About Me
Hi, my name is Rishabh. I am a senior research engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the Power Systems Engineering Center. I am leading multiple research projects focused on e-Mobility (transportation electrification), sustainable grid integration of renewables, networked microgrids, and market opportunities for grid support services. My expertise is in quasi-steady-state and real-time hardware-in-the-loop power system modeling, grid protection from faults, and, control, design and operation of microgrids.
What's New?
- IEEE Transportation Electrification Conference and Expo (ITEC) 2021 : Track Chair for “Transportation Refueling Infrastructure”
- Grid Coordination Opens Road for Electric Vehicle Flexibility
- Collaboration with Intertie Inc.
Active Projects
Shell Gamechanger - Co-ordinated Power/Energy Management Controls for Battery-boosted Fast EV Charging Sites
https://gcxnrel.com/intertie-boosts-chargers-to-go-anywhere/One-of-its-kind partnership with an upcoming start-up in EV fast charging focused on controls and investment decisions.
The project focuses on helping CA based Intertie Corp. to evaluate the hardware design and augment grid ancillary support services for Intertie’s battery boosted EV fast-charging solution, EV Chargepod. We are evaluating the participation opportunities in electricity market for storage solutions like EV Chargepod for multiple use-cases with/without EV Chargers for sustainable business cases. Intertie Inc is a CA based electric vehicle (EV) charging company, and one of the NREL powersed Shell GameChanger Accelerator Program.
Shell Gamechanger - Validating cloud-based optimal asset management for controlled charging of EV fleets for bus depots
https://gcxnrel.com/microgrid-labs-solves-the-puzzle-of-fleet-electrification/The project focuses on developing a customer site with a long-haul EV fleets to analyze and improve upon optimal charging schedulers. The objective is to help Microgrid Labs Inc. (MGL) in validate and refine their charging strategies for multiple use-cases for fleet electrification. MGL is a consulting and software company specializing in commercial fleet electrification and microgrids, and is another winner of Shell Gamechanger.
Resilient Operation of Networked Microgrids (RONM)
https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1638627RONM focuses on improving the resiliency of power systems with optimization-based methods that leverage advanced microgrid technologies to reduce system recovery times after extreme event induced outages. This project is a unique, high-fidelity physics-based optimization method for modeling networked microgrids which includes key engineering constraints associated with system recovery after extreme events. Our NREL team is focusing on developing the high-fidelity power system models, along with the microgrid design use-cases and the real-time hardware-in-the-loop test bed for evaluating the optimization based solver.
Developing Quantum Computation Algorithms for Autonomous Energy System Applications
The project focuses on exploring opportunities to achieve quantum computation speedup for power system challenges. The effort is a part of the prestigious pre-transformational Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program. The project starts Oct 2020 to conduct fundamental research and develop proof-of-concept demonstrations for applications of quantum algorithms.
Professional Experience
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
https://www.nrel.gov/gridResearch Engineer
October 2018 - Present
Involved in multiple projects involved in power system modeling, optimal control design, development of real-time and quasi-steady-state test platform development. The outcomes are intended for applications in transportation electrification for delivery vehicle fleets, sustainable grid integration of renewables, and exploring alternate energy resources (hydrogen based) for grid support and vehicle fueling. Research outcomes have resulted in new funding opportunities and research collaborations resulting in $1M+ funding through my involvement. I am also leading multiple projects, mentoring others, and co-authoring multiple research papers and one record of invention.
- Term 1: Involved in a diverse body of projects involving 1) Review of power and energy reserve requirements for bulk power systems (book chapter published), 2) Proving the sensitivity of the system stability to fault location given the location of DERs (conference publication), and 3) Use of support-vector machines to improve wind power forecast with added consideration of wind turbulence.
- Term 2: Involved in two projects focused on i) sustainable fleet electrification for delivery businesses, and, ii) Grid ancillary service support using hydrogen based electrolyzers for distribution systems with high PV penetration. Outcomes resulted in sustained funding for future research in the area, and early benchmark test platform development for evaluating fleet electrification use-cases.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
https://www.nrel.gov/gridResearch Intern
Term 1 - May-Aug 2015, Term 2 - May-July 2018
North Carolina State University
https://www.freedm.ncsu.edu/people/rjain/Research Assistant (RA), Teaching Assistant (TA)
August 2014 - July 2017, August 2017 - May 2018
- As a RA, involved in multiple projects focused on microgrid design and control, lifetime assesment of storage cells, and reconfiguration and adaptive protection of distribution systems with high renewable penetration. The outcomes helped me defend my doctoral dissertation and multiple peer-reviewed publications. o My use-case contributions to Electrocon’s CAPE - a well known power system protection analysis tool - resulted in a 1-year support from Electrocon for FREEDM Systems Center with software license, and help from their researchers developing their new TS-Link Module.
