Renewable Energy

A variety of methods are used to convert sources of clean renewable energy into electricity. The Energy Research Center (ERC) is leading an effort to investigate the feasibility of, and test methods of, using supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) produced by fossil fuel power plants to enhance the extraction of geothermal energy for power generation applications.

In addition, the ERC is participating with Professors Sudhakar Neti and Alparslan Oztekin, faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics (MEM), in researching solar energy and industrial applications for Thermal Energy Storage (TES).

The ERC is also collaborating with the Turbulent Flow Design Group in the MEM department on marine and hydrokinetic energy (HKE) research and development. This group is under the direction of Professor Arindam Banarjee and also includes Professors Alparisan Oztekin (MEM) and Panayiotis Diplas (Civil and Environmental Engineering). Research focuses on energy conversion of tides and river and ocean currents into electricity.