Aaron Barker Email & Phone Number

Austin, Texas, United States

Colorado, United States

- Lead developer for component-level, utility-scale hybrid energy system design, optimization and analysis tool (NREL's Hybrid Optimization and Performance Platform - HOPP): https://github.com/NREL/HOPP -- The HOPP tool includes wind, solar, storage amongst other technologies, and is capable of modeling advanced plant-level controls and battery dispatch optimization for battery energy and thermal energy storage. -- The storage model incorporates everything from a simple dispatch model to heuristic, to convex and non convex linear voltage dispatch models. We use these capabilities to model both revenue and resilience objectives.- Lead on MIRACL (Microgrids, Infrastructure Resilience and advanced controls launchpad) project - a multi-lab project with 25+ staff working on a collaborative, multiyear distributed wind research effort to accelerate distributed wind technology development. -- Large focus on enabling renewables to provide ancillary services, grid resilience in unique markets or isolated communities, encompassing everything from power-hardware-in-the-loop simulations, to monte-carlo studies to inform a range of optimal plant designs for different energy objectives.- Responsible for integration of NREL's REopt tool (techno-economic decision support platform to optimize energy systems for buildings, campuses, communities, microgrids, and more) with HOPP, to enable mixed integer linear approach for solving battery sizing problem in on and off-grid hybrid systems, with different requirements for supply continuity. E.G. supplying PEM electrolyzer with 10% minimum and 90% of continuous rating requirement.

Golden, Colorado

- Researching Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems- Analyzing key drivers of hybrid development, and addressing core technical challenges preventing hybrid deployment.- Creating systems engineering and financial modelling tools to enable the development of Hybrids.- Additional research focus on Autonomous Energy Systems control techniques

Corvallis, Oregon Area

Awarded a Fulbright-Marine Institute Award at Oregon State University to research the application of Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence methods to improving the estimation of energy production in Marine Renewable Energy projects.

United States

Cork, Ireland

EU-XCEL is a new virtual accelerator which seeks out talented, aspiring entrepreneurs in the field of information and communication technology (ICT) to participate in a unique international entrepreneurship experience focused on creating and supporting European teams to become incubator-ready entrepreneurshttp://euxcel.eu/

University

Delivered Demonstration classes for core third year undergraduate hydraulics module.Produced preparatory material and gave instruction on two fundamental introductory lab experiments. Responsible for correcting and grading submitted reports.-Introduction to Open Channel Flow: Study of flow behaviour in an open channel with specific focus on sluice gate, venturi flume and broad crested weir. -Introduction to Hydraulic Turbines: Study of a Reaction and Impulse type turbine.

Ireland

Tutored students for the Numerical Methods and Programming module which involved:-Using Matlab programming techniques such as scripting, plotting and writing functions.-Using numerical techniques to analyze experimental data using curve fitting and interpolation.-Describing and numerically solving simultaneous linear equations.-Describing and numerically differentiating and integrating analytical or tabulated functions.-Describing and numerically solving ordinary differential equations.-Solving for the roots of non-linear algebraic equations.

Developed software to analyse site resources for wind and wave energy development.

Researching the potential application of wave energy devices for use in a pumped storage scheme.

Built, managed and maintained computer and network systems required for business operation.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Civil Engineering, Civil Engineering

Thesis: "Data Driven Analysis of Reliability, Accessibility and Survivability in Marine Renewable Energy Projects" Implemented advanced.

Bachelor Of Engineering (B.E.), Civil And Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, First Class Honours

Activities and Societies: Civil Engineering Entertainments Rep (4th Year) 2012/2013 Inline Hockey Secretary 2012/2013 -Developed skills.

510 Points - Leaving Certificate 2009

Full Academic Scholarship (all years) Subjects (Higher Level): English, Irish, Maths, French, Physics, Chemistry, Applied Maths