Regional Capacities in Advanced Energy Engineering Research and Development

1. DR. MIGUEL VELEZ-
REYES
PROFESSOR AND CHAIR

2. OUTLINE
 Overview of the Department
 Research and Education Projects in Power and
Energy Systems
 New Initiatives in the Pipeline
 Final Remarks

3. VISION
The Department of Electrical & Computer
Engineering will provide
programs of the highest quality
to produce world class engineers
who can address challenges of the
millennium.

4. ECE DEGREE PROGRAMS
 B.S. Electrical Engineering (128 credits)
 Concentrations:
oComputer Engineering
oFields and Devices
oSystems and Communications
oGeneral Electrical Engineering
 M.S. Computer Engineering (31 - 34 credits)
 M.S. Electrical Engineering (31 - 34 credits)
 Ph.D. Electrical and Computer Engineering (42 credits beyond
master )*

5. AREAS UNDER DEVELOPMENT
 Biomedical Engineering
 Power and Energy Systems

6. ECE PROGRAM STATS (2011-2012)
 Pre-major undergraduate students
in the Pre-Engineering Program (720 students for the
College)
 409 Undergraduate students in the B.S.E.E. Program
346 Male, 63 Females (15%), 81.67% Hispanics
100 BS degrees awarded
 71 MS students in 2 degree programs:
67 EE and 14 CpE
35 MS degrees awarded
 42 Ph.D. Students
35 Male & 7 Female
6 Ph.D. degrees awarded

7. ECE FACULTY
5 Professors
 Flores, Nava, Pierluissi, Qian, Starks, Ve
lez
9 Associate Professors
 Cabrera, MacDonald, Nazeran, Moya, Q
uinones, Rumpf , Sarkodie-
Gyan, Usevitch, von Borries, Zubia
2 Assistant Professors
 Bolborici, McGarry
1 Senior Lecturer
 Gonzalez
5 Lecturers
 Granda, Lazzari, Pallares,
Verdin, Woo
14.5 Faculty/Student Ratio

8. FACULTY RECOGNITION
 Technical Society Fellows: Qian (AIMBE),
Velez-Reyes (SPIE)
 Presidential Award Recipients: Flores, Velez-Reyes
 UT Regents Awards: Nava, Quiñones, Gonzalez
 DARPA Young Investigator Award: Rumpf
 IEEE Third Millennium Medals: Flores, Nava
 IEEE Centennial Award: Pierluissi
 IEEE Walter Fee: Velez-Reyes
 ABET President’s Awards for Diversity; Flores
 MAES National Outstanding MAEStro Award: Zubia

9. MORE INFORMATION: HTTP://EE.UTEP.EDU

10. Pervasive
Health
Technology
Laboratory
for Industrial
Metrology
and MIIL
Automation
Communicati
ASICs on Networks
LAB Laboratory

11. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
Photovoltaic Research Portfolio
$5.0M Research
$5.5M Facilities
2012

12. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
Expertise
David Zubia (electrical engineering)
Memristors
Patterned solar cells
Nanoscale crystal growth
Eric MacDonald (electrical engineering)
Rad-Hard CMOS design
Jose Mireles (electrical engineering, UACJ-CICTA)
MEMS devices and packaging
John McClure (materials science)
Solar cells
ZnCdTe layers using CSS
Stella Quinones (electrical engineering)
CdTe single crystal growth using CSS
Electrode-less plating
Joseph Pierluissi (electrical engineering)
Memristors
Electromagnetics

13. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
NanoFabrication Facility
2,500 SF clean, 6,000 SF total
Class-100 & Class-1000
23 Major pieces of equipment
Undergraduate
Master
Doctoral

14. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
Microsystems-Enabled PVs
Use MEMS technology to make miniature solar cells
JV curves of micro cells with different passivation schemes
35
(111) Si wafer KOH Release 30
current density (mA/cm2)
metal contact 25
Nitride
20
A) protection implanted
against doping 15
etch
10
Etch front
5
KOH KOH KOH
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
Voltage (V)
(111) oriented wafer 1.24% efficient no passivation
2.95% efficient: Alumina passivation & hot plate anneal@ 430C
4.14% efficient: alumina passivation and 30min anneal in Forming Gas
5.94% Nitride passivation low ammonia
7.40% nitride passivation high ammonia
10.30% efficient optimized nitride 1hr anneal at 450C
12.2% efficient optimized nitride 2hr anneal at 450C
14.85% efficient optimized nitride 3hr anneal at 450C
250um

15. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
ZnxCd(1-x)Te graded bandgap nanoarrays
Concept
ZnxCd(1-x)Te ~100 nm
CdTe
SiO 2
Cadmium sulfide substrate
Cross-sectional view
Computational Experimental

16. NanoMaterials Integration Laboratory
Experimental/Computational Collaboration

18. MISSION/SCOPE OF WORK
 Formed within the Engineering College at the University of Texas
at El Paso.
 Research focus in the following areas:
Power Electronics
Electric Power
Electro-thermal Modeling of Electric Energy Storage Devices
Modeling and Control of Hybrid Electric Energy Storage Systems
Modeling and Control of Piezoelectric Traveling Wave Rotary
Ultrasonic Motors
 Strengthen power electronics and power systems expertise at
UTEP.

19. EXPERTISE/CAPABILITY
 Modeling, Design and Analysis of Piezoelectric
Devices
Modeling using Finite Volume Methods
Circuits equivalents
 Modeling, Design and Analysis of Hybrid Electric
Energy Storage Systems
Multyphisics modeling of batteries and ultracapacitors
Modeling and control of hybrid electric energy storage
systems
COMSOL, MATLAB, SIMetrix simulations

20. EXPERIMENTAL CAPABILITIES
 Characterization of piezoelectric traveling wave rotary
ultrasonic motors and other piezoelectric devices
 Characterization of energy storage devices such as Li-Ion
batteries and ultracapacitors
 Characterization of hybrid electric energy storage systems

22. USDA: GREEN ENGINEERS
 Multi-university $3.2M collaboration led by Dr .Heidi Taboada (PI)
and Dr. Jose Espiritu to to produce more scientists and
engineers who can develop new alternative energy sources and
ways to increase energy efficiency.
 Offering in the spring semester a course for senior and graduate
students on “Energy Sustainability” as an introduction to the
different types of energy sources; carbon emissions and other
environmental impacts; electric power grid and the future smart
grid.
 The course has a final project where the students propose a
device or a system to better exploit energy sources.

23. ETAP DONATION: $125K
 Donation of ETAP from Operations Technology Inc.
 Obtained an educational license for the ETAP
Academic edition suit – 25 Bus, 20 campus users.
 Support for the modules: Short-Circuit ANSI &
IEC, Load flow, Motor
acceleration, Harmonics, Transient
Stability, unbalanced load flow and Wind turbine
generator.
 Used to teach students about power systems and
training in collaboration with RCES

24. ADDITIONAL MODELING TOOLS
 Use of several tools to model and simulate scenarios related to
smart grid technologies. (power, communications and signals)
 Available academic licenses of OPNET® Modeler , NI LabView®
, MATLAB, ETAP and MathCAD
 Computer modeling lab with 20 stations
 Student training on different tools involving the creation and
testing of heuristic rules to improve energy production and
consumption.
 Student generated lessons for regular courses and outreach
activities

25. NEW INITIATIVES
 Develop an synergistic research group: Power and Energy
Systems.
Strategic Hire
 Develop a Power and Energy Systems concentration at the
graduate and undergraduate levels.
 Establishment of the Power and Energy Systems
Laboratory.
Energy conversion
Power Electronics and its applications in control of power
systems
Renewable energy system
Estimated cost of $500k

26. FINAL REMARKS
 ECE is building its capabilities in Power and Energy
Systems
Strategic importance at the College and at the
Department
 Welcome the opportunity to develop partnerships in
the power and energy sector at the regional, state and
national level

27. DR. MIGUEL VELEZ-REYES
PROFESSOR AND CHAIR
E L E C T R I C A L A N D C O M P U T E R E N G I N E E R I N G D E P T.
U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S AT E L PA S O
500W UNIVERSITY DRIVE
E L PAS O , T X 7 9 9 6 8
PH. 915-747-5470
FAX 915-747-7871
E - M A I L : M V E L E Z R E Y E S @ U T E P. E D U