Benefits of GRAPES

The benefits of a being a GRAPES member span from strategic to logistic to interpersonal.

GRAPES membership provides a robust communication channel between electric utilities, advanced power electronics manufacturers and component suppliers allowing members to:

Milwaukee GRAPES Spring 2018 IAB Meeting

  • Gain valuable insights into the latest trends and solutions in advanced power electronics research to solve harmonics, frequency, fault protection, synchronization and other technical issues related to power grid integration.
  • Shorten new product development (“deployment to market”) times by facilitating rapid installation of field trials for concept and prototype testing.
  • Enjoy free, non-exclusive rights to the entire GRAPES research portfolio, including reports, papers, theses, dissertations and all protected IP generated by the center. Some research may have a commercial value, subject to foreign export and confidentiality restrictions as well as other restrictions that may be imposed by a sponsor.
  • Leverage invested research dollars, on the order of 16:1. Because the NSF oversees the center, investment are used both wisely and resourcefully.
  • Access to universities’ labs including those at UWM (microgrid and cybersecurity labs, a 6MVA test facility),UA (the National Center for Reliable Power Transmission and the High Density Electronics Center), and USC (Power Routing Laboratory and a 1MVA network of power converters).
  • Provide Industrial Advisory Board members an opportunity to meet students who are working for GRAPES and who may become employees.

Together we hope that by educating engineers we can develop new technologies, software, and tools to accelerate the adoption and insertion of power electronics into the electric grid in order to improve system stability, flexibility, robustness, and economy.

Please contact Rob Cuzner if you wish to learn more about joining GRAPES.