The electric power sector produces 42% of global carbon emissions, and this international research centre is engineering the power grids that could eliminate them. The EPICS centre brings together academic teams from Australia, the UK, and the US, alongside three global industry consortia, to solve the technical and economic challenges of running a power grid on 100% renewable energy. Today’s grids were built for steady, dispatchable fossil-fuel plants; wind and solar are variable and decentralised. The centre aims to close the gaps in efficiency, reliability, and resilience that currently prevent a full transition. If successful, the research will produce engineering, computational, and policy methods that allow grid operators to integrate high levels of renewables without blackouts or wasteful overbuilding. The centre also prioritises translating discoveries into practice through its partnerships, and includes workforce development and public outreach. The work directly supports decarbonisation of transport, heating, and industry, which depend on a clean electricity supply. This is applied, mission-driven research with a clear target: making 100% renewable power grids technically and economically viable at global scale.
View original technical description
The EPICS centre's vision is to become the global scientific leader in the development of the solutions for transitioning Towards a 100% Renewable Energy (T100RE) power grids. The centre is meant to be a global multidisciplinary cradle-to-grave innovation and implementation ecosystem engaging industry, policy and public stakeholders and accelerating transfer of the developed solutions. The need for both global and multi-stakeholder partnerships is instrumental for developing and implementing sound engineering, economic, computational and policy methods in time to achieve aggressive climate goals, while averting unnecessarily costly and wasteful practices and delays. Transitioning Towards a 100% Renewable Energy (T100RE) power grid is critical for both decarbonisation of the global electric power sector which is responsible for 42% of the global carbon emissions, and for supporting climate-critical decarbonisation of other economic sectors and energy end uses (e.g., transportation, heating and cooling, and industry). The EPICS Centre formed a community of academic leaders from Australia (University of Melbourne, Monash University, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), UK (Imperial College London, University of Edinburgh, Strathclyde University, Newcastle University) and US (Johns Hopkins University, Georgia Tech, UC Davis, Resources for the Future) to execute the proposed research agenda and established partnerships with three global organizations - Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) Consortium, Energy Systems Integration Group (ESIG) and Future Power Forum Market (FPFM) - who committed their own resources to support the EPICS Centre's implementation agenda, that is translation of research discoveries into practice, education and workforce development, and public outreach. The EPICS Centre blurs the bounds between the traditionally separated academic and industry research activities in the global clean-energy community, and offers a multi- disciplinary research response to address, jointly with G-PST, ESIG and FPFM, the gaps in efficiency, reliability, resiliency, and sustainability of T100RE power grids of the future.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know