Professor Mingzhou Jin attended the G7 Mitigation Cohort in London from September 23-25 to present a project that will address critical environmental health and energy burden challenges in underserved communities.
The impetus for the project, titled “A Community Co-design Weatherization and Microgrid Plan for an Equitable Energy Security and Environmental Health,” stems from the disproportionate impact of climate change, air pollution, and energy issues on communities of color and low-income groups. The team’s mission is to craft a clean energy plan that not only respects and incorporates local community insights but also possesses the potential for national replication.
The project is supported by a $1.7 million grant from the Wellcome Trust Foundation, a global charitable entity established in 1936.
Jin, the department head for Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) and the director of the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment (ISSE) traveled to London with Bruce Tonn, president and co-founder of the nonprofit organization Three Cubed, and Chien-Fei Chen, an adjunct professor with ISE and principal investigator for the project.
There were 10 projects presented at the cohort, grouped into food, air quality, and clean energy. Jin’s project is part of the clean energy group, which is focused on promoting a health-centric climate mitigation plan. Jin’s team also discussed policy and other interference measures with other groups in attendance.
“Attending the G7 Mitigation Cohort was an extremely rewarding trip for our project,” Jin said. “Along with presenting our project, we discussed various things with other projects in the United Kingdom, the U.S., and Japan. It was great to have UT represented on the global stage and involved in such important work.”
In the last few months, the UT-led project has made progress in two key areas:
- A building model has been established by an ISE student to simulate low-income house energy consumption and indoor environment. The group found that low-income houses consume more energy per square foot than others.
- An optimization model has been built for maximizing grid resilience and equity for low-income communities by placing micro-grids.
“Systems engineering approach and optimization techniques are essential to balance energy burden, indoor environment, and human health,” Jin said. “Such a balance is more important for low-income households, which may have budget constraints and face more challenges raised by climate change. The interdisciplinary integration of this project, including ISE, electrical engineering, sociology, public health, and public policies, will provide a unique solution that is both community-relevant and globally impactful.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey (865-974-0683, rpotkey@utk.edu)