Mahmoud Kabalan, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of St. Thomas, spoke with WCCO-TV about St. Thomas’ Center for Microgrid Research and the applied work students are doing with renewable energy systems. Kabalan explained how students are testing real-time coordination of solar, wind and natural gas sources to improve grid resiliency, particularly as power demand rises with the growth of AI-driven data centers.
From the story:
College students are now working directly with the microgrid technologies that help power them at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota – one of the only research facilities of its kind in the nation.
“When you group them together you start to leverage the benefit of each of those, and then combining them to have a better coordination between all of them,” said Professor Mahmoud Kabalan.
Back on campus, these students are testing these systems in real time.
“There is an actual microgrid that is commissioning. So, it’s easy to test it, it’s easy to analyze each behavior of each device,” said lead graduate assistant researcher Mohanad Elsayed.
The work connects theory to practice.
