Research Staff

Brian Parsons — Program Manager

(303) 384-6958

Brian Parsons is the project leader for wind energy grid integration at the NWTC. Brian is focused on grid operating costs and impacts, transmission, and interconnection issues. He works closely with the Utility Wind Integration Group and the transmission workgroup of the National Wind Coordinating Committee. He also works with the Department of Energy's Wind Powering America deployment and outreach initiative.

Prior to employment at NREL, Brian received his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at the University of Colorado and a masters in mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Back to Top

David Corbus — Senior Engineer

(303) 384-6966
M.S., Applied Science (Mechanical Engineering), New York University (Courses completed for Ph.D.)
B.A., New York University

Dave was hired at NREL in 1991. He is currently a test engineer working on wind turbine loads testing for the Small Wind Research Turbine (SWRT) project. The SWRT project will produce the first complete set of loads and furling measurements for a small wind turbine. Dave has been involved with other wind turbine testing as well, which has included certification loads measurements, power performance testing, safety and function testing, and durations tests. Previous to being a test engineer, he worked on system design and integration for small wind systems and hybrid power systems. This work included feasibility studies, system modeling, design, system integration, and installation of small wind pilot projects in international off-grid settings. To understand the performance of these systems, Dave helped develop monitoring systems to measure important system parameters and to characterize system performance. This extensive expertise in the design and deployment of off-grid small wind systems resulted in the development of various end-use applications for these systems. Prior to working at the NWTC, Dave worked in the Analytic Studies Division at NREL conducting technology evaluations of emerging battery and fuel cell technologies.

Before coming to NREL, he worked as a mechanical engineer for Parsons, Brinckerhoff, Quade, and Douglas for 4 years and then Doucet and Mainka P.C. for 3 years, both private engineering consulting firms. In these positions, Dave designed air pollution control systems for various combustion applications and worked on a host of different mechanical engineering projects.

Back to Top

Debra Lew — Senior Project Leader

(303) 384-7037
PhD, Applied Physics, Stanford University
M.S., Applied Physics, Stanford University
BS, Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
BS, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Debbie joined NREL in 1995. She is a member of the Systems Integration Team, working on wind systems integration and transmission issues. She is currently leading the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, the largest wind and solar integration study to date, that investigates operating and cost impacts of the variability and uncertainty of wind and solar power on the grid. She also works with transmission planning groups and transmission advocates in the West. Prior to rejoining the NWTC, Debbie was the group manager for NREL's Environmental and International Group, which focused on deployment of renewable energy technologies in developing countries, and the lead for NREL's China program, which focused on rural electrification, policies and programs, wind integration, and renewable energy business development. She started her work at NREL modeling and designing hybrid systems for households and villages in developing countries.

Debbie spent 2 years in Thailand at the International Institute for Energy Conservation working on climate change mitigation and increased use of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in Asia. She was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies working on large-scale wind development combined with compressed air energy storage in China and the climate impacts of charcoal use in Africa. As a private consultant she has also worked on transportation fuel cycle emissions for various biomass pathways, renewable energy strategies, renewable energy policy in China, and analysis of off-grid hybrid systems.

Back to Top

Ed Muljadi — Senior Engineer

(303) 384-6904
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.S., Electrical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
B.Sc., Electrical Engineering, Surabaya Institute of Technology

Ed was hired at NREL in 1992. He is a member of the Applied Research Team at the NWTC. His research projects are in the fields of electric machines, power electronics, and power systems with emphasis on wind technology applications. He was involved with many different projects with industries, including variable speed wind turbine development, electric machine design and optimization, small wind turbine applications (battery charging, grid connection, and water pumping), and wind farm power system model development. He has written numerous publications and was the recipient of an IEEE-Prize paper in 1989. He holds two patents in renewable energy power conversion for a variable speed wind turbine generator and a peak power tracker for photovoltaic applications.

Ed is a member of Eta Kappa Nu, Sigma Xi, and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He is involved in the activities of the IEEE Industry Application Society and Power Engineering Society. He is currently a member of the Industrial Drives Committee, Electric Machines Committee, and Industrial Power Converter Committee of the IAS-IEEE. Before joining NREL, he was an associate professor at California State University in Fresno.

