Date: Thursday, March 20, 2025
Time: 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM *Optional meetup at 1:45 PM at the GWCC, Level Four, Information Desk
Cost: $30 – PLEASE NOTE: This tour is now SOLD OUT.
Transportation: Transportation will be provided from the Omni Atlanta Hotel to Georgia Tech. The bus will start loading at 1:45 PM and will depart by 2:00 PM from Andrew Young International Blvd. between the North and South towers of the Omni hotel. You can exit the Omni Hotel either from South Tower, Level M2 and walk through the parking garage out to Andrew Young Intl Blvd, or from the North Tower, Level M1 and cross the street to the busses. Transportation will also be provided back to the Omni Hotel at the conclusion of the tour.
About the Tour: The APEC 2025 Committee is excited to share an exclusive tour of Georgia Tech’s Center For Distributed Energy (CDE). The Center was established at Georgia Tech with financial support from the Georgia Research Alliance and Georgia Tech to do advanced research and to develop technologies and holistic solutions that can transform electricity delivery and utilization. Research areas include power conversion, industrial applications, energy conservation, distributed energy resources, distributed control of the grid, security and communications in energy, microgrids, DC nanogrids, and energy access for emerging markets. The CDE partners include utilities, industry, manufacturers, research organizations, start-ups, venture capitalists, and other academic institutions with interests in aligned areas. In addition to doing traditional forward-looking cutting-edge academic research, the CDE is uniquely focused on accelerating and de-risking technologies so that they can see faster adoption and higher impact. Since its founding in 2015, the CDE has leveraged more than $25M in federal, state, and private funding to research, develop, and demonstrate high-impact projects in the area of power electronics for grid and industrial applications.
APEC visitors will tour two of the main laboratory facilities at the CDE: the high-voltage laboratory and the prototyping and microgrid laboratory. Participants of the tour will be able to engage with the CDE personnel and staff as they present their ongoing projects and showcase the relevant power converter hardware pieces developed in current and past projects, including technologies that are now being commercialized through start-up companies generated with CDE technology (e.g., https://www.gridblock.com/ and https://www.gigagrid.com/). Lastly, several technology demos, including a multi-inverter decentralized microgrid, will be showcased live for the visitors. Each lab tour will be 30 minutes and include an open Q&A session with the visitors and CDE staff.
Pricing includes tour, light snacks, and transportation. Attendees will be picked up from GWCC and transported to Georgia Tech for the tour. Attendees will return back to GWCC by 4:00 PM. Open to all attendees, however spaces are limited. You must register to attend this tour.