Michael Blonsky

Michael Blonsky

Researcher III-Electrical Engineering


303-275-3192
Orcid ID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8732-9922

Michael Blonsky is a research engineer in the Distribution Edge Group within the Grid Planning and Analysis Center at NREL. His primary research areas include modeling and control of flexible loads, including heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning equipment, water heaters, electric vehicles, as well as other distributed energy resources (DERs). He works on a variety of projects that simulate buildings, DERs, distribution systems, home energy management systems, transactive markets, and distribution-scale aggregators and controllers. He is the lead developer for OCHRE, a residential energy model for building-to-grid integration studies. 

Research Interests

Demand Flexibility

Distributed Energy Resource Aggregation and Control

Building Energy Modeling

Education

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines 

M.S., Electrical Engineering, Colorado School of Mines

B.S., Materials Science and Engineering, Cornell University

Professional Experience

Consultant, EMI Consulting (2014–2017)

Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, Colorado School of Mines (2017–2019)

Featured Work

Hardware Implementation and Market Impacts of Grid-Supportive Functions in End-Use Loads, NREL Technical Report (2023)

Home Energy Management Under Realistic and Uncertain Conditions: A Comparison of Heuristic, Deterministic, and Stochastic Control Methods, Applied Energy (2022)

Savings in Action: Lessons from Observed and Modeled Residential Solar Plus Storage Systems, NREL Technical Report (2022)

OCHRE: The Object-oriented, Controllable, High-resolution Residential Energy Model for Dynamic Integration Studies, Applied Energy (2021)

Potential Impacts of Transportation and Building Electrification on the Grid: A Review of Electrification Projections and Their Effects on Grid Infrastructure, Operation, and Planning, Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports (2019)

Select Software

The Object-oriented Controllable High-resolution Residential Energy Model (OCHRE)

OpenDSS-Wrapper

Virtual Battery Aggregator

Distribution System Co-Simulation with OpenDSS and DER controls (dss-cosim)

Awards and Honors

First Place, Solar Decathlon Africa (2019)


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