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REGIONAL FOCUS
SMART ENERGY DOMINATES IN
NORTH CAROLINA
Silicon Valley in California is known as the
home to some of the ‘smart’ industry’s best-
known startups, including Trilliant, eMeter
and Opower. However, innovation in the
smart grid sector is not limited to the West
coast of the United States. During a recent
visit to North America, Metering & Smart
Energy International had a chance to meet
with Lee Anne Nance, Managing Director
of the Research Triangle Cleantech Cluster
(RTCC) in Raleigh, North Carolina.
RTCC is a non-profit economic development
organisation ‘on a mission, with a mission.’
Their goal: to facilitate collaboration
between companies, institutions and
government agencies.
‘By working together, we will grow the
cleantech sector in the Triangle while
maintaining its leadership role throughout
the world,’ says Nance.
we have seen some great examples of this
within RTCC already.’
Yet, what is it about this region specifically
that has drawn so many clean tech
companies to this region? Nance believes
that the region’s cleantech cluster started
to develop in 1954 with the arrival of
Westinghouse Corp.’s electricity metering
division, followed a decade later by
IBM. Computer networking giant Cisco
Systems later joined them. The region
is today ‘a one-of-a-kind intersection for
the convergence of hardware, software,
network solutions and business analytics’.
Today the Research Triangle Region
includes hundreds of companies that cover
a vast spectrum of the cleantech industry—
with names like Elster, Itron, SAS, Siemens
and Schneider Electric.
Lee Ann Nance, managing director of the Research Triangle
Cleantech Cluster.
Nance is a firm believer in being ‘intentional’
and says this focus will continue to drive
the development of the RTCC going
forward. ‘While we have a great heritage
of innovation in the area, RTCC plans on
leveraging this by intentional development
of cleantech. The best way we can do this is
through collaboration and cooperation, and
NC State benefits from Obama announcement
President Obama made an historic
announcement at NC State University,
establishing the Next Generation Power
Electronics Manufacturing Innovation
Institute. This new $140M Department of
Energy (DoE) supported private-public
partnership capitalises on the successful
innovation ecosystem pioneered by the
NC State University FREEDM Systems
Center. This is the second Institute announced
as part of the National Network for
Manufacturing Innovation. The new
Institute will focus on developing wide
bandgap semiconductor manufacturing
technology that will help to support the
supply chain and manufacturing base for
the US semiconductor industry, creating
jobs and growing the economy.
The research mission of the Institute
will support innovation in new product
METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE - 5 | 2014
and process technologies as well as
education, and workforce training
programs to become a global center of
excellence for the development of wide
bandgap semiconductor devices and
industry-relevant processes. The
Institute will be headquartered
on North Carolina State
University’s Centennial
Campus. The university
will host shared research
and development facilities,
testing equipment, and
workforce development
and education programs for
wide bandgap semiconductor
technology. This DoE award is testimony to the
effectiveness of the Engineering
Research Center model, in which system
driven research and industry-university
partnerships can have prodigious national
and international impact. Many
of the FREEDM Systems Center
faculty will participate in activities of the
Institute, primarily in the area of wide
bandgap power device development and
power electronics. The Institute builds on
the success of FREEDM but will operate as
a separate entity.
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