Hello all! Hope you've all had wonderful weeks (and spring breaks if applicable). I am very happy to say I celebrated my 18th birthday this week and had an amazing time. I also celebrated Chaharshanbe Soori (Festival of Fire). This festival, which is held on the last Tuesday before Persian New Year (tomorrow), promotes bring good fortune and spirits into your life while casting away the bad ones. We all come together with food and joy and jump over fires. Jumping over the fires symbolizes giving away bad spirits from the past year while gaining the bright spirits from the fire for the year to come.

I don't have too much to talk about since my adviser has been out of town this week and I have been working on translating all my information into my presentation, which I will be presenting at the end of the year. I will use this post to explain more of Intel's role in the process of smart inverter production. Intel itself is not manufacturing the smart inverters. They will be providing specific parts (microprocessors and micrcontrollers) that aren't required by the inverter, but will improve them.

Currently, inverters have one profile: constant-leveled AC-DC conversion. The microcontrollers and microprocessors will allow inverters to have multiple profiles, meaning that the inverter will have different commands throughout the day. The ideal profile transitions would occur at different time periods based on the family. For example, energy conversion would be completely minimized after people go to work/school. Families with children can have energy conversion increase when their kids come home and continue to rise for when they come home from work. Moreover, the profiles can change on day to day bases (i.e., weekend days would keep energy conversion constant).

The other functionality of the microprocessors/controllers is the convenience they can bring to their customers. Customers will be allowed to connect to the inverters through the cellphones, tablets, computers, etc to control the energy levels. So if someone decides to take a sick day, the homeowner does not have to reset the controls, but instead can manually adjust the energy conversion for the day. These new devices are what will lead technologies beyond inverters to a new "smart" generation.

That's it for this week and thank you for reading the summary of my project. My adviser will come back next week and I will conduct more interviews and have a tour of the solar facility at Intel. Have a wonderful week!

Signing off,
Kayvon Tadj