Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Laboratory

Current Projects

Solar Monitoring Station

FREEZWATER

History

Since 1993, within the Engineering Research Center (ERC), the group has been pursuing Renewable Energy related topics. Armenia, as a landlocked country, needs independent power supply that is also affordable. Diverse Renewable Energy options potentially can provide large amount of this demand. As an excellent case for Industrial Engineering and Systems Management, various aspects of Renewable Energy offer vast opportunities for cost optimization, systems analysis, facilities planning, statistical process control, and other challenges

Recent Results

  • Participation in the project: “Worldwide outdoor round robin study of organic photovoltaic devices and modules” with a large number of researchers worldwide.
  • The team has won twice the Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Program (STEP) “From Idea to Market” award by Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), for 2012 and 2013 on the Ventilation Heat Recovery Device (VHRD).
  • The group has performed experimentation in terms of the FREEZWATER project for water retention through natural freezing, performed on the Mt. Aragats, in cooperation with Swiss Cage holding and Fribourg University. It also has a Facebook page with videos describing it – https://www.facebook.com/Freezwater.
  • The group have performed a project in cooperation with industry – Developing an Optimization Model for a Cost Effective Hybrid Solar Water Heating System, 2012.
  • Group members have participated in the “Renewable Energy Roadmap of Armenia” in 2011.
  • Development of fast laser scanning equipment for characterization of semiconductor wafers and solar cells, in Cooperation with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 2011.

 

Directions for current and near future research

  • Renewable energy (RE) in general: resource monitoring; development of particular RE options – solar PV, Hot Water, Wind, bio-fuels (algae, crop residue, etc.); solar architecture.
  • RE policies: RE integration into society – legislation, tariffs, environmental issues, roadmap, etc.
  • Energy Efficiency (EE) technologies: HVAC; heat recovery; insulation; solar architecture; etc.
  • Optimization technologies applied to renewable energy and energy efficiency: optimal sizing of RE system components; feasibility calculation with/without externalities.
  • Industrial Engineering and Systems Management for Renewable Energy: locating bottlenecks/leveling production and processes, quality control; scheduling; facilities planning/layout.
  • Laser scanning for semiconductor surface characterization: solar cells, IC chips, non-destructive tests.
  • Water resources management: seasonal storage; retention through freezing, etc.

 

