Transcript

Derek Smith:

Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more discussing important topics in higher education, research and student life. I'm Derek Smith and our guest today is Dr. Annette von Jouanne, a national leader in energy systems and renewable energy. Dr. Von Jouanne serves as a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Baylor having joined the Baylor faculty in 2017 after 22 years at Oregon State. With a passion for renewables, she initiated the wave energy program at Oregon State in 1998 developing it into an internationally recognized multidisciplinary program. She also co-directed the Wallace Energy Systems & Renewable Facility, one of the highest power university-based energy systems labs in the nation. She's worked extensively with the automobile industry and the US Navy on projects related to electric and hybrid vehicles and ships and she's with us here on the program today. Dr von Jouanne, thanks so much. Thanks for joining us on the program.

Annette von Jouanne:

Thank you.

Derek Smith:

Well, it's great to have you here and we can dive into the work that you do that you've done here at Baylor, building on what you've done at Oregon State and with so many in industry and otherwise. Let's start out with a more basic question. So when you go out anywhere, whether it's just out into the country, on the beach, on a rainy day, a windy day, how often do you find yourself thinking about energy and energy sources? Do you see those everywhere?

Annette von Jouanne:

Absolutely. For me, those are really the thoughts, those energy opportunities have propelled my research, my career over the past 24 years, looking at opportunities to harvest our God given resources in a responsible way. And so I am always looking at opportunities for harvesting energy and really to look at having a positive impact on our energy future.

Derek Smith:

What aspects of energy as a whole most excite you and what stirred your interest in the subject?

Annette von Jouanne:

It would be that opportunity to have a positive impact on our energy future and working with students where our enthusiasm is contagious. And so that's why the focus on sustainable energy and opportunities there to provide for our current needs without compromising the needs of future generations. So for example, using renewables and finding better ways and more efficient ways to integrate renewables onto the grid and also looking at sustainable transportation technologies.

Derek Smith:

Certainly we get a dive into some of those aspects that you've worked on with some specifics a little bit later on the program. But Dr. Von Jouanne for a basic definition for the rest of us, when we talk about energy systems, what exactly are we talking?

Annette von Jouanne:

So we're talking about, for example, power systems, so the generation of electric power, but also the transmission, distribution and utilization of that electric power. Energy systems also encompasses power electronics, so all types of power processing. So as you can imagine, all types of power supply design from your cell phone to your laptop to large industrial processes. But also talking about motors and drives where drives are really motor controllers. They are efficient ways that we can control the speed and torque of electric motors. And so that is energy systems in a nutshell. Power systems, power electronics and motors and drives.

Derek Smith:

Okay. So it could be small, it can be big. It can be any number of things.

Annette von Jouanne:

That's right. It can be multi-scale. When you look at power levels from milliwatts to megawatts.

Derek Smith:

Visiting with Dr. Annette von Jouanne and talking about harnessing renewable energy, whether it's from waves, the wind, the sun. In what ways are those forms, those different forms of energy, the same, related and what ways are they different?

Annette von Jouanne:

They're actually very related. When you think about how the Lord created the earth, like a big heat exchange machine that's driven by the sun, where the uneven heating of the earth surface creates the wind and the wind drives the waves. So really wind energy and wave energy are a concentrated form of solar energy. And when we think about wave energy, we're talking about harnessing the energy in those heaving ocean swells and converting that into electrical energy.

Derek Smith:

Talking with Dr. Annette von Jouanne, and let's talk about electric cars here. You have worked on those for a long time. What does that look like?

Annette von Jouanne:

So I started working on electric vehicles in the late 90s and the early 2000s where I was working with Ford on the very first hybrid electric sport utility vehicle, which was the Ford Escape. And for that research what we were doing is we were testing the individual generator. So we had this motor generator set and we're testing that generator and the operation and going through kind of what the drive cycles would look like. Where here at Baylor we have taken that to the next level where instead of just testing the generator itself, we have built capabilities up in my lab to be able to test the entire vehicle.

Derek Smith:

So how do you do that? What does that look like?

