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URSA award funds food, energy, water security modeling

November 16, 2020

University Relations

The nexus of food, water and energy in remote Alaska communities and their direct linkages to renewable energy is the focus of the MicroFEWs research project.

ACEP MicroFEWs researchers Daisy Huang, Erin Whitney and Michelle Wilber recently received funding from the office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity to support UAF electrical engineering student Grace Bolt.

Grace Bolt will be funded through an award from the office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity to model food and water security under high renewable energy generation. Photo courtesy of Grace Bolt.
Grace Bolt will be funded through an award from the office of Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity to model food and water security under high renewable energy generation. Photo courtesy of Grace Bolt.


Bolt will model and examine the implications for food and water security when very high amounts of variable renewable generation, such as wind and solar, are introduced to a microgrid. Under these scenarios, the excess renewable generation will be utilized as heat. Historically, installing excess renewable generation for heat has not been economical. With the recent declines in solar and wind costs, we are going to re-examine this conventional wisdom.

This work builds upon research done by the MicroFEWS team, which has been funded by National Science Foundation Award #1740075 InFEWS/T3: Coupling infrastructure improvements to food-energy-water system dynamics in small cold region communities.

For more information, contact Daisy Huang at dhuang@alaska.edu.