Vancouver Energy Management Students Light Up the Competition

^{Pictured from left: Uttam Khatri, Iris Cheng, Huijing Qiu, Patty Chen, Dawei Chen, Marcos de Macedo Martins, Shams Islam, Assistant Professor Arman Bonakdarpour, Tina Liu, Jorge Vivas, and Erick Castro Cunha attend the Generate 2025 conference.}

Vancouver-based Assistant Professor of Energy Management Arman Bonakdarpour, Ph.D., has been busy this spring witnessing his students’ success in energy design and poster competitions. In a solar competition’s final round, a team of four students secured a third-place win in their division, and, at a clean energy conference, two students celebrated a poster contest victory.

The recent triumphs began in December when energy management students Tina Liu, Erick Castro Cunha, and Shams Islam competed in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar District Cup Collegiate Design Competition. The trio successfully designed and implemented a comprehensive solar photovoltaic system for several buildings across the north, central, and south campuses of Seattle Colleges in Washington State.

In April, with the addition of energy management student Jorge Paez Vivas, the team submitted a more refined design plan for the Cup’s final round. Their comprehensive proposal, more than 60 pages long, earned them third place in the Seattle Colleges Use Case Division—among 18 out of 38 teams to earn a first-, second-, or third-place award.

“I’m honored to have played a small part in supporting the Solar District Cup team,” says Soroush Chehrehgosha (M.S. ’21), a Vancouver-based solar photovoltaic designer who provided the team with industrial guidance. “Their dedication, creativity, and hard work throughout the project is inspiring.”

In mid-May, Bonakdarpour and 14 energy management students attended the Clean Energy Association of British Columbia’s Generate 2025. Activities during the two-day conference included trade shows, discussions with industry professionals, networking opportunities, and student poster presentations.

The New York Tech students submitted nine posters—more than any other institution present for the event—showcasing capstone work, thesis research, various projects, and designs featured in the Solar District Cup. Castro Cunha and Yash Dhameliya won the poster competition with their work, “Assessing the Feasibility of Wind Power and Energy Storage in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia.” Haida Gwaii, a remote, off-grid archipelago, relies primarily on diesel generators for electricity. With significant local wind, solar, and hydro resources, renewable energy could sustainably meet the island’s power needs, reducing reliance on diesel.

“In addition to our remarkable achievement following our first-time entry to the Solar District Cup, we’ve won the student poster competition every year since joining the Clean Energy conference three years ago,” Bonakdarpour says. “Our continued success is a clear testament to the excellence of our students, the hard work of our faculty members, including Dr. Patrica Keen and Dr. Max Razavi, and the success of our energy management program.”

Other student work on display at Generate 2025 included:

• “Energy Modelling of a Residential House Using RETScreen Expert and HOT2000 in BC” by Huijing Qiu, Hua Guo, and Peng Zhang

• “Development Plan and Financial Analysis of Solar PV + Energy Storage System for Seattle Colleges” by Erick Castro Cunha and Jorge Paez Vivas

• “Techno-Economic Evaluation of the Tŝilhqot’in First Nation Wind Farm in BC: Viability and Cost-Optimization for an Indigenous Community” by Camilo Andres Zambrano Zambrano, Marcos de Macedo Martins, Paula Alvarez, and Shams Islam

• “Expansion of EV Infrastructure and Its Consequences on Labor Market Dynamics in BC” by Vinny Liu and Siliang Yu

• “Upgrading Existing Single-Pane Windows With Triple-Pane Windows in Prince George, BC” by Dawei Chen and Uttam Khatri

• “A Technoeconomic Assessment of Thermal Energy Storage System (TES) as a Demand Response Strategy for UBC Forestry Building” by Yingpei (Tina) Liu

• “Design of Distributed Solar PV for Seattle Colleges” by Shams Islam and Yingpei (Tina) Liu

• “Feasiblity of Retrofitting NG Boiler with Heat Pump for a Hotel in Vernon, BC” by Patty Chen and Iris Cheng