ECE 469 was revamped to include experiments with these solar panels. Read More.
Sauer Wins 2022 IEEE Tesla Award
8/1/2021
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE Research Professor Peter Sauer, Grainger Chair Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, was recently awarded the 2022 IEEE Tesla Award “for contributions to dynamic modeling and simulation of synchronous generators and for leadership in power engineering education.” Read More.
Banerjee Receives 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award
6/29/21
Illinois ECE Assistant Professor Arijit Banerjee was selected to receive a 3M Non-Tenured Faculty Award. This is an unrestricted gift of $15,000/year and may be renewed up to two additional years (for a total of $45,000) or until tenure is achieved. Read More.
ECE Faculty Receive 2021 Jump ARCHES Grants
4/19/21
Seven research projects are sharing slightly more than $400,000 in funding through the Jump ARCHES research and development program to address challenges and expand on lessons learned about COVID-19 vaccinations and testing. The Jump ARCHES program is a partnership between OSF HealthCare and the Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I) and its College of Medicine in Peoria. Illinois ECE Assistant Professors Subhonmesh Bose and Suma Pallathadka Bhat are two of the recipients of the Jump ARCHES grant. Read More.
Arijit Banerjee on Engaging Students During the Pandemic
4/12/21
Matthew Novelli
Assistant Professor Arijit Banerjee agreed to sit down and demonstrate the remote-teaching setup that he’s been using during the pandemic. Read More.
Sauer Receives IEEE Power & Energy Society Lifetime Achievement Award
8/1/2021
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Peter Sauer, Grainger Chair Emeritus Professor of Electrical Engineering, was recently awarded the 2020 IEEE Power & Energy Society Lifetime Achievement Award for his exceptional career-long contributions to power systems modeling and dynamic analysis, and for leadership in power engineering education. Read More.
Banerjee and Song Elected NAI Senior Members
8/13/2020
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE Assistant Professors Arijit Banerjee and Pengfei Song were both elected to the rank of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Senior Members for the August 2020 class. Read More.
Illinois ECE Faculty Among Team Awarded $5.4M to Accelerate Artificial Intelligence Research to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic
7/1/2020
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the University of Illinois, along with fellow consortium members of the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI) recently awarded $5.4 million to accelerate artificial intelligence research to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Illinois ECE Professor Tamer Başar, Assistant Professor Subhonmesh Bose, and Research Professor Narendra Ahuja, Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus in Electrical and Computer Engineering, were among the recipients of these awards. Read More.
Banerjee Receives NSF CAREER Award for Work Emulating a Biological Spine in Robots
1/25/2020
Joseph Park, Illinois ECE
Illinois ECE Assistant Professor Arijit Banerjee recently won the NSF CAREER award for his work with bio-inspired design methods for distributed electromechanical actuators to emulate a biological spine. This prestigious award supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Read More.