People of SU / ResearchEngineering Professor Receives NSF Grant for Off-Grid Solar ElectricityNo Author ProvidedSeptember 13, 2021Image credit: National Science FoundationNo Caption ProvidedCollaborative research led by Henry Louie, PhD, focuses on improving access to electricity on Native American reservations.Professor Henry Louie, PhD, of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is a recent recipient of a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. As principal investigator representing Seattle University, Dr. Louie will collaborate with research partner Navajo Technical University, located in New Mexico. The three-year award, totaling $540,000, will be divided between the two universities to address the issue of energy poverty and assess how “off-grid systems on Native American reservations perform and to develop a novel method to improve their design, resulting in lower costs and enhanced performance.” The grant will also fund laboratory equipment and student stipends for undergraduate research. Dr. Louie’s research focuses on using solar energy to provide electricity to off-grid communities in energy-impoverished settings around the world. He is actively involved in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power & Energy Society. In 2015-2016, Dr. Louie was a Fulbright Scholar to Copperbelt University in Zambia. He is the author of the textbook, Off-Grid Electrical Systems in Developing Countries, which has been adopted by universities around the world. This October, he will be instructing Fundamentals of Off-Grid Electrical Systems, a tutorial course featured in the 2021 virtual IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference. View the NSF grant’s abstract here.