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Brains, Black Holes, and Beyond (B Cubed) is a collaborative project between The Daily Princetonian and Princeton Insights. The show releases 3 episodes monthly: one longer episode as part of the Insights partnership, and two shorter episodes independently created by the 'Prince.' This show is produced by Senna Aldoubosh '25 under the 147th Board of the 'Prince.' Insights producers are Crystal Lee, Addie Minerva, and Thiago Tarraf Varella. This show is a reimagined version of the show formerly produced as Princeton Insights: The Highlights under the 145th Board of the 'Prince.'
Please direct pitches and questions to podcast@dailyprincetonian.com, and any corrections to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.
Speaker 1 0:14
Hi everyone. Welcome to Brains, Black Holes, and Beyond: a collaboration podcast between Princeton Insights Newsletter and the Daily Princetonian. From the Prince, my name is Noelle. Our guest for today's episode is Avery Barnett, a PhD student in the SPIA department from Jamaica. She works closely with her advisors Professor Michael Oppenheimer in SPIA, and Professor Jesse Jenkins in MAE. With a BA in physics and concentrations in environmental and technology studies, her work now at Princeton generally focuses on renewable energy policies in the Caribbean. But today, we'll be focusing on her work with the New Jersey Wind Institute fellowship program. Welcome to the show, Avery.
Speaker 2 0:51
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 0:56
Great, I wanted to start off by asking you about the fellowship program in general, you know, what it entails and the different kinds of projects that students can undertake through the program?
Speaker 2 1:04
Sure, no problem. The New Jersey Wind Institute fellowship is relatively new, actually. It’s only in its second year and with this year being the first year that Princeton is participating. Overall, it’s sponsored by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. This year, around 40 fellows were chosen from eight different institutions to conduct new and innovative research about offshore wind, which spans from policy decisions, engineering considerations, as well as a fellow was looking at gender and women involvement within the offshore wind industry, for example. So very multidisciplinary, very flexible in what one can research in this fellowship. So the Institute, as well as the fellowship, was actually born out of New Jersey's commitment to offshore wind, and their goal to have around 11,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2040. And in order to do so, they wanted to be a champion in technological research and knowledge compared to, I guess, the rest of the states. And so this fellowship overall is a chance for students to learn more about the offshore wind sector. I personally don't know that much going into it, while also contributing to research in this budding sector.
Speaker 1 2:23
Great, thanks so much for providing us with the context. So now that we have a broader understanding of the program, could you tell us how you personally came to apply for the fellowship and also the specific research that you will be conducting?
Speaker 2 2:35
I came to learn about this fellowship by two different ways, in essence. One, the center that I fall under, which is the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, or C-PREE, circulated it, as well as several of my friends sent me via text, hey, you should apply for this. Now, what exactly am I doing? I'll be doing a capacity expansion model using Gen X, which is a open source modeling software developed by the ZERO lab here at Princeton, to look at the PJM interconnection in 2040, which means that okay, what would the grid look like in 2040, and then I hope to apply modeling to generate alternatives, which will then explore a wider range of portfolios within a certain cost that are feasible for this interconnection. So, by doing the capacity expansion alone, that would only solve for the least cost model. However, by applying this model to generate alternatives, or MGAs, I'm able to get a bunch of different other portfolios that it could also encompass or take on, but it might be a bit more expensive, for example. And then from there, I hope to choose a select number of portfolios. I know for one, portfolios will have varying concentrations of offshore wind, but other demographics I'm not yet sure about at this point, such as you know, hardening techniques or high solar for example, low emissions, there's just different ways or different aspects I could choose from, I just haven't figured out the metrics yet. From there, I would then create the natural hazard model specifically for hurricanes and flooding, which will most likely impact New Jersey. And then this hazard model will be applied to these portfolios chosen and will explore a range of hazards intensities, as well as impacted locations, and these locations will most likely be in New Jersey or New York. And my overall goal at the end of the day is to understand which portfolio is the most resilient, which will be estimated by which of these portfolios is able to generate electricity to meet the most demand post-hazard, as well as understand the ways in which offshore wind can assist these resiliency efforts by, for example, quickly supplying electricity post-hazard in the event that other generators are compromised.
Speaker 1 4:57
Wow, that sounds like very interesting work. So, going back to the work that you do at Princeton regarding renewable energy policies and the Caribbean, how are you hoping to apply this specific research to your own research focused on the Caribbean?
Speaker 2 5:11
That's a great question, and is one of my main motivators as to why I applied for this fellowship in the first place. So, my research hopes to look at the potential of a Eastern Caribbean power pool, which means the Eastern Caribbean interconnection, where all the islands are connected, and essentially, are a part of one big electricity grid. The Caribbean is fraught with natural hazards, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, you name it, we probably have it except tornadoes. I hope to take the same natural hazard model that I'm using for New Jersey, change a little bit and make it more customized and more fitting for the Caribbean, and then apply it to this eastern Caribbean power pool and see how resiliency efforts can be improved, or understand and approve. I'm hoping how this power pool can increase resiliency efforts as well as encourage the net-zero transition within the region.
Speaker 1 6:10
Great. So thank you so much for sharing your research with us and bringing this to our attention and also showing how your research is applicable elsewhere. And before we come to an end, do you have any advice or last words for our listeners on conducting research here at Princeton or in general?
Speaker 2 6:27
Sure, definitely. I feel like conducting research is always difficult. But when you're doing it, never stop asking questions. If you don't know something, don't sit and struggle. Ask for help if you need it. And lastly, the learning curve for anything new is always difficult and daunting, but it's surmountable and you will get over that hill.
Speaker 1 6:48
Thanks so much for that advice. I'm sure it will be super useful to our listeners. And again, thank you so much for being here with us today, Avery, and for going into depth about your research. We are super excited to see how your work with the Wind Institute fellowship program unfolds, and I wish you the best of luck.
Unknown Speaker 7:04
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 7:07
This episode of B-cubed was hosted and sound engineered by me and produced under the 147th Managing Board of the Prince. To learn more about Avery Barnett’s research, visit the links in the description below. From the Prince, my name is Noelle Kim. Have a lovely rest of your day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai