Center for Research in Energy and Environment
Solar Villagesliving laboratories
Solar Villages Living Laboratories
Solar Village
The Solar Village is a research and demonstration laboratory made up of four student-designed solar houses that function as living laboratory . Ech solar home is occupied by Missouri S&T students and used for research . Each solar home is connected to a central microgrid which allow for peer to peer energy transactions between homes and running the homes islander from the main grid. An EV charging station is also available.
EcoVillage
The EcoVillage is a research and demonstration laboratory made- up of two student -designed solar houses that function as a Living Laboratory. Each house is occupied by S&T students while research in renewable energy, smart infrastructure, human technology interaction.... are happening.Each solar house is for now tied individually to its own Advanced Lead Acid microgrid. The homes can run on their own solar power and battery storage for multiple days at the time. The EcoVillage is in development, but will eventually demonstrate what the small neighborhood of the future will be.
Microgrids
The Solar Villages Living Laboratories have three microgrids. The Solar Village microgrid is made-up of 60kw Lithium Ion Batteries and connected to the 4 Solar Homes. It is a grid- tied microgrid, but can be islanded from the grid if needed. The EcoVillage microgrids are made-up of two 67.5 Kw Advanced Lead Acid batteries and each microgrid for now is connected to its own Solar House for research purpose. One microgrid is hosting Enersys Advanced lead Acid batteries and the other microgrid is hosting Northstar Advanced Lead Acid Batteries. These are tried tied microgrid, but they can be islander from the grid needed.
Check out our brochure
See our one-page handout that reviews the research going on at the Solar and EcoVillage living laboratories.
Education and Outreach
The Solar Villages Living Laboratories are an ideal place for current and future students and their parents, community members, industry partners to learn more about the work done by our Solar House student design team, researchers, and industry partners to advance reneable energy in photovoltaics , energy storage, and Smart Living technologies, and sustainable and resilient construction materials. Please request a tour at least 1 week in advance due to the large ampount of request, but also because students live in these "one of a king" living laboratories. Regular tour hours are from 10am to 4pm during week days and from 10am to 2pm on Saturdays.
Research at the Solar Villages Living laboratories
The Solar Villages living laboratories at Missouri S&T provide a place for innovation, bringing together student design teams, our world class researchers and industry partners to design and build the world of tomorrow.