Faculty awarded $2.2 million for innovative energy research

Courtesy of Stanford News Service

Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy, Precourt Energy Efficiency Center and the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy have announced a new crop of seed grants for innovative research in clean technology and energy efficiency.

The 11 awarded projects will receive a total of $2.2 million, with research topics ranging from engineering to education.

“There were lots of good proposals, which induced a lively debate in the selection committee,” said Lynn Orr, director of the Precourt Institute, in an interview with the Stanford Report.

The two judging committees, consisting of faculty and senior staff members, received a total of 42 proposals from across the campus. These proposals offered a variety of approaches to achieve an affordable, efficient energy system.

Among the proposals receiving a seed grant include “Improving Predictions of the Efficiency of Natural Ventilation in Building”, which aims to advance the design of buildings that capitalize on natural ventilation for temperature control without compensating comfort. This research was jointly proposed by Gianluca Iaccarino, mechanical engineering associate professor, and Martin Fischer M.S. ’87 Ph.D. ’91, civil and environmental engineering professor.

Apart from the three Stanford institutions, Wendy and Eric Schmidt and the Stinehart/Reed Awards also contributed to support the 2013 seed grants.