UNC Charlotte’s Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) has been selected for a $3.6 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to improve the resilience and reliability of the regional grid. Badrul Chowdhury, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is the principal investigator for the project.

The EPIC project, one of 10 chosen nationwide for support and the only one in North Carolina, is part of a collaborative effort among the North Carolina state government, utility companies, industry and universities to develop an advanced microgrid control architecture. It will be able to coordinate seamlessly with the bulk power grid at multiple points of common coupling, automatically balance load and generation, provide critical services at a minimum, detect faulty conditions on a continuous basis, communicate with distributed energy resources, form networked microgrids with neighboring communities when needed and maintain safe operating conditions at all times.

“Federal support at this level recognizes the ascendance of energy as an area of research excellence for UNC Charlotte,” said Rick Tankersley, vice chancellor for research and economic development. “EPIC’s role in the ongoing public-private partnership that is driving novel solutions to critical energy challenges is making a sustained impact in North Carolina, with implications for influence nationally and globally.”

The proposed control architecture will be tested utilizing a unique digital-twin approach to which laboratories will have direct, real-time connections to microgrids operated by the major utilities in North Carolina. A field demonstration at Duke Energy’s Hot Springs microgrid is also planned.

“This selection was the culmination of a strategic objective of EPIC that began in 2018, in partnership with federal, state and local government agencies and Duke Energy,” said Michael Mazzola, executive director, EPIC. “I look forward to moving our previous work in community resilience to the full demonstration phase. With the active support and partnership of State Energy Director Sushma Masemore, this project will be a national model for organizing a resilient grid in a state with climate challenges like North Carolina.”

EPIC was selected as a part of the SETO Fiscal Year 2020 funding program, which is an effort to advance research and development projects to lower solar electricity costs, increase the competitiveness of American solar manufacturing and businesses, improve the reliability and resilience of the grid, and expand solar to new applications.

This EPIC award is one of several systems integration projects that will enhance solar energy’s contribution to grid resilience and reliability by enabling communities to consistently maintain and restore power, improving cybersecurity for photovoltaic systems, and developing advanced hybrid plants.

About UNC Charlotte 

UNC Charlotte is North Carolina’s urban research university. With an enrollment of more than 30,000 students, the University leverages its location in the state’s largest city to offer internationally competitive programs of research and creative activity, exemplary undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, and a focused set of community engagement initiatives.

About EPIC

Located at UNC Charlotte, the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) was formed through private and public funding in response to the need to supply well-educated and highly trained engineers qualified to meet the demands of the energy industry and to provide sustainable support for applied research. Offering a collaborative industry/academic partnership, EPIC produces a technical workforce and advancements in technology for the global energy industry while supporting the Carolinas’ multi-state economic and energy security. For more information about EPIC, visit epic.uncc.edu.

About the Solar Energy Technologies Office 

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office supports early-stage research and development to improve the affordability, reliability, and domestic benefit of solar technologies on the grid. Learn more at energy.gov/solar-office.

Deportation is imminent for 44-year-old Kelvin Silva, a long-time resident and valued community member of Charlotte. Attorneys say Silva, who is currently in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Ga., faces deportation to the Dominican Republic, a country that is unfamiliar to him and where Silva will likely find himself homeless and thousands of miles away from family or relatives.

Attorneys are racing to halt ICE’s planned deportation of Silva so that his case can be heard before a federal court.  Although the Child Citizenship Act of 2001, or CCA, replaced the citizenship statute at issue with a new version of the law that omits the racially discriminatory Guyer rule, the CCA was not given retroactive effect. Under the CCA, Silva and many other similarly situated Black immigrants who have resided permanently and lawfully in the U.S. for decades would be recognized as U.S. citizens.

“I’m asking for a chance to stay with my family,” said Kelvin Silva on Thursday afternoon.  “That’s who I am fighting this case for. My family, and for other families like mine, other people like me. I have taken responsibility for my choices and served my sentence. All I want is to be with my family. If I’m deported, I don’t know when or if I will see them again.”

When Silva was 11 years old, his father brought him to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic. His father died six years later and Silva eventually fell victim to the U.S. criminal justice system. He has been fighting his deportation case for years from within ICE custody, hoping his claims of citizenship and the unconstitutional discrimination against him and his father would eventually be heard.

Guyer Rule Effect on Silva 

The Guyer Rule, first codified in the Nationality Act of 1940, prevented U.S. citizen fathers from passing citizenship to children who were born out of wedlock. The rule disproportionately restricted how non-white parents could secure citizenship for their children – and for decades was maintained for just that reason. The immigration judge in Silva’s case held that because Kelvin’s parents never legally married, they could not have achieved a “legal separation,” and therefore, Silva did not automatically derive U.S. citizenship through his father. Silva and advocates plan to challenge the decision on constitutional grounds.

Silva’s attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild (NIPNLG) say that Silva would be a free man at home with his family and recognized as a U.S. citizen if it weren’t for this policy.

“My brother, Kelvin, has been here since he was 11. Our entire family is here. He has no one in the Dominican Republic,” said Jasmine Pena, Silva’s sister. “He’s a great father and an amazing brother. Don’t take him away from us. We have not seen him in over 11 years, and this will just break us even more, knowing that he would be all alone in a country where he knows almost no one.”

Silva may not ever have his fair day in court if ICE proceeds with the planned deportation, say advocates, who are also urging Kelvin’s community to call on ICE and their elected officials to halt the unjust deportation that could occur within the next 24 hours.

Silva, who has chronic asthma, is at heightened risk of COVID-19 complications, which is exacerbated from prolonged detention and impending travel.