Capstone design projects as foundation for a solar community

O’Neill-Carrillo, Efraín; Santiago, Ruth; Mendez, Zuleyka; Vega, Hugo Gutiérrez; Mussa, Joshua; Rentas, Javier

doi:10.1109/fie.2017.8190476

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Casa Pueblo and Coqui Solar have been active since before the hurricane, but the storm provided a window of opportunity for raising awareness about the resilience of renewable energy sources. They are also both exemplars of community models of ownership in which the energy assets are owned and regulated by the customers and members (O'Neill-Carrillo et al, 2017). Elsewhere, proposals for community microgrid projects abound, surrounded by the rhetoric of resiliency (Wernick, 2018;Roussie & Dyson, 2018).…”

Section: The Question Of Renewables and Alternative Energy Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rewiring Puerto Rico: Power and Empowerment after Hurricane Maria

Bui¹

2022

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The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season brought forth multiple storms that not only stripped trees bare and dismounted roofs, but it also caught the Caribbean and Gulf Coast unprepared for the magnitude of destruction that such storms could bring, despite the best efforts of the messengers. Nearly half a year after the last hurricane season and half a year away from the onset of the next one, stories about the damage that Hurricane Irma and Maria caused have become hauntingly familiar. The stories less often told, though, are those about the long-term recovery efforts that have inevitably followed since the seas have calmed and the winds have died down.

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Section: The Question Of Renewables and Alternative Energy Futuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rewiring Puerto Rico: Power and Empowerment after Hurricane Maria

Bui¹

2022

Alternautas

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“…Energy justice scholars and practitioners in the United States and Puerto Rico have done well to trouble dominant energy studies that neglect or oversimplify difference and inequities, which too often separate technological transformations from culture and power. These researchers explain that conceptualizing energy transitions as only about technology challenges seriously overlooks the many power inequities shaping these controversies and possibilities (Castro-Sitiriche, 2019;Fortier et al, 2019;O'Neill-Carrillo et al, 2017;O'Neill-Carrillo et al, 2019). Energy studies must account adequately for how privilege and precarity impact the lived experiences of individuals, families, and communities struggling for sustainable jobs, clean air and water, and the protection of places and people about which they care (Teron and Ekoh, 2018).…”

Section: En/countering Colonial Toxicity In the Jobos Bay Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“La justicia ambiental es para ti y para mí”: Translating Collective Struggles for Environmental and Energy Justice in Puerto Rico’s Jobos Bay Communities

Onís

2021

Front. Commun.

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Rural, coastal communities in the Jobos Bay region of southeastern Puerto Rico confront disproportionate harms as an energy sacrifice zone. This space is constituted by imported fossil fuel dependency, economic and climate injustices, environmental racism, ecocide, US colonialism and imperialism, neoliberalism, and racial capitalism. In response, many grassroots actors mobilize against the toxic assault on their communities to push for alternatives beyond the suffocating status quo via apoyo mutuo [mutual support]. This survival work and movement building occur literally in “the outdoors” and in other intertwined multispecies environments, challenging narrow, oppressive colonial, and consumerist constructs that reduce “the outdoors” to recreation and thus erase the numerous ways that people labor in, honor, and defend places and spaces to lead good lives. Thus, critical examinations of communication and race/racism/racialization in and about this colonial US territory must grapple with the brutalities and pain caused by systemic and structural cruelties and translate how, where, and with whom self-determined and potentially liberatory environmental and energy justice advocacy takes shape to refuse a trauma-only narrative. Studying these embodied and emplaced efforts positions energy and power broadly construed, including in the form of collective action. This article centers on the collaborative energies of local grassroots actors and scholars who ideologically and politically align and who value working together toward anti-colonial praxis. To provide one example of how these collaborations can yield public-facing projects that contribute to struggles tied to the survival and well-being of the most impacted communities, this essay focuses on the creation of an environmental justice children’s book. This bilingual text documents and translates the pollution caused by a US-owned, coal-fired power plant and mobilizations to topple this corporate invader. The article concludes by reflecting on some of the difficulties and possibilities that emerged during multi-year coalitional relationships that inform and exceed the children’s book. To reject racist and colonial dominant assumptions and discourses about outdoor spaces as only privileged recreational areas or as a “blank slate” devoid of people and culture, this project narrates how grassroots organizers and scholars persist in continued study and struggle for power(ful) transformations in Jobos Bay and beyond.

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“…The goal of Stage 1 of the project was to identify the main threats associated with maintaining continuous electric energy services in an area vulnerable to natural disasters. This engagement was led by a local consultant, with experience in energy stakeholder engagement activities [6,7,8,9]. This effort was essential to guide the refinement of the proposed infrastructure visions in the subsequent stage (infrastructure visions) and for the modeling and simulation stage.…”

Section: Brief Description Of the Model And Simulationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The teaching of infrastructure-related courses and capstone courses could be enhanced by including emergency preparedness, resiliency and collaboration with communities, giving students a broader view of the engineering practice and their social responsibility as engineering professionals. Besides topics for capstone design projects [6], [11], [12], modules and class examples on resiliency and emergency management could be developed and integrated into infrastructure-related courses.…”

Section: Policy and Engineering Education Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stakeholder Perspectives on Increasing Electric Power Infrastructure Integrity

O’Neill-Carrillo

McCalley

Kimber

et al.

2019 ASEE Annual Conference &Amp; Exposition Proceedings

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His professional interests include energy policy, sustainable energy, distributed generation, power quality, social and ethical implications of engineering and technology. He has authored or co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. O'Neill-Carrillo was the founding Director (2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) of the Institute for Tropical Energy, Environment, and Society, leading a group of 15 professors from 10 disciplines in establishing links between energy research and society and influencing energy policy in Puerto Rico (http://iteas.uprm.edu/). O'Neill-Carrillo was also the Education Coordinator at UPRM for the NSF's Center for Power Electronics Systems (CPES) from 2000-2008. He was Associate Director, CIVIS: Center for Resources in General Education, assisting in the administration of the Center, as well as developing student learning modules (sustainability, ethics), a sustainable energy initiative and coordinating the interaction and work of professors from various disciplines in UPRM. He has been energy Advisor for city governments and state agencies in Puerto Rico. He is one of the authors of the study "Achievable Renewable Energy Targets for Puerto Rico's Renewable Portfolio Standard," presenting the potential of renewable energy in Puerto Rico (http://www.uprm.edu/aret). He is also very active in the energy policy debate in Puerto Rico, authoring "Una Nueva AEE," a Spanish document that traces the history of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, presenting potential reforms to the Island's electric system (http://iteas.uprm.edu/recursos.php). O'Neill-Carrillo is a founding member of the Puerto Rico Electric Energy Round Table, a multi-sector group that works on technical and policy alternatives for the future of Puerto Rico's electric system, acting as the Group Coordinator from 2008 to 2010. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, an ABET Program Evaluator and a registered Professional Engineer. His views and work on integrative research and education activities, and his professional service have earned O'Neill-Carrillo UPRM's Outstanding ECE

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Capstone design projects as foundation for a solar community

Cited by 7 publications

References 13 publications

Rewiring Puerto Rico: Power and Empowerment after Hurricane Maria

Rewiring Puerto Rico: Power and Empowerment after Hurricane Maria

“La justicia ambiental es para ti y para mí”: Translating Collective Struggles for Environmental and Energy Justice in Puerto Rico’s Jobos Bay Communities

Stakeholder Perspectives on Increasing Electric Power Infrastructure Integrity

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