Dr. Sukumar Kamalasadan Awarded NC Innovation Grant for Cutting-Edge Energy Solutions

Dr. Sukumar Kamalasadan, Professor and Distinguished Scholar of Electrical Engineering has been recently awarded the NC Innovation Pilot Grant for the project “Grid Ancillary Services with Uninterruptible Power Supply (GAUPS)”. This grant is funded by a state budget approved last year, which allocated $500 million to NCInnovation, an organization focused on commercializing research from North Carolina’s universities.

GAUPS developed by Dr. Kamalasadan, and his team provides uninterrupted, pristine power quality to commercial or industrial companies where prolonged power outages could cause economic, health, environmental, or public safety problems. The technology delivers reserve capacity and essential ancillary services to utilities to address unexpected faults and improve reliability. The grant will help advance the technology toward a field demonstration, a critical requirement for commercialization.

Dr. Kamalasadan, a 2008 National Science Foundation Early CAREER Award recipient, also serves as the director of the Power Energy and Intelligent Systems Lab within the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center. His research work has secured more than $13 million with his direct supervision from the U.S. Department of Energy, NSF, Siemens Research, Duke Energy Corp., Schweitzer Engineering Lab, and several other industries. In addition, he is the founding director of EPIC’s Duke Energy Smart Grid Laboratory.

Dr. Kamalasadan’s work is particularly noteworthy for its potential impact on sustainable energy solutions. By leveraging cutting-edge technologies and interdisciplinary approaches, he seeks to address critical challenges in the energy sector, including the integration of intermittent renewable sources and improving grid resilience. The NC Innovation Pilot Grant will support his research efforts, providing crucial funding to advance his groundbreaking work and contribute to the broader goal of creating more sustainable and efficient energy systems.

Dr. Kamalasadan was featured on Spectrum News to explain how the grant funding is being utilized in his research.

Watch his interview on Spectrum News here: Descendant of Robert E. Lee gives invocation at White House (spectrumlocalnews.com)

For further reading, please visit “NCInnovation Approves $5 Million to Support Eight University Research Projects”