NC State to Hold Groundbreaking on New Centennial Campus Lab and Office Building

North Carolina State University will break ground on the next office and