University of Houston System debuts new program to develop clean energy workforce

future of energy

The program will allow students to learn at their own pace, and is supported seven days a week by tutorial and technical staff, and offers flexible payment options with a low initial registration fee. Photo by Brett Sayles/Pexels

University of Houston-Downtown announced a new Wind Turbine Technician Certificate Program.

UHD’s goal with the new program is to address the global need for workers skilled in servicing, diagnosing, repairing and installing wind turbines and other associated equipment.

The program will allow students to learn at their own pace, and is supported seven days a week by tutorial and technical staff, and offers flexible payment options with a low initial registration fee.

Some courses can be purchased as students work through them.The total cost is $1,750 for the entire program.

The course will be delivered in partnership with George Brown College in Toronto. George Brown College is a leader in distance learning, and one program highlight will be its 3D interactive wind turbine simulator. The wind turbine simulator will have key features like real-time visualization, interactive operation, pre-built lab projects, and Pitch and Yaw Ladder Logic applications, which shows how Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) are used to provide automatic control of wind turbines.

“The programs we develop at George Brown College feature robust technical simulation software so we can reach different students, like those looking to diversify their skills and can’t attend full time because of family or work commitments,” Colin Simpson, dean of continuous learning, says in a news release. “Additionally, our partnership with University of Houston-Downtown allows us to extend our reach to help train the U.S. clean energy workforce.”

According to Global Wind Energy Council’s Global Wind Report 2023, over half a million new wind technicians will be needed by 2026 to service the expected capacity increases, as wind generation is expected to more than double by 2030. Texas produces 26 percent of all U.S. wind-sourced electricity.

“Wind energy is one of the fastest-growing energy sources in the world, and as the largest wind producer in the United States, there is a growing need for skilled technicians in Texas,” UHD President Loren J. Blanchard adds. “By partnering with George Brown College, we’re able to leverage a unique online program to develop a skilled workforce for the wind energy sector in the state and beyond.”

------

This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

From Your Site Articles
The Chancellor's Technology Bridging Fund will provide grants to UH faculty to help them bring their research and ideas into reality. Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

UH launches $2 million fund for faculty innovators to help them bring their ideas to the market

Funding the faculty

The University of Houston Technology Bridge exists to help transition university research and ideas into the marketplace, and now the UH System has gone one step further to aid in that transition process.

UH has announced a $2 million fund for faculty inventors who then could use the grants — estimated to range between $25,000 to $75,000 — to bring their invention to the commercialization stage. The fund, called the Chancellor's Technology Bridging Fund, was revealed on July 18.

"University faculty are working to solve some of the most critical problems of the day, from energy and the environment to medicine," says Renu Khator, chancellor of the UH System and president of UH, in a release. "It often requires an additional boost to get technologies from the lab to the commercial arena, and this fund is designed to help our faculty take that leap."

According to the release, UH officials plan to give out anywhere from four to 10 grants each year for the next five years.

The grants are intended to aid in the prototyping or product testing process, says Tom Campbell, executive director of the Office of Technology Transfer and Innovation in the UH Division of Research. He adds that usually that ideas in that stage of growth aren't usually granted basic research funding.

"The Technology Bridging Fund will fill a gap. It's really difficult to find funding at this early stage of development, and as a consequence, a lot of innovative concepts sit on the shelf," Campbell says in the release.

The fund directly aligns with the institution's goal of taking these UH-originated ideas, companies, and technologies and introducing them to the world, where they can be used by other companies.

"It's a way to de-risk these technologies and attract external interest," Campbell says in the release. "We want to move people and ideas closer to the market. Having access to this type of funding to do that can be extremely valuable."

Last year, UH transitioned its Energy Research Park into the Technology Bridge to better facilitate the growth for its innovators and research. The organization also works to bring in corporations that are looking to expand in Houston, and, earlier this year, two organizations set up shop in the Tech Bridge.

Earlier this year, a new ranking, new ranking, published by the National Academy of Inventors and the Intellectual Property Owners Association, puts UH at No. 88 among the world's top 100 universities for patent activity in 2018. And, according to Campbell, UH will continue this patent growth.

"As the UH research portfolio grows and the medical school starts up, we would continue to anticipate a strong IP portfolio going forward for UH," Campbell tells InnovationMap in a previous article.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Play it back: Why this Houston geothermal innovator's company is set for a hot year of growth

houston innovators podcast Episode 271

Last year was one full of big wins for Fervo Energy and its CEO and co-founder, Tim Latimer. The company secured around $600 million in investment and financing across a few deals and is aiming for a 2026 delivery date of its next project.

Fervo Energy, which is built off of a unique horizontal well drilling technology, is currently scaling at around a 100x pace, as Latimer explained in May on the Houston Innovators Podcast, thanks to its latest project, Project Cape, located in Southwest Utah, that will include around 100 wells with significantly reduced drilling cost and an estimated 2026 delivery. Latimer says there are a dozen other projects like Project Cape that are in the works.

