Concurrent undergraduate/graduate student Meg Harper and grad student Kirstin Hervin will represent the HSU staff and faculty who won the EPA’s $75,000 People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) Award in 2010 for their ongoing GridShare project in Bhutan, a landlocked developing country in the Himalayas. The project uses innovative smart grid technology developed at HSU to increase the reliability of a renewable energy mini-grid that delivers electricity to the town of Rukubji, Bhutan.
Information about the project is available at www.schatzlab.org/projects/research/gridshare.html. Harper and Hervin will exhibit the project on the Mall. One of 14 winners in 2010 nationwide, HSU’s team was drawn from the Renewable Energy Student Union and the Schatz Energy Research Center. Harper is pursuing a second undergraduate degree in Environmental Resources Engineering (ERE) and a master’s degree in Energy Technology and Policy. Hervin is an Energy Technology and Policy grad student. Details are posted at http://www.epa.gov/ncer/p3/nsde/index.html.