Dr. Daniel Gerber, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, Gives CURENT Power and Energy Seminar on Friday, October 30

Dr. Daniel Gerber, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, will give the CURENT Power and Energy Seminar (ECE 496 and 691) on Friday, October 30, from from 12:20 pm to 1:10 pm. Dr. Gerber will give a 30 minute presentation and then have a 20 minutes Q&A. The seminar will be available via ZOOM. The ZOOM link will be sent to CURENT students and faculty through email. Contact Wendy if you need a link.

Presenter: Dr. Daniel Gerber, Research Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Labs

Title: "DC Power Distribution in Buildings" 

Abstract: This presentation explores the use of DC power distribution in buildings.  DC microgrids have gained recent academic appeal for zero-net-energy (ZNE) and grid-interactive efficient buildings.  Though DC has many advantages, researchers and developers have previously cited concerns about efficiency, cost, and a lack of products.  This presentation details the efforts at LBNL to study the energy and cost savings in a DC building.  The research involves precise electrical models of buildings and converters, and ultimately shows that DC has the potential for 12% savings in commercial ZNE buildings with storage.

Bio: Daniel Gerber is a Research Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs.  He received his BS and PhD in electrical engineering from MIT (2010) and UC Berkeley (2017), respectively.  Daniel’s PhD dissertation topic was on developing a fully on-chip LED driver with novel techniques such as multilevel converters, sigma-delta control, and active ripple cancellation.  His postdoctoral work at LBNL focused on DC power distribution, and he was the technical lead on much of LBNL’s studies in the efficiency and economics of DC power.  Daniel also developed several DC power analysis tools and built up the LBNL DC testing lab.  His other interests span power electronics, power systems, microgrids, controls, and networked buildings. 

Upcoming seminars are: 

CURENT Industry Conference - November 6 - No Seminar

Dr. Hong Tao - November 13 - TBD