Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal

School of Building Construction

Ph.D. Student: Shahaboddin (Sean) Hashemi Toroghi

Date:  Thursday, Jan 11, 2018 

Time: 2:30 P.M.

Location: 212 Caddell Building

Committee Members:

            Dr. Baabak Ashuri, Advisor

            Associate Professor, School of Building Construction, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Matthew Oliver, Minor Advisor

Assistant Professor, School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Daniel Castro-Lacouture

Professor and Chair, School of Building Construction, Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Valerie Thomas

Professor, School of Industrial Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Title: 

Resilience through Sustainable Solutions: Enhance Energy Infrastructure and Community with Renewable Energy-Generation Systems

  

Abstract:

Recent natural disasters and risk of physical- and cyber- attacks are examples of events with low probability but catastrophic consequences.  These incidents impose threats by disrupting the flow of energy in the United States. Although, centralized energy generation and the distribution network are the basis of the current electric infrastructure, the need for stable energy service leads to the development of a decentralized solution (e.g., distributed generation systems) that improves the resilience of the electric infrastructure system. The concept of a resilient system refers to four system capacities: resourcefulness, the ability to identify problems and mobilize prioritized resources; redundancy, the ability to provide alternative options or substitutions; robustness, the ability to resist turbulence without the deterioration of functionality; and rapidity, the ability of the rapid recovery and timely restoration of performance. With the drop of cost per KWh of PV systems during past years, the adoption rate has increased, and few empirical studies have shown that this leads to a rebound effect, which generally indicates a difference between expected savings from improving the efficiency of a system and lower savings resulting from consuming the gained utility. Although several studies have already examined the potential of rooftop PV systems to achieve the goal of an energy-independent transportation system or net zero-energy buildings, a small number of studies have examined the effect of socio-economic and urban form factors on achieving such a goal. Furthermore, despite the existing empirical evidence of renewable rebound effects, no study has proposed a method of estimating the future renewable rebound effect. In the end, although the resilience capacity factors are well defined, the existing metrics of the resilience capacity of a system fall short at examining the resilience capacity of an electric infrastructure system with ancillary service providers such as renewable distributed generation systems (e.g., PV systems) or emerging new distribution technologies (e.g., the smart-grid system). 

The overarching research objective of this thesis research is to examine the potential of rooftop photovoltaic (PV) systems as a sustainable solution to improving the resilience capacity of the electric infrastructure system.  This thesis has three specific objectives:

1. To create a model for conducting a tradeoff analysis between renewable energy generation (rooftop PV systems) and energy consumption in residential and transportation sectors (urban and suburban areas) to achieve the goal of energy-independent neighborhoods and identify the possible socioeconomic and urban form factors affecting this goal.
2. To develop a framework for estimating the renewable rebound effect based on a range of scenarios for the adoption rate of rooftop PV systems at the city level and estimate its impact on intermittent energy demand.
3. To develop quantitative metrics for assessing the resilience capacity of an electric infrastructure system with ancillary distributed generation systems (e.g., PV systems) and merging distribution technologies (e.g., the smart grid) under a range of incident types with prioritization of demand types.

All three studies in this thesis aim to augment our evaluation of existing resources and expand existing methods for improving the resilience capacity of the community and the energy infrastructure system via emerging sustainable means and technologies. The contributions to the body of knowledge are three prongs: 1) to enhance our understanding of the possible impacts of socio-economic and urban form factors on the path toward the goal of energy-independent cities with the emergence of rooftop PV systems and EVs; 2) to help policy makers and system designers in the field of energy and infrastructure systems to more accurately estimate the future demand of electricity when planning for a sustainable community enhanced by PV systems; and 3). to provide a framework within which urban planners and policy and decision makers in the private and public sectors can evaluate and improve the resilience capacity of an electric infrastructure system via sustainable solutions.