Annette von Jouanne:

So what we have developed in our lab is an electric vehicle test bed and it's a chassis dynamometer test bed. So you can drive the whole vehicle on to the test bed and each wheel is on rollers and you can run that vehicle through EPA drive cycles. So environmental protection agency drive cycles of city driving and highway driving and freeway driving. And you can monitor the performance of the vehicle and the performance of the batteries. So for example, we can plug into that vehicle OBD, this is the onboard diagnostic system, and we can monitor the vehicle battery cell voltages, the cell temperatures, the battery pack voltages, the motor currents, the motor torque, the motor power. And so we're really trying to help to optimize the performance of the vehicle but also enable faster charging of those batteries without damaging the battery. And so what we are trying to get to is to be able to fast charge fully an electric vehicle in less than 10 minutes. And to do that we have to develop better fast charging techniques that don't damage the battery. And the way that this electric vehicle testbed contributes is that we can run it through those repeated drive cycles after doing different types of charging to really see how we have impacted the battery, whether positively or negatively. And so that electric vehicle dynamometer test bed offers us tremendous opportunities. And in fact last week I was testing an electric vehicle, a Chevy Bolt, which was very generously loaned to us by AutoNation Chevrolet right here in Waco. And so we were running that through these drive cycles and just tremendous information. We were able to plot everything and that also enables us, in addition to looking at improving the performance of the vehicle and the battery, we can look at how we can use the electric vehicle battery as energy storage to support the grid. So we can go vehicle to grid, and we can also go vehicle to home, in a power outage type situation or vehicle to vehicle. And so we have a lot of interesting opportunities that this provides us to really help advance electric vehicles as a whole.

Derek Smith:

For those of us not as familiar with battery mechanics, that challenge of fast charging but also not damaging the battery. What's the dichotomy there? Where is the point in which that's such a challenge that you're trying to overcome?

Annette von Jouanne:

So our typical batteries are charged. So when you think about charging at home, and this is kind of a level one slow charging of your single phase AC versus fast charging at a fast charging station. And here we're talking about much higher power DC. And so that can stress the battery. And so what it does is, just like your laptop battery or your cell phone battery that over time and sometimes because of deep discharges you don't have the capacity that you started off with. That's the same kind of impact that we can see through multiple charging is that we don't end up with that capacity. We don't end up with the range that we started off with in a new battery. So what we want to do is look at ways, for example, using pulsed charging that we don't put as much stress on the battery so that we can maximize that battery capacity over the lifetime of the vehicle.

Derek Smith:

Now you mentioned Dr. Von Jouanne as you test this, you're testing in all sorts of conditions, whether it be outdoor, city, dry, obviously outdoor, but city driving, country driving, what have you. Now I know Baylor has some pretty impressive research facilities, but how does that work? That sounds like a pretty big undertaking.

Annette von Jouanne:

Yes. So the BRIC is a fantastic facility and I have built up a high power lab there at the BRIC with this electric vehicle dynamometer test bed. And what we are able to do in addition, because of the type of facilities that we have at the BRIC, we have a very flexible power distribution system. But also this enables us to test autonomous vehicles and to do that on a test bed and to be able to, for example, help people to better understand the type of testing that autonomous vehicles go through. To look at increasing that reliability and also that acceptance. And at the same time looking at the reason for the car accidents that we have right now are primarily driver, primarily driver error. And so when you think about the opportunity with autonomous vehicles to decrease those accident rates and to look at where is that crossover in the percent penetration of autonomous vehicles versus standard driver vehicles and how that can really improve the driving characteristics to really reduce driver accidents. And so this kind of research all contributes to that.

Derek Smith:

Well you are kind of at the fore, not just kind of, you're at the forefront of a lot of this research when it comes to electric vehicles and I don't know if people ask you for predictions or state of the industry a lot, but where are we with electric vehicles? And when you look in the future, a little bit down the line, what do you see?

Annette von Jouanne:

Electric vehicles, the market will continue to grow. And so where we are now worldwide is we have over 3 million electric vehicles on the roads today. And when you look at predictions, forecasting, the International Energy Agency has predicted that by 2030 we will see over 100 million electric vehicles on the road worldwide.

Derek Smith:

Wow. So this is something that someday charging stations and things of that nature will be maybe as common as gas stations, or at least in our vernacular much in our view is that.

Annette von Jouanne:

That's exactly right. In fact, that's what needs to happen. We need to really get to standards for those chargers and plugs. And that's going to help that acceptance. Because when you look at the opportunities that electric vehicles offer, the increased efficiency, the increased energy savings, the reduced emissions, especially when these are being fueled by renewables. So when the electric energy is being generated by renewables, then essentially you're able to eliminate the emissions. But that's a key part of it. And so when you look at those opportunities of a wider variety of the diversity of the fuel choice that electric vehicles offer. So that's where the advantages look to increase the number of electric vehicles that we are seeing on the roads.

Derek Smith:

This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Dr. Annette von Jouanne, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Baylor. And we're talking about cars and personal vehicles that people can drive. But you've certainly been involved in other forms of electronic transportation, like your work with the US Navy. Could you take us inside that a little bit and give us a peek at what that looks like?

