Dr. Michael Azarian attended a 2-day workshop at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in May 2024 focused on Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) for Renewables. His invited talk provided a survey of research on PHM of electronics at CALCE. The purpose of the workshop was to address the operations and maintenance (O&M) challenges that enable a cost-effective clean energy economy.

Dr. Azarian’s presentation highlighted the unique challenges, and the solutions developed by CALCE, associated with health monitoring of electronic products: the high density of failure sites, modes, and mechanisms; sensing constraints associated with size, weight, and power; the high frequency or bit rate of signals that provide the features for condition monitoring; and the diversity of both technologies and dimensional scales.

Speakers from NREL presented the state of technology and O&M challenges of the various elements of the renewable energy industry: wind, photovoltaics, energy storage, hydrogen, power electronics, and hybrid plants. In addition to Dr. Azarian, speakers from the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland included Prof. Jay Lee (Industrial Artificial Intelligence Center) and Dr. Antonio Ruiz (Center for Risk and Reliability).

Dr. Michael Azarian

For more information or queries, contact Dr. Michael Azarian.