Renewable Energy 2010 / AIST Session
Role of International Collaboration in Energy R&D

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Abstracts

Lectures will be in English, followed by a question period in Japanese or English.
Introductory lectures, Opening address & Closing remark will be in Japanese.
Simultaneous interpretation between English and Japanese will not be available.

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Introduction to Lecture 1

International research collaboration on hydrogen technology

Lecture 1

Understanding the local structure of hydrogen storage materials

Hydrogen storage is one of the key elements for moving towards a hydrogen economy. Understanding the atomic structure of hydrogen storage materials and their relationship to the macroscopic storage properties is a critical step towards a systematic search for materials of the future. Conventional crystallographic analysis of materials is limited to crystalline systems and reveals only the average structure. The total scattering approach on the other hand can be applied to amorphous, nano-crystalline and disordered materials. Total scattering data contain structural information on the local and medium and long range scale. Neutron total scattering is particularly useful for studying hydrogen storage materials, because of the sensitivity of neutrons to light elements such as hydrogen.

Total neutron scattering studies of a number of relevant metal hydrides (e.g. MgCo) are the topic of an ongoing collaboration between the National Institute for Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). In this presentation an overview of experimental facilities and the total scattering technique will be presented in addition to our recent results of a comprehensive total scattering study of ball milled MgCo alloys. Neutron data were collected on the Neutron Powder Diffractometer NPDF at the Lujan Center and high energy x-ray total scattering data were obtained at beamline ID11-B at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.

Dr. Thomas Proffen received his PhD from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich in 1995 with Prof. F. Frey. He went on to work with Prof. T.R. Welberry at the Australian National University as a postdoctoral fellow. He continued his career as a postdoc with Prof. S.J.L Billinge at Michigan State. Since 2001 Dr. Proffen is a staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the instrument scientists for the Neutron Powder Diffractometer NPDF at the Lujan Neutron Scattering Center. His research interests are centered on using total scattering to understand the true atomic structure of complex materials.

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Introduction to Lecture 2

International research collaboration on energy network technology

Lecture 2

Microgrids: Deployment as Elements of the Smart Grid (SG)

There are three parts to this presentation: 1. thoughts on the nature of our evolving electricity infrastructure, 2. results from Berkeley Lab's work on microgrid optimization, and 3. reports on the status of U.S. Department of Energy's SG R&D.

1. Evolving electricity infrastructure – Our current power system may be entering a period of significant fundamental change of a kind not seen for a century. Some of the uncertainty revolves around the requirements of modern economies for high power quality and reliability (PQR) electricity service and the most cost effective way of providing it. One viable possibility is through local control of PQR in microgrids. A more dispersed structure for the industry could lead to changes to the high voltage grid as well as locally.
2. Microgrid optimization – Berkeley Lab has been working on microgrid optimization for several years and this work has led to the development of the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM). Using capabilities developed jointly with AIST, recent applications of DER-CAM have focused on the relationship between electric vehicles and building-scale microgrids and on a specific microgrid demonstration at a county jail near to Berkeley. Results from these and other recent projects show the value of mobile and stationary storage to microgrids.
3. U.S. DOE SG R&D – The Department has been charged with leading efforts for grid modernization, under its Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE), which has historically been a primary funder of microgrids R&D. Funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which totals about $4B, has provided an unprecedented opportunity for accelerated smart grid deployment. The status of work authorized by ARRA is reported and the goals of projects underway discussed.

Dr. Chris Marnay leads the Technology Evaluation, Modeling and Assessment (TEMA) group within the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, where he has worked for 25 years. He models economic-environmental problems related to likely future adoption patterns of small-scale distributed energy resources (DER), especially when clustered in microgrids exercising local semiautonomous control. He is a member of the Consortium of Electric Reliability Solutions team, and has published a large body of research on microgrid principles, economics, and applications. Work on DER has led to development of the DER Customer Adoption Model that finds optimum technology neutral combinations of equipment and operating schedules, given prevailing economic circumstances and available equipment descriptions, including energy storage and electric vehicles. Other responsibilities involve maintaining, running, and enhancing the latest version of the Energy Information Administration's National Energy Modeling System for various policy analyses, and he leads development of the commercial and residential building modules for the U.S. Dept. of Energy's Stochastic Energy Deployment System. He has an A.B. in Development Studies, an M.S. in Agricultural and Resource Economics, and a Ph.D. in Energy and Resources, all from the University of California, Berkeley. He has also studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Hawaii, has worked at the University of Texas at Austin. He has lectured widely, and chairs the annual Micrgrids Symposiums. In spring 2006, he was a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellow at the University of Kitakyushu, and in 2008 he hosted an AIST researcher, Hirohisa Aki.

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Introduction to Lecture 3

International collaboration on power device study

Lecture 3

Numerical Simulation of SiC Growth processes: a characterization tool for the design of epitaxial structures in electronics

Modeling and simulation of the SiC growth processes, Physical Vapor Transport (PVT) and Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD), are sufficiently mature to be used as a training tool for engineers as well as a growth machine design tool, e.g. when building new process equipment or up-scaling old ones. It is possible to simulate accurately temperature and deposition distributions, as well as doping. The key of success would be the combined use of simulation, experiments and characterization in a "daily interaction". The different presented examples have the aim to show that this approach has the potential of a characterization tool which could be of great importance in the optimization of epitaxial structures used for the fabrication of SiC-based devices.

For more than ten years, the close cooperation between AIST and Grenoble Institute of Technology contributed to the scientific description of limiting phenomena and guidelines on the intricate relations between temperature, pressure, concentration and stress fields.

Keywords: SiC growth, Reactor modeling, Simulation, Bulk growth, Epitaxial growth.

Prof. Michel PONS is Research Director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Director of the laboratory "Science et Ingénierie des Matériaux et Procédés : http://simap.grenoble-inp.fr". He received his Engineer degree in Metallurgy in 1978 and PhD Degree in Physics in 1982 both from The University of Grenoble. He joined CNRS in 1982 where he carried out experimental and theoretical research on the protection of steels against wear and corrosion by surface treatments (laser and ion implantation). He joined for two years Microelectronics R&D (1987-1989) to develop tungsten metallization by Chemical Vapor deposition and the modeling and simulation of CVD reactors. Since 1990, he participated in research on CVD materials for microelectronic and metallurgical applications. Since 15 years, his research interests are in developing reactors and modeling for high temperature crystal growth and epitaxy of silicon carbide and aluminum nitride. He is managing in this field national and international research programs. Pons has published more than 200 research articles in the fields of material science and process engineering, metallurgy, energy and microelectronics, presented over 100 conference talks, contributed to five chapters in technical books and holds three patents.

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