Related Publications

  1. Farinha Mendes, A.Hambarian, H-M Henning, Tim Selke, V.Afyan, A.Pinov, F.Luginsland – “Sistema de Demonstração com Energia Solar e Tecnologia DEC para Arrefecimento Ambiente Instalado na Universidade Americana da Arménia” – Accepted for oral presentation at the XI Iberian and VI IberoAmerican Solar Energy Congress to be held in Vilamoura (Algarve, Portugal), 29 Sept – 02 Oct 2002.
  2. Zhozef Panosyan, Artak Hambaryan, Kenell Touryan, Armen Tumanyan, Yeremia Yengibaryan, Mikayel Piradyan, Arsen Darbasyan, Wilhelm Akunyan. Design, “Construction and Monitoring of a Solar Photovoltaic Station Of AUA” – 21st European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference, 4-8 September 2006, Dresden, Germany.
  3. Artak Hambarian. “Renewable Energy Related Projects of the Engineering Research Center of the American University of Armenia. Invited conference paper”. ArmTech 2007 Congress, July 4-7, San Francisco, CA USA.
  4. Hambarian and W. Akunyan “Operational Outcomes of the DESODEC Solar Driven Cooling/Heating System”. EuroSun 2008 – 1ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOLAR HEATING, COOLING AND BUILDINGS, Conference Transactions. Lisbon, Portugal 7 – 10 October 2008 organized by the Solar Energy Society of Portugal and International Solar Energy Society (ISES).
  5. Patent: Bhushan L. Sopori, Artak Hambarian. Optic probe for semiconductor characterization US 7420669. Assignees: Midwest Research Institute. Application Number: 10/543970. Filing Date: 2004-07-01. Issue Date: 2008-09-02.
  6. Փոքր հիդրոէլեկտրակայանները Հայաստանում, Արեգ Ղարաբէգեան, Արտակ Համբարյան, Գնել Թուրեան http://hetq.am, July 10, 2012, http://hetq.am/arm/news/16451/poqr-hidroelektrakayannery-hayastanum.html (Small Hydropowerplants in Armenia, in Armenian).
  7. Tamara Babayan, Areg Gharabegian, Artak Hambarian, Morten Søndergaard, Kenell Touryan, Renewable Energy Potential in Armenia, armenianweekly.com/, http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/12/03/report-renewable-energy-potential-in-armenia/, Posted on December 3, 2011 in Opinion, Special Reports.
  8. The device developed by Armenian specialists provides ventilation in apartments without opening a window. Հայ մասնագետների ստեղծած սարքը կօդափոխի բնակարանները՝ առանց պատուհանները բացելու http://168.am/2013/12/11/308530.html (in Armenian).
  9. Artak Hambarian, Varuzhan Melikyan, Vardan Soghomonyan, Lusine Hovsepyan. Ventilation Heat Recovery Device. Proceedings of the 5th International Renewable and Clean Energy Conference, Yerevan October 24-25, 2013, pp. 127-129.
  10. Alexander Nestler, Matthias Huss, Rouben Ambartzumian, Artak Hambarian. Hydrological Implications of Covering Wind-Blown Snow Accumulations with Geotextiles on Mount Aragats, Armenia. Geosciences 2014, 4(3), 73-92. http://www.mdpi.com/2076-3263/4/3/73.
  11. Morten V. Madsen, Suren A. Gevorgyan, R. Pacios, J. Ajuria, I. Etxebarria, Jeff Kettle, Noel D. Bristow, Marios Neophytou, Stelios A. Choulis, Lucimara Stolz Roman, Teketel Yohannes, Andrea Cester, Pei Cheng, Xiaowei Zhan, Jiang Wu, Zhiyuan Xie, Wei-Chen Tu, Jr-Hau He, Christopher J Fell, Kenrick Anderson, Martin Hermenau, Davide Bartesaghi, L. Jan Anton Koster, Florian Machui, Irene González-Valls, Monica Lira-Cantu, Petr P. Khlyabich, Barry C. Thompson, Ritu Gupta, Kiruthika Shanmugam, Giridhar U. Kulkarni, Yulia Galagan, Antonio Urbina, Jose Abad, Roland Roesch, Harald Hoppe, P. Morvillo, E. Bobeico, Eugen Panaitescu, Latika Menon, Qun Luo, Zhenwu Wu, Changqi Ma, Artak Hambarian, Varuzhan Melikyan, M. Hambsch, Paul L. Burn, Paul Meredith, Thomas Rath, Sebastian Dunst, Gregor Trimmel, Giorgio Bardizza, Harald Müllejans, A. E. Goryachev, Ravi K. Misra, Eugene A. Katz, Katsuhiko Takagi, Shinichi Magaino, Hidenori Saito, Daisuke Aoki, Paul M. Sommeling, Jan M. Kroon, Tim Vangerven, Jean Manca, Jurgen Kesters, Wouter Maes, Olga D. Bobkova, Vasily A.Trukhanov, Dmitry Yu. Paraschuk, Fernando A. Castro, James Blakesley, Sachetan M Tuladhar, Jason Alexander Röhr, Jenny Nelson, Jiangbin Xia, Elif Alturk Parlak, Tülay Aslı Tumay, Hans-Joachim Egelhaaf, David M. Tanenbaum, Gretta Mae Ferguson, Robert Carpenter, Hongzheng Chen, Birger Zimmermann, Lionel Hirsch, Guillaume Wantz, Ziqi Sun, Pradeep Singh, Chaitnya Bapat, Ton Offermans, and Frederik C. Krebs. Worldwide outdoor round robin study of organic photovoltaic devices and modules. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 2014.

 

Completed projects

  • Participation in the project: “Worldwide outdoor round robin study of organic photovoltaic devices and modules” with a large number of researchers worldwide.
  • The team has won twice the Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Program (STEP) “From Idea to Market” award by Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF), for 2012 and 2013 on the Ventilation Heat Recovery Device (VHRD).
  • The group has performed experimentation in terms of the FREEZWATER project for water retention through natural freezing, performed on the Mt. Aragats, in cooperation with Swiss Cage holding and Fribourg University. It also has a Facebook page with videos describing it – https://www.facebook.com/Freezwater.
  • The group have performed a project in cooperation with industry – Developing an Optimization Model for a Cost Effective Hybrid Solar Water Heating System, 2012.
  • Group members have participated in the “Renewable Energy Roadmap of Armenia” in 2011.
  • Development of fast laser scanning equipment for characterization of semiconductor wafers and solar cells, in Cooperation with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), 2011.
  • Review of the Renewable Energy Landscape in Armenia.
  • Solar Monitoring Station of the American University of Armenia.
  • AUA Solar driven heating and cooling project (DESODEC). Participants: DER INETI, Lisbon, Portugal; ISE Freiburg, Fraunhofer, Germany; InterSolarCenter, Russia; Contact-A, AUA, Armenia.
  • 2002 Heat recovery ventilation project.
  • AUA 5kW PV Turpanjian project.
  • 2006-2011. Laser scanning for semiconductor surface characterization: solar cells, IC chips, non-destructive tests (PVSCAN). Participants: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Co, USA; AUA.
  • Developing an Optimization Model for a Cost Effective Hybrid Solar Water Heating System.

Profile for team members

Dr. Hambarian, Associate Director of the Engineering Research Center (ERC) of the AUA, physicist and an Industrial Engineer, has performed in fact most of the ERC-s energy projects, teaches energy and Industrial Engineering related courses at College of Engineering, AUA.

 

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