- As a TA, I have been actively involved in helping develop the course curriculum, deliver lectures, in addition to my responsibilities as an lab instructor and grader. I also helped redesign the protection systems lab setup, and utilized my previous experience from Schweitzer Engineering Labs as a protection engineer - to upgrade the lab exercise outcomes and procedures to industry standards.
Executed multiple development and modeling projects to help the lead engineers analyze power system disturbances, and develop new protection algorithms.
- Responsible for developing low-voltage control test setup and hardware evaluation for validating the simulation results.
- Well regarded for my knack to develop robust, scalable and automated test routines - which allowed our research group to perform rigourous testing and validations involving both hardware/software safely.
- The efforts resulted in multiple publications over my 15-month internship, and a long-standing relationship with my former mentors.
Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories Inc.
https://www.selinc.comResearch Engineer Intern
May 2013 - July 2014
Department of ECE, University of Idaho
Teaching Assistant
August 2012 - May 2013
- Instructor for Machines and Protection Lab Course
- Graduate student mentor for Senior Design Project team focusing on designing a net-zero case for a summer camp in Cascade, ID.
- Redesigned the laboratory manual submission rubric and end-of-the-term examination format resulting in better reports and examinations combining theoretical and practical concepts.
- Voted 2nd - Graduate Teaching Assistant Award at University of Idaho.
Education
Ph.D. (Electrical Engineering)
North Carolina State University, North Carolina, US
2014 - 2018 (GPA - 4.0/4.0)
- Dissertation: Distributed Fault Management for Enhanced Protection and Resiliency of Active Distribution System with Nested Microgrids
- Co-authored a book chapter and multiple research papers in peer-reviewed publications
- Mentored multiple graduate students in developing hardware-in-the-loop tests for real-time control validation.
- Represented my lab, FREEDM Systems Center for multiple annual reviews of our project on Cyber-physical systems from National Science Foundation at Arlington, VA.
M.S. (Electrical Engineering)
University of Idaho, Idaho, US
2012 - 2014 (GPA - 4.0/4.0)
- Dissertation: Grid Integrated Type 3 Wind Systems - Modeling, and Line Protection Performance Analysis using the real-time digital simulator
- Co-authored multiple papers in peer-reviewed conferences, and mentored five undergraduate students towards designing a net-zero energy plan for a summer camp in Cascade, ID.
- Recepient of Graduate Student Scholarship for excellent academinc performance for 3 consecutive semesters (Spring 2013 – Spring 2014)
B.Tech. (Electrical Engineering)
Indian Institude of Technology, Dhanbad, India
2007 - 2011 (GPA - 7.92/10.0)
- Trained as an electrical engineer, with specialization in power system operation, control system design, and abstraction of power electronic devices.
- Winner of multiple awards for developing and presentating collaborative projects focusing on business and technological use-cases for improving renewable energy penetration.
- Co-organizer, workshop co-ordinator and lead designer for IIT-DHN’s annual techfest - SPARX’2010.
- Earned an internship to work on a graduate student level project at University of Idaho, US for Summer 2010 - one conference publication.
- Recepient of Coal-India Bonafide Student Scholarship for 4 consecutive years (2007-2011).
Outreach and Interests
Outreach:
- Reviewer : Publications in multiple prestigious journals including IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, Power Delivery, Sustainable Energy, IET Generation, and others}
- Facilitator : Assessing Quantum Computing Efforts for Next Generation Energy Research
- NREL Point-of-Contact: IEEE Workshop on Quantum Computing Applications for Renewable Energy Systems
R&D :
- Research opportunities for residential and commercial scale electrification of light/heavy duty vehicles
- Protection of power systems with high renewable penetration
- Quantum computing algorithms for applications in autonomous energy systems
Professional Interests :
- Membership : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), International Council for Large Electric Systems (CIGRE)
- Toastmasters - Active Member, Secretary and Treasurer (2020)