Mississippi State recently received a grant worth approximately $1 million to help develop an alternative energy production system for use in residential, agricultural and small commercial buildings.
The U.S. Department of Energy allotted a $962,000 grant for Mississippi State’s micro cooling, heating and power, and bio-fuel center to develop the new alternative energy system.
The program originally began in 2004 and was given a $3.8 million grant.
Mechanical engineering professor Louay M. Chamra is the leader for MSU’s Micro-CHP research program.
“The project will help provide low-cost energy units to people for their homes,” Chamra said.
He also added that the units would be available for small farms and some commercial buildings.
MSU has its own energy conservation and emergency-generation plan in place.
However, the alternative energy production systems that Chamra and the Micro-CHP research program are using the grant for will be able to benefit many in Mississippi and people in other regions.
This issue in Mississippi and the other regions affected by Hurricane Katrina holds a lot of weight because of the large amount of energy lost after the storm.
“The world’s economics and Hurricane Katrina made the prices of energy go up,” executive director of campus facilities Jim Jones said.
After Katrina, the cost of energy went up significantly. These new energy production systems would help lower the cost a user would pay for energy, he said.