John B. Rhodes, president and chief executive officer of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), will give the keynote address this week at the 2013-14 Annual Conference of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Future Energy Systems (CFES).

The all-day event showcases the latest energy innovations and research results from Rensselaer faculty and students and their partners in industry, government, and academia. The event will take place Wednesday, February 5, at the Hilton Garden Inn in Troy, N.Y. See the full schedule at: http://owl.li/t5pGw

CFES actively partners with small and mid-sized companies, global corporations, New York state and federal agencies, and educational institutions to accelerate energy research, move technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace, and ultimately build value and create jobs. CFES is one of 15 designated Centers for Advanced Technology funded by the Empire State Development (ESD) Division for Science, Technology and Innovation (NYSTAR).

“Energy systems are critical to nearly every aspect of our lives, and our future depends on generating, delivering, and using energy as effectively and efficiently as possible,” said Jian Sun, CFES director and professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer. “The Annual Conference is an important venue to bring together CFES researchers, students, and partners to discuss how collaboration can bring us closer to our shared goal.”

“The work taking place under Governor Cuomo’s energy agenda is encouraging increased investment and innovation in clean energy in New York state,” Rhodes said. “These advances have multiple impacts, from reduced energy costs to increased investment and job creation. Everyone in New York state benefits. Congratulations to the Center for Future Energy Systems and its partners for creating innovative clean energy products and approaches that will improve our energy systems and help us prepare for the future.”

NYSTAR Director Edward Reinfurt will also give remarks at the conference.

“New York state is proud of the industrial partnerships forged by CFES,” Reinfurt said. “The commercialization of the innovations resulting from these partnership is helping New York state meet both its economic development and its energy objectives.”

The three key themes of this year’s conference are “Energy Storage Technologies and Applications,” “Energy Efficiency,” and “Grid Resiliency and Microgrids.” Researchers from several CFES industrial partners, as well as partners from government and academia, will speak at the conference, including: General Electric, Siemens, Corning Inc., Opal-RT Technologies, Cornell University, Northeastern University, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Additionally, the conference will feature talks from several Rensselaer faculty members and research associates about their energy research:

• Minoru Tomozawa | Novel Glass Ceramic Composites for Large-Scale Capacitance Storage
• Vincent Meunier | Understanding of Capacitive Storage
• T. Paul Chow | Performance Projection of Vertical High-Voltage GaN power MOSFETs and Comparison to SiC power MOSFETs
• Robert Karlicek | Smart Lighting - Illumination Systems That Think
• Joe Chow | Applying the Non-Iterative State Estimation Method on the New York Transmission System; Measurement-Based Voltage Stability Margin Calculation for Large-Scale Wind Power Plants
• Emily Liu | The Integration of Scattering Experiments and Simulations in Energy Applications
• Chulsung Bae | Controlled and Efficient Synthesis of Anion Exchange Fuel Cell Membranes
• Nadarajah Narendran | DC Grid Infrastructure for Solid-State Lighting
• B. Wayne Bequette | BitTorrent-inspired Decentralized Management of Residential Distributed Energy Resources
• Jian Sun | Multi-terminal HVDC Systems for Offshore Wind Farms: Control and Real-Time Simulation; Real-Time Simulation of Type-III Wind Turbine Interactions with the Grid

CFES is the locus of energy research at Rensselaer, where world-leading science and engineering researchers from all fields gather to collaborate on advancing energy technologies for the benefit and promotion of economic growth in New York. With partner Cornell University, the center’s research thrusts range from advanced materials for energy conversion and storage, to energy efficiency, renewable energy, smart grids, and grid resiliency.

More than 35 researchers and 45 students from Rensselaer and Cornell collaborate on CFES projects.