In October 2023, Mary Peterson, electrical engineering senior at Wichita State University, won first place in the best paper competition at the 2023 North American Power Symposium in Asheville, NC. The paper focused on the “Economic and Reliability Impacts of Combined Solar and Battery Energy Storage as a Non-Wire Alternative.”
“This is a collaborative work between WSU and industry partner Sunflower Electric Power Corporation,” said Visvakumar Aravinthan, associate professor and department chair of electrical and computer engineering at WSU.
Dr. Aravinthan mentored Ms. Peterson on the research along with WSU Graduate Research Associate Adithya Melagoda, who is funded by the Kansas NSF EPSCoR ARISE project. Other co-authors included a student from Wichita East High School and two industry professionals.
“My paper addresses the use of solar-with-battery systems as a non-wire alternative in rural areas, focusing on the financial and service reliability impacts of four different battery operation strategies,” said Ms. Peterson on LinkedIn.
- Peterson, Mary; O’Reilly, Olivia; Manoharan, Arun-Kaarthick; Rajendran, Sarangan; Melagoda, Adithya; Aravinthan, Visvakumar; Liu, Esther; Tamimi, Al; and Yokley, Charles, “Economic and Reliability Impacts of Combined Solar and Battery Energy Storage as a Non-Wire Alternative,” 2023 North American Power Symposium (NAPS), Asheville, NC, USA, 2023, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/NAPS58826.2023.10318643.