Energy Systems degree powers alum’s clean tech venture

We all hope that our education will take us wherever we want to go. Sometimes, that journey will take us back to where we started.

Oscar Azofeifa came to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to further his education as a student in the Master of Engineering in Energy Systems degree program, which he completed in 2018. In the subsequent years, his career has taken him to other places, both in the U.S. and abroad. But, as it turns out, the base of operations for his company, PowerBox Technology, is back here in Champaign.

“It's just this access to immense talent from the university,” Azofeifa said. “A lot of talented individuals that come out of the university that can either support you as students or graduates. And also, the available resources for R&D or innovation are here. They are very accessible.

“So for me, it was kind of a no brainer to come back because it met all of the requirements for getting the development done, getting the resources and getting the talent. That's why I decided to come back.”

Azofeifa came to UIUC from his native Costa Rica, where his desire to improve energy stability for all first arose.

“I started in the energy field in Costa Rica, just going to facilities and learning about power quality issues and energy costs,” he said. “Very early in my career, I realized this was going to be a big problem to solve. So that piqued my interest. And then it was right at the advent of new technologies on the renewable side—solar, batteries.

“In that context, I realized I wanted to pursue a higher degree in those topics. That's when I (decided to come) to the U of I and (focused my studies) on this field of power conversion, power electronics, power systems, which is a core to the technology that we are developing now.”

That technology comes in the form of the PowerBlock, which is intended to integrate solar power and energy to ensure 100 percent electrical uptime, minimal energy cost and reduction of emissions.

According to the PowerBox website, any number of PowerBlock devices, integrated with the Energy Management Platform, can be used to sustain reliable operations at any scale: from single commercial buildings to large-scale manufacturing facilities.

Azofeifa says PowerBox is still in its early stages of growth as a company.

“We are doing validation of the technology in pilot environments of the software,” he said. “We are growing our customer base now, and we're finally commercializing our software. But then from there, we have this hardware piece that is very crucial, that needs further development. For that, they need resources, so we're in the middle of a fund raise to execute on that objective, which is to get the hardware units ready and certified to go into these facilities.

“We have a lot of takers right now. It's just we don't have the product. We need the resources to get there.”

As for how he got to this point in his career, Azofeifa credits his Energy Systems degree from Illinois.

“I think the key word is how integral it is, right?” he said. “Because it lets you go deep into a subject, into an area of interest. In my case, it was electrical engineering. But it also gives you context on the general side of things, on the general issue of climate change, of energy constraints.

“I will say that it's a great program that will teach you very strong fundamentals in the area that you pick, but also some general understanding of the issue of modern energy systems. Like how energy systems today have to be resilient, have to be smart, and how different stakeholders are part of the decision making to make those transitions.”