Energy Grant to Centennial Campus Researcher to Help Speed Smart Grid Innovation

Jan. 27, 2011 - PRLog -- A new grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will support North Carolina State University efforts to develop new technologies essential to the development of a “smart grid” that can easily store and distribute energy from renewable sources, such as solar and wind.

The ARPA-E grant is for a total of $5.15 million over three years, the bulk of which will be going to Cree, which is leading the initiative. Partners in the initiative include NC State, ABB and Powerex. NC State will receive $750,000 over the life of the grant.

NC State’s role is to develop a transformerless intelligent power substation (TIPS), says Dr. Subhashish Bhattacharya, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and primary investigator for the university on the grant project. “TIPS will enable the vision of the smart grid,” Bhattacharya says. “It will be a more cost-effective and efficient means of connecting renewable energy resources to the existing power infrastructure.”

Specifically, Bhattacharya explains, TIPS will enable the direct interconnection of renewable energy resources and energy storage systems to the grid with bidirectional power flow control. It will also provide energy management, and improve grid power quality and reliability through enhanced communication. Dr. Alex Huang, professor of electrical and computer engineering, is a co-primary investigator on the NC State component of the grant.

The NC State TIPS development project will be made possible by the work that Cree will be doing under the grant – developing a power semiconductor device based on silicon carbide.

NC State is recognized as a leader in developing smart grid technologies, and is home to the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDM). Headquartered on NC State’s Centennial Campus, the FREEDM Systems Center is developing ways to speed renewable electric-energy technologies into every home and business.

NC State’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is part of the university’s College of Engineering, which is located on Centennial Campus.

Written by Matt Shipman, NCSU News Services

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About Centennial Campus and NC State University
Centennial Campus (http://www.centennial.ncsu.edu) is an internationally recognized 1,314-acre research park and technology campus owned and operated by North Carolina University. Home to more than 60 corporate, government and non-profit partners, such as Red Hat, ABB, and the USDA, collaborative research projects vary from nanofibers and secure open systems technology to serious gaming and biomedical engineering. Four university college programs also have a significant presence on campus – College of Engineering, College of Veterinary Medicine, College of Textiles and the College of Education. NC State is one of the top research universities in the country, with expenditures in research approaching more than $325 million annually. The university ranks third among all public universities (without medical schools) in industry-sponsored research expenditures. (http://www.ncsu.edu)