"It's a huge ramp up in our drilling, construction, and powerplant programs from our pilot project, but we've already had tremendous success there," Latimer says of Project Cape. "We think our technology has a really bright future."

Revisit the podcast episode below where Latimer talks about Fervo's fast growth and promising future.

Latimer has been bullish on geothermal as a clean energy source since he quit his job as a drilling engineer in oil and gas to pursue a dual degree program — MBA and master's in earth sciences — at Stanford University. He had decided that, with the reluctance of incumbent energy companies to try new technologies, he was going to figure out how to start his own company. Through the Stanford program and Activate, a nonprofit hardtech program that funded two years of Fervo's research and development, Latimer did just that.

"Every overnight success is a decade in the making, and I think Fervo, fortunately — and geothermal as a whole — has become much more high profile recently as people realize that it can be a tremendous solution to the challenges that our energy sector and climate are facing," he says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

And the bet has more than paid off. In December, Fervo raised $255 million in new funding and capital availability. A $135 million corporate equity round was led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund II and a $120 million letter of credit and term loan facility was granted by Mercuria, an independent energy and commodity group that previously invested in the company. Read more about the round.

In addition to the raise, Fervo also announced other exciting news since the episode aired, including being named among Time Magazine's top inventions of the year and expanding its partnership with Meta.

UH researchers develop breakthrough material to boost efficiency of sodium-ion batteries

eyes on clean energy

A research lab at the University of Houston has developed a new type of material for sodium-ion batteries that could make them more efficient and boost their energy performance.

Led by Pieremanuele Canepa, Robert Welch assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, the Canepa Research Laboratory is working on a new material called sodium vanadium phosphate, which improves sodium-ion battery performance by increasing the energy density. Energy density is the amount of energy stored per kilogram, and the new material can do so by more than 15 percent. With a higher energy density of 458 watt-hours per kilogram — compared to the 396 watt-hours per kilogram in older sodium-ion batteries — this material brings sodium technology closer to competing with lithium-ion batteries, according to the researchers.

The Canepa Lab used theoretical expertise and computational methods to discover new materials and molecules to help advance clean energy technologies. The team at UH worked with the research groups headed by French researchers Christian Masquelier and Laurence Croguennec from the Laboratoire de Reáctivité et de Chimie des Solides, which is a CNRS laboratory part of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne, in Amiens France, and the Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux, Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France for the experimental work on the project.

The researchers then created a battery prototype using the new materia sodium vanadium phosphate, which demonstrated energy storage improvements. The material is part of a group called “Na superionic conductors” or NaSICONs, which is made to let sodium ions move in and out of the battery during charging and discharging.

“The continuous voltage change is a key feature,” Canepa says in a news release. “It means the battery can perform more efficiently without compromising the electrode stability. That’s a game-changer for sodium-ion technology.”

The synthesis method used to create sodium vanadium phosphate may be applied to other materials with similar chemistries, which could create new opportunities for advanced energy storage. A paper of this work was published in the journal Nature Materials.

"Our goal is to find clean, sustainable solutions for energy storage," Canepa adds. "This material shows that sodium-ion batteries can meet the high-energy demands of modern technology while being cost-effective and environmentally friendly."

------

This article originally appeared on EnergyCapital.

Houston hospital names leading cancer scientist as new academic head

new hire

Houston Methodist Academic Institute has named cancer clinician and scientist Dr. Jenny Chang as its new executive vice president, president, CEO, and chief academic officer.

Chang was selected following a national search and will succeed Dr. H. Dirk Sostman, who will retire in February after 20 years of leadership. Chang is the director of the Houston Methodist Dr. Mary and Ron Neal Cancer Center and the Emily Herrmann Presidential Distinguished Chair in Cancer Research. She has been with Houston Methodist for 15 years.

Over the last five years, Chang has served as the institute’s chief clinical science officer and is credited with strengthening cancer clinical trials. Her work has focused on therapy-resistant cancer stem cells and their treatment, particularly relating to breast cancer.

Her work has generated more than $35 million in funding for Houston Methodist from organizations like the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, according to the health care system. In 2021, Dr. Mary Neal and her husband Ron Neal, whom the cancer center is now named after, donated $25 million to support her and her team’s research on advanced cancer therapy.

In her new role, Chang will work to expand clinical and translational research and education across Houston Methodist in digital health, robotics and bioengineered therapeutics.

“Dr. Chang’s dedication to Houston Methodist is unparalleled,” Dr. Marc L. Boom, Houston Methodist president and CEO, said in a news release. “She is committed to our mission and to helping our patients, and her clinical expertise, research innovation and health care leadership make her the ideal choice for leading our academic mission into an exciting new chapter.”

Chang is a member of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Stand Up to Cancer Scientific Advisory Council. She earned her medical degree from Cambridge University in England and completed fellowship training in medical oncology at the Royal Marsden Hospital/Institute for Cancer Research. She earned her research doctorate from the University of London.

She is also a professor at Weill Cornell Medical School, which is affiliated with the Houston Methodist Academic Institute.

View All Listings