Arkansas Power Electronics International, Inc. and the University of Arkansas Win Prestigious R&D 100 Award

R&D Magazine announced today that Arkansas Power Electronics International, Inc. (APEI) and the University of Arkansas (National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission) are a recipient of the 2009 R&D 100 Award for their high-temperature silicon carbide power module. A joint development between APEI, the University of Arkansas, Rohm Company LTD., and Sandia National Laboratory, the APEI power module is the world’s first commercial high-temperature silicon carbide-based power electronics module. With application in hybrid and electric vehicles, renewable energy interfaces and electric aircraft, the APEI power module reduces size and volume of power electronic systems by an order of magnitude over present state-of-the-art silicon-based solutions while simultaneously reducing energy loss by greater than 50 percent, translating to significant potential energy savings. According to APEI’s President and CEO Alex Lostetter, “the performance increases developed from our power module are not incremental, they are revolutionary”.

GRid-connected Advanced Power Electronic Systems (GRAPES)

University of Arkansas

University of South Carolina

The electric power industry is ultra-critical to the economy and security of the United States. Without electric power, everything stops - literally everything - and these interruptions have severe economic consequences. The demand for electrical energy is increasing and political and environmental pressures are forcing adoption of new distributed generation resources, such as wind, solar, and tidal, that do not fit well into the traditional architecture of the electric power grid. Robustness of the national power infrastructure is threatened by aging equipment, lack of integration between generation, transmission, distribution, and utilization, and by terrorism. Paradoxically, one of the direst near-term threats is imposed by increases in local, environmentally-green generation technologies that can undermine the traditional safety mechanisms. Click here for full article

City of North Little Rock Becomes a Member of NCREPT

The electric department of the City of North Little Rock recently was named a member of the University of Arkansas’ National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission (NCREPT). “It’s vital we understand what resources are available to our citizens today as well as in the future,” said City of North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays. “By becoming a member of NCREPT, North Little Rock can be among the first to participate in future power systems.”
The City of North Little Rock’s electric department joins other NCREPT members Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas, Electric Power Research Institute, Arkansas Power Electronics, Southwestern Electric Power, conEdison, Southwest Power Pool, Rohm and Oklahoma Gas & Electric.

McCann and Mantooth Win John A. White Award

The University of Arkansas Solar Electric Boat Team was been selected as the recipient of the 2009 John A. White Award for Faculty-Student Collaboration. The team, led by Profs. Alan Mantooth, Roy McCann, and Bill Springer, was chosen for this award from 17 highly competitive submissions. In selecting the Solar Boat team, teh committee stated, "Your submission impressed the committee due to the active involvement of students, strong faculty-student interaction, the ability to excite students about academic involvement outside of the classroom, and academic excellence." As a result of this award, the Solar Boat team will participate in the Academic Convocation for incoming freshman Aug. 23, 2009 in Bud Walton Arena.

NCREPT Spring 2009 Newsletter Released

Greetings to the members and supporters of the National Center for Reliable Power Transmission! This is an exciting time. As we are wrapping up the spring semester, I wanted to take time to acknowledge and thank you for your support of the center. We continue to make progress on bringing our systems fully on line with a redoubled focus on making the center ready for members and students to use as needed to test power electronic devices.

Work is underway to improve the safety, capability and flexibility of our equipment. Some of our equipment unit operations are still being brought online. In addition, infrastructure systems are being developed to make NCREPT the center of choice for power electronics test-ing in the future.
Click here to download the full newsletter.

NCREPT Begins Testing

The facilities at NCREPT became operational and began testing power systems February 2, 2009. The first customer was The Switch, Hudson, New Hampshire. They will be testing, under IEEE 1547 and UL1741, the current unit and four more units for One Penn Plaza in New York City.