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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. 27