Climate + Energy

A Circular Economy for Energy Materials

Presenters: Emily Brady, MS (SusDev); Ritvik Jain, MS (SusSys); Alex Reid, MS (SusSys), MBA; McKinley Siegle, MS (SusSys); Emma Stark, MS (SusDev, EPP)

Advisor: Dr. Michael Craig

Location: Golden, Colorado, USA

Client: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) serves as the sponsor for the project. As NREL engages with various stakeholders in the clean energy landscape, they seek to better understand particular segments in greater detail. Alongside NREL’s research, the team was engaged to dig into the circular economy landscape of solar photovoltaic and large-format battery technologies. Specifically, the U-M team split into two task groups to focus on the following headline questions:

What is the policy and regulatory landscape for solar PV recycling and end-of-life practices? What is the state of the end-of-life electric vehicle battery market, including stakeholders, value-added activities, and focus areas?

The group focusing on the solar PV recycling and end-of-life practices placed a special emphasis on finding, understanding and analyzing decommissioning plans of existing solar plants. By analyzing the plans the team now has an understanding of the major factors driving decommissioning costs, solar PV recycling estimates for different states across the U.S., and how these will influence future deployment of solar projects and present management of end-of-life solar products.

The group focusing on large-format batteries did a literature review and conducted interviews with industry experts to better understand what the end-of-life landscape for battery systems looks like. They found that a majority of stakeholders in the space are focused on recycling and reverse logistics. The drivers of circular economy for EV batteries include the value of the metals that can be recovered as well as policy, while the barriers are a need for more investment to build up infrastructure and cost-effectiveness of end-of-life processes.

The Future of Dana: Achieving Net-Zero Building Emissions and Leading by Example

Presenters: Sarah Avery, MS (EPP); Christian Hitt, MS (SusSys), MSE; Kelly McElroy, MS (SusSys); Michael Orbain, MS (SusSys); Brandon Ridsdale-Smith, MS (SusSys); James Washington V, MS (SusSys)

Advisor: Dr. Parth Vaishnav

Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Client: SEAS Facilities

With a recent global push to rapidly decrease emissions for mitigating climate change, the University of Michigan has established the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality (PCCN) to develop a framework for achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. SEAS Facilities seeks to develop evidence-based and scalable strategies to improve energy efficiency and find opportunities to integrate more renewable energy resources into the standard operation of the Dana Building. With these energy efficiency strategies in place, SEAS Facilities hopes to achieve net-zero building emissions and spearhead this movement for other buildings on campus.

This capstone project generated a model of the Dana Building and associated mechanical and electrical equipment using the DesignBuilder software, which was then utilized to assess potential energy efficiency measures and savings within the building. The research team also assessed the viability of window insulation and off-site solar installations as strategies for emissions reductions. In conjunction with this, information on mechanical and electrical systems within Dana was documented in a building manual for reference by the Facilities Department. Lastly, educational tools were developed to inform the students, faculty, and staff within Dana on how they can assist with the energy efficiency goals.

This project found that even with solar installations on SEAS satellite properties and continuing efficiency measures within the building, a net-zero portfolio for Dana is unattainable without the decarbonization of the campus’s centralized systems. While energy efficiency measures and green infrastructure should be pursued within individual buildings, hope for Dana’s net-zero future cannot be achieved without larger university support.