EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State University and a major Chinese manufacturer of electric railway locomotive engines have entered into an agreement to create the ZELRI-MSU Power Research Center. The initiative is the latest step in MSU’s efforts to create synergy between its international research collaborations and the economic development of mid-Michigan.

The center will be led by Fang Peng, a professor in MSU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Zhuzhou Times Electric Group (TEG), also known as Zhuzhou Electric Locomotive Research Institute, CSR (ZELRI), has its principal place of business in Shifeng District, Zhuzhou, Hunan, People’s Republic of China. The firm employs approximately 10,000 workers and produces approximately 300 electric locomotive engines per year.

Peng, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and winner of the MSU College of Engineering’s Withrow Distinguished Scholar Award, conducts research in power electronics, motor drives, hybrid electric vehicles, and renewable energy interface systems. Under the three-year, $600,000 contract, the MSU-ZELRI Power Electronics Center will extend his research in collaboration with TEG and also provide supervised training to a rotating group of TEG engineers, up to four of whom are expected to be in residence in the center at any given time.

The ZELRI-MSU Power Electronics Center will be located in leased space at MBI International in Lansing, a site that anchors one component of the new Lansing/East Lansing SmartZone.

“Electric power holds great potential in many forms of vehicular transportation,” said MSU President Lou Anna Kimsey Simon. “Beyond issues of generation and storage, however, electric power also poses challenges to engineers who must harness it efficiently, under many operating conditions. MSU possesses established expertise in that field in the laboratory of Professor Peng. Through this initiative, we can help launch the new SmartZone with immediate international participation and credibility in an area of growing technological importance.”

Simon also called attention to the growing set of MSU scholarly projects being undertaken in collaboration with Chinese colleagues, across such diverse areas as the use of information technology in education and modern turf grass production.

“With this announcement, we are proud to add the new ZELRI-MSU Power Electronics Research Center to MSU’s portfolio of China linkages,” she said.

For more information about the ZELRI-MSU Power Electronics Research Center, please contact Ronald Rosenberg, associate dean for research, MSU College of Engineering, at (517) 432-2464.

For more information about the new Lansing / East Lansing SmartZone, contact Russ White, University Relations, at (517) 355-2281.