NEWS Prof. Deborah Sunter profiled by the US Department of EnergyMay 12, 2019

Deb­o­rah Sunter, Ph.D., spent two years as a post­doc­tor­al fel­low with the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy Office of Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy and Renew­able Ener­gy in the Post­doc­tor­al Research Award Pro­gram. Sunter’s research explored and expand­ed a mod­el­ing plat­form designed to help eval­u­ate and meet the Unit­ed States’ grow­ing ener­gy demands. Her research and con­tri­bu­tions have been rec­og­nized in the glob­al sci­en­tif­ic community. 

For the orig­i­nal, click here.

Sustaining our Future through Energy Security

Six­ty-six per­cent of the world’s pop­u­la­tion will be liv­ing in urban areas by 2050, accord­ing to the Unit­ed Nations 2014 World Urban­iza­tion Prospects report. In the Unit­ed States, more than 80% of the pop­u­la­tion already lives in urban areas. The con­sen­sus affirms that increased urban­iza­tion is the future. As glob­al urban­iza­tion and pop­u­la­tion growth expand, so does ener­gy consumption.

Ener­gy secu­ri­ty requires an under­stand­ing of future ener­gy demands and the envi­ron­ments from which the demands orig­i­nate. Glob­al pop­u­la­tion growth and rapid urban­iza­tion are being tracked, but cli­mate change throws in the wild card of uncer­tain­ty. Urban ener­gy sys­tems are vul­ner­a­ble to cli­mate change and extreme weath­er, includ­ing storms, flood­ing and sea-lev­el rise. Urban areas must be resilient to han­dle these chang­ing con­di­tions if they are to remain sus­tain­able and con­tin­ue to grow.

Mechan­i­cal engi­neer Deb­o­rah Sunter, Ph.D., is one of many sci­en­tists who have researched the very com­plex issue of ener­gy security.

“Every day is an adven­ture with new chal­lenges, new col­lab­o­ra­tions and new ideas,” said Sunter.

Sunter received a post­doc­tor­al appoint­ment in the Renew­able and Appro­pri­ate Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry (RAEL) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. Her appoint­ment to the Post­doc­tor­al Research Award Pro­gram was fund­ed by the Solar Ener­gy Tech­nolo­gies Office of the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy (DOE), Office of Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy & Renew­able Ener­gy Research Par­tic­i­pa­tion Program.

The pres­ti­gious post­doc­tor­al research award sup­ports sci­en­tif­ic research in ener­gy effi­cien­cy and renew­able ener­gy by attract­ing sci­en­tists and engi­neers to pur­sue break­through tech­nolo­gies in ener­gy research.

Sunter spent her two-year appoint­ment at RAEL explor­ing the SWITCH (Solar and Wind Ener­gy Inte­grat­ed with Trans­mis­sion and Con­ven­tion­al Sources) mod­el­ing plat­form. SWITCH is used to exam­ine cost-effec­tive invest­ment deci­sions for meet­ing elec­tric­i­ty demand, with an empha­sis on inte­grat­ing renew­able ener­gy into the elec­tri­cal grid. Cre­at­ed as an invest­ment plan­ning tool, the mod­el explores the cost and fea­si­bil­i­ty of future ener­gy ini­tia­tives while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly ensur­ing that cur­rent ener­gy demands are met and pol­i­cy goals are reached at the low­est cost pos­si­ble. SWITCH meets this objec­tive by mak­ing a series of opti­mized deci­sions. For exam­ple, all pow­er plants have an expect­ed life­time. When a pow­er plant reach­es the end of its life expectan­cy, SWITCH exam­ines whether it is more cost-effec­tive to upgrade the exist­ing pow­er plant or to retire the pow­er plant and build a new one. SWITCH can deter­mine which type of pow­er plants should be built and where these plants should be locat­ed with the goal to pro­duce low-cost ener­gy sys­tems that meet reli­a­bil­i­ty, per­for­mance and envi­ron­men­tal qual­i­ty standards.

SWITCH was orig­i­nal­ly designed and pro­duced by Daniel Kam­men, Ph.D., and his team at the Ener­gy and Resources Group of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley. Kam­men served as Sunter’s men­tor through­out the pro­gram. Since pro­duc­ing the ini­tial papers in 2012, Kam­men and a series of grad­u­ate stu­dents and post­doc­tor­al fel­lows have expand­ed the toolk­it sig­nif­i­cant­ly, and SWITCH con­tin­ues to under­go improve­ments at RAEL. RAEL is an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary lab­o­ra­to­ry found­ed by Kam­men in 1999; it seeks to advance renew­able and appro­pri­ate ener­gy through tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion and pol­i­cy implementation.

Sunter’s appoint­ment and access to SWITCH allowed her to research the role of tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion and pol­i­cy in reduc­ing emis­sions, improv­ing effi­cien­cy and sup­ply­ing more renew­able ener­gy to the U.S. elec­tri­cal grid. Dur­ing her time, Sunter expand­ed the SWITCH mod­el, orig­i­nal­ly designed for the West­ern Elec­tric­i­ty Coor­di­nat­ing Coun­cil, to encom­pass the entire con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States. Sunter helped to con­vert SWITCH from an old­er pro­gram­ming lan­guage to Python to increase acces­si­bil­i­ty to the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. She also part­nered with pri­vate com­pa­nies to add new emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies to the program’s reper­toire, such as Google Project Sun­roof and Cal­Wave Pow­er Technologies.

Sunter’s accom­plish­ments dur­ing her post­doc­tor­al expe­ri­ence are numer­ous. Sunter pub­lished many works with her col­leagues dur­ing her appoint­ment, most notably a high-impact arti­cle with Kam­men in the jour­nal Sci­ence. The arti­cle on urban ener­gy sys­tems has received much atten­tion in the sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Sunter also cred­its her post­doc­tor­al expe­ri­ence for expand­ing her research horizons.

“Beyond the core research project, I have been able to learn a new sub­ject area, data sci­ence, and engage with the greater sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­ni­ty in ways that I had not done before,” said Sunter.

Sunter used her new­ly learned skills to win a data sci­ence hackathon in solar ener­gy as well as orga­nize a suc­cess­ful forum on data sci­ence for sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Sunter has been invit­ed to speak on her research at more than a dozen sci­en­tif­ic engage­ments, and she was select­ed to be on a team of inter­na­tion­al authors for a book on inclu­sive green growth met­rics. Through­out her appoint­ment, she shared her exper­tise with under­grad­u­ates at the lab.

“I have been able to do more dur­ing this research expe­ri­ence than I pos­si­bly could have imag­ined. It opened doors I didn’t real­ize I had access to,” Sunter said. “This has been one of the most pro­fes­sion­al­ly reward­ing expe­ri­ences of my life. I am incred­i­bly grate­ful for this opportunity.”

Imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the pro­gram, Sunter became a research fel­low at the Berke­ley Insti­tute for Data Sci­ence. Most recent­ly, she has accept­ed a posi­tion as a pro­fes­sor at Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty in the Depart­ment of Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing for the fall of 2018.

The Post­doc­tor­al Research Award Pro­gram is fund­ed by the Solar Ener­gy Tech­nolo­gies Office of the U.S. Depart­ment of Ener­gy (DOE), Office of Ener­gy Effi­cien­cy & Renew­able Ener­gy Research Par­tic­i­pa­tion Pro­gram. The pro­gram is admin­is­tered through DOE’s Oak Ridge Insti­tute for Sci­ence and Edu­ca­tion (ORISE). ORISE is man­aged for DOE by ORAU.