JUNO BEACH, Fla. — Dr. Rachana Vidhi – a prolific inventor transforming the renewable energy industry – recently became a member of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.
With nine patents under her belt and a few more pending, Dr. Vidhi’s work at NextEra Energy, Inc., the world’s largest generator of renewable energy and a leader in battery storage, has made her the first employee to receive this prestigious honor for contributions made to the company.
“Most of my patents are related to the integration of renewable energy and battery storage technologies,” she explained. “Some of my earlier patents were really focused on estimating the long-term battery degradation as well as integration of battery storage with solar energy.”
From pioneering groundbreaking battery technology to piloting drone imaging and advancing technology in wind energy, electric vehicles (EVs), and more, Dr. Vidhi exemplifies how NextEra Energy is uniquely positioned with its scale, experience, and technology to meet the ever-growing nationwide demand for energy.
Owned and operated by NextEra Energy subsidiary Florida Power & Light Company (FPL), the Manatee Energy Storage Center is located southeast of Tampa and stores solar energy captured from an adjacent solar power plant for later use. This ensures energy availability when the sun isn’t shining, reduces the waste of excess renewable energy and the need to run traditional power plants, which generates fuel savings for utility customers. With U.S. power demand expected to grow approximately 55% over the next two decades, this type of technology drives the future of power.
Dr. Vidhi’s work propelled her to lead the engineering, design and integration of key solar and storage projects, significantly increasing storage capacity from 20 megawatts to several gigawatts and enabling a booming growth in renewables.
“When I got my first patent and it said inventor in the patent award, it felt like a huge accomplishment. It’s been a childhood dream of mine to ensure solar gets adopted worldwide,” Dr. Vidhi said.
Being an inventor is something Dr. Vidhi dreamt of as a child.
Born into a family of doctors in Bihar, India, Dr. Vidhi often devoured books inside her bedroom, absorbing the thoughts of some of the world’s greatest inventors – from Thomas Edison to Madam Curie and Albert Einstein.
As she lost herself in reading, the sunshine outside her bedroom window faded quickly into night. Oftentimes, she read in the darkness.
Her town experienced frequent outages, so whenever the lights went out, Dr. Vidhi would turn to her trusty kerosene lamp to see the pages of her favorite physics book.
It was that book that sparked an idea in the young girl’s mind – what if the sun powered my lights?
This thought ignited a journey that led to a bachelor’s degree in energy engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, followed by a master’s degree in management from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of South Florida.
Dr. Vidhi joined NextEra Energy in 2014 as an engineer designing and building hybrid technology for renewable power generation and quickly advanced to leadership roles, sharing her knowledge and expertise with up-and-coming engineers.
“Rachana and a few others were some of the earliest folks in our company who started thinking about battery storage,” Matt Valle, president of NextEra Energy Transmission, said.
Dr. Vidhi’s inventions have influenced more than just the solar and battery storage industries; they've also permeated wind energy, drone imaging, electric vehicles (EV) and fuel cells.
She believes innovation thrives at the crossroads of diverse perspectives and inventions in one industry can easily cross over to others.
Her recent patent application for artificial intelligence systems, for instance, helps both the renewable energy and agricultural industries by quickly analyzing drone images to pinpoint problems in wind turbines or plant farms below.
Her battery storage expertise also flowed into the EV industry, where she invented an advanced system using EV charging station batteries to support the power grid by predicting peak recharge times and controlling charging schedules based on real-time battery charge data from nearby EVs.
“I have a three-year old son, so making sure that the world is a better place for him and people and the generations coming after him is important to me,” Dr. Vidhi said. “I'm still early in my career in many ways and there's a lot more to do.”
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