Back to Top

Yih-Huei Wan — Senior Engineer

(303) 384-7025
M.S., Electrical Engineering, Southern Illinois University
B.S., Electrical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University

Yih-huei was hired at NREL in 1991. His expertise is in electric power system engineering, planning, and operation. His work at NREL involves researching and analyzing issues related to integrating renewable energy technologies into the electric power grid. Subject topics include renewable energy capacity credit, operational impacts of intermittent energy sources on operations, distributed generation, and transmission constraints. He has also carried out analysis on distribution generation, renewable energy resource assessment, and renewable energy policy issues (such as net metering and green tariffs). He currently manages the Wind Farm Monitoring program that collects long-term, high-frequency wind power output data from several large commercial wind farms in the Midwest. The collected data are used to show how wind power actually behaves and provide the industry with meaningful statistics on fluctuations of wind power.

Before joining NREL, Yih-Huei worked as an electrical engineer for Western Farmer Electric Cooperative, a generation and transmission cooperative serving rural Oklahoma, for 10 years. He started in distribution substation design and progressed to transmission substation design, transmission system planning, and finally to system operations and bulk power transaction analysis. He represented his company in several Southwest Power Pool working groups on system modeling and regional system reliability.

Back to Top

Michael Milligan — Consultant

Ph.D. University of Colorado, Boulder
M.A. University of Colorado, Denver
B.A. Albion College

Michael came to NREL's wind energy program in 1992 and is now part of the Systems Integration Team at the National Wind Technology Center. He has worked on issues such as the ancillary service impacts of wind generation, the value of accurate wind forecasting, optimal selection of geographically dispersed wind power plants, modeling wind plant variability, and reliability contribution of wind power plants. Recent work in collaboration with Brendan Kirby of Oak Ridge National Laboratory has shown how ramp constraints can artificially increase energy prices and how balancing areas can reduce this impact by combining operations. He has authored or coauthored 80 papers, reports, and book chapters, and he collaborates closely with the Utility Wind Integration Group. Michael has served on technical review committees for wind integration studies in several states, provided testimony at public utility commission hearings and workshop presentations, participated in transmission and integration studies throughout the West and Midwest, and was a member of the Wind Task Force for the Western Governors' Association Clean and Diverse Energy project. He is also a member of the Wind Powering America team, providing technical assistance and outreach on wind integration and economic development impacts of wind.

Back to Top

Lynn Coles — Senior Engineer

303-384-6974
B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of North Dakota
M.S. Electrical and Electronic Engineering, North Dakota State University
M.B.A. Master's of Business Administration, University of St. Thomas

Lynn is currently a member of the systems integration team addressing wind integration and transmission issues. Lynn's primary focus is assisting regional groups address transmission needs for the addition of substantial amounts of wind to meet Renewables Portfolio Standards and other required standards.

He brings to the team experience as a utility system planner and as a consultant providing transmission advice and analysis to utilities. Lynn's experience includes working with Regional Transmission Organizations and their transmission access rules, developing and critiquing transmission rates including rate protests at FERC, and working with new NERC reliability requirements.

Lynn has returned to NREL in 2008 to work with the system integration group. From 1987 through 1996, Lynn worked in the NREL utility analysis group. He led NREL's involvement in the Distributed Utility Valuation Project, a joint EPRI, NREL, PG&E and PNNL effort to examine and quantify the benefits of distributed energy. Lynn also led NREL's participation in the DOE-European Communities series of workshops looking at impacts of variable generation such as wind and PV on utility systems and processes.

Lynn is a registered Professional Engineer in two states, a member of the Eta Kappa Nu Honorary, and a Senior Member of the IEEE Power Engineering Society.

Back to Top

Erik Ela — Engineer

303-384-7089
B.S. Electrical Engineering, SUNY Binghamton
Pursuing M.S. in Electric Power from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Erik joined the systems integration team to work on different wind integration issues. His experience lies mostly in different topics relating to grid operations and market operations. Erik is currently doing work on looking at ancillary service impacts, energy pricing impacts of wind in restructured markets, and topics related to the proper use of wind forecasts from a system operator point of view.

Erik came from the New York Independent System Operator where he worked on integrating a wind forecasting system, among other projects. He brings to the team experience in the operations of Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and their importance to the integration of wind energy.

Back to Top