Energy ResearchEnergy is one of the most important challenges of the century. Energy research at the University of California Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara) is largely focused on developing new technologies that increase energy efficiency, thereby reducing energy consumption. UC Santa Barbara has been a leader in several areas related to energy efficiency including solid state lighting, optoelectronics, polymer photovoltaics, and control systems drawing upon the university’s expertise in both engineering and the sciences.
UC Santa Barbara’s excellence in energy efficiency research is well recognized and continues to grow. The university was recently selected by the Department of Energy as a site for a new Energy Frontier Research Center, the Center on Materials for Energy Efficiency Applications, which will be housed in the newly established Institute for Energy Efficiency, one of only a few research institutes focused on developing demand-side technologies.
Centers that comprise energy research at UC Santa Barbara include:
Institute for Energy Efficiency
iee.ucsb.edu
Developing technologies that will provide exponential gains in energy efficiency in Buildings, Lighting, Computing, Electronics & Photonics, Energy Production & Storage and research and analysis of Economic and Policy issues associated with these technologies.
Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation
www.ece.ucsb.edu/ccdc/
Research in control of nonlinear systems, adaptive and robust control for systems with large uncertainty, and dynamical systems applied to integrated building systems and control of the SmartGrid.
Center for Polymers and Organic Solids (CPOS)
www.ipos.ucsb.edu
Leveraging expertise in biochemistry, organic and inorganic chemistry to synthesize conjugated polymer composites for use in photovoltaic and optoelectronic devices
Greenscale Center for Energy-Efficient Computing
iee.ucsb.edu/greenscale/
Resaerch in energy proportional computation, cooling technologies, energy aware computation, wireless networking, and life cycle analysis and policy to reduce the energy footprint of computing and data storage.
Solid-State Lighting and Energy Center (SSLEC)
www.sslec.ucsb.edu
Develop novel solid state based technologies for energy efficient lighting and displays, power electronics, and renewable energy.
California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI)
www.cnsi.ucsb.edu
Construction of new materials at the nanoscale for use in a broad range of devices and systems for improved efficiencies in lighting, catalysis, energy capture, generation and storage.