Annette von Jouanne:

Absolutely. So I started working with the Navy on the all electric ship. And the all electric ship is this Zumwalt series of three ships. We now have two that have been commissioned, that is the Zumwalt and the Michael Monsoor, and then we have the Lyndon B. Johnson that will be commissioned in the future. Where what we have is these all electric ships are powered by variable frequency motor drives, as we were talking about earlier, and these variable frequency drives are driving two 46,000 horsepower motors. We have an opportunity with electric motors to operate very efficiently. Electric motors are efficient over the entire speed range, whereas the prior designs you had a gas turbine generator that was then directly tied into the prop and not as efficient, especially at lower speed ranges. But now with electric motors and an electric ship, what we can do is we generate that power, so we generate about 80 megawatts and then we distribute that electricity throughout the ship so we can divert that power to whatever the needs are, including this very efficient propulsion system with these electric motors and these electric drives. Now, the research that we have been doing is ensuring that application of the drive to the motor is not only very efficient but also that we're not causing adverse impacts on the motor because the motors are designed for nice smooth sine wave. Like what you get out of your outlet but much higher power, much higher voltage levels and currents. But the drive, the variable frequency drive produces variable frequency square wave pulses at very high frequency, high voltages, high currents. And so we are looking at ensuring that we do not have negative impact on the motor, on the insulation, so the potential installation stress on the bearings causing bearing currents. Where now that you have this square wave pulse with modulated voltage that you're sending to the motor that gives you very efficient motor speed and torque control. But it also, like we said, can put additional stress where we end up having voltage building up on the shaft of the rotor that when that exceeds the dielectric capability of the bearing, it'll shoot through like an arc through the bearing and we can actually get electric discharge machining inside the bearing. So we are doing the research that is looking at preventing this because as you can imagine, a failure out there on a ship is critical. And so that's where we're ensuring that reliable interaction between the motor and the drive.

Derek Smith:

Wow. So much to think about. It seems like when you talk about something, it is a current if you will, and that current probably leads you to other things down the line and down the line but there's so much to think about. Is that something when you answer one question and figure out one thing, it probably leads to more questions. How much do you enjoy that aspect?

Annette von Jouanne:

That is where research is just so fun as professors working with students in answering questions that have never been asked for before. Asking questions that have never been asked before. And a part of this research is also moving from our silicon-based power semiconductor switching devices that we've been employing in our drives to advanced silicon carbide and these advanced silicon carbide power switching devices that now we're seeing in advanced electric propulsion systems. These offer much higher power density because you have less switching loss. So these can be smaller and lighter with even higher power. But at the same time we have to look holistically at this as a system. And how are these advances, how is this advanced silicon carbide drive going to again impact the motor? And it's a higher, what we call DV by DT change in voltage with respect to change in time. And how is that going to impact again, the insulation and the bearing and the electromagnetic interference, the EMI? And so whenever you look at these advancements, you need to look holistically to make sure that it's not having a negative impact on your system.

Derek Smith:

Visiting with Dr. Annette von Jouanne, and Dr. Von Jouanne, as you talk about research, you had a good thing going on at Oregon State for a long time. What brought you here to Baylor?

Annette von Jouanne:

Well, my husband and I both came to Baylor, and he's a professor in mechanical engineering and we were really drawn to Baylor's mission to be a preeminent Christian research university. And that gives us a greater opportunity to impact the world for Christ. And so that is what really drew us to Baylor.

Derek Smith:

The concept of a Christian research university. That's R1, tier one at the highest levels. What does that mean to you?

Annette von Jouanne:

So that means, as we know what the world needs most is Christ to understand who he is and what he has done for us. So as an R1, tier one preeminent Christian research university, we have an opportunity, an even greater opportunity to impact the world for Christ, not only through excellent undergraduate education, but also excellent graduate education and research, where now we're able to equip these students both educationally, but also encouraging them and developing their own vibrant faith so that they can go out and spread God's influence throughout the world. And excellent research simply demonstrates God's greatness. And so really doing research at a Christian research university is the perfect match.

Derek Smith:

When you think of creation, the wind, the waves, the sun, what does it mean to you to get to utilize those building blocks in a way for a stewardship aspect?

Annette von Jouanne:

Absolutely, yes. Thinking about Genesis 2:15 and that we're called for a tremendous purpose, to be stewards of God's creation, to know him and to share him with others. So that's exactly how I think about looking at and being able to utilize God's resources in a way that is for man's good and God's glory.

Derek Smith:

Well, that's fantastic. We appreciate it you sharing that, Diana. We look forward to hearing more about what you and your students and your colleagues in electrical and computer engineering do in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you so much.

Annette von Jouanne:

Thank you.

Derek Smith:

Thank you very much. Dr. Annette von Jouanne, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Baylor. Our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. A reminder, you can hear this and other programs online at baylor.edu/connections. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.