To deliver scalable approaches to a range of different types of communities, the proposed Center for Advancing Community Electrification Solutions (ACES) will focus on electrification across three energy-intensive sectors common to all communities: transportation, water, and buildings. These sectors crosscut industrial, commercial, residential, and mixed-use settings. ACES will provide research, development and test-bed solutions at the community scale to support electrification of transportation, water, and building systems through adaptations in the supporting local power grid. As electrification is intrinsically connected to stakeholders within a community, these approaches must accommodate economic, environmental, and health constraints and objectives. Because of this, the ACES team plans to deliver cross-sectoral technology and policy electrification solutions that integrate diverse economic, environmental, and health goals to collectively drive outcomes for community stakeholders.
ACES aims to be an authority on regional electrification and stakeholder-engaged energy research. The center will strengthen Lehigh’s connections regionally and nationally through successful research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) projects with a portfolio of stakeholders. The goal is to enable efficiency and resilience via the design and operations of electricity-sheds, which are power grids or microgrids that locally generate power needs to supply electricity for a community. ACES will be known for the novel electrification tools and toolkits it provides to a range of communities and industries, as well as for its cutting-edge facilities and demonstration work and its innovative, interdisciplinary training of future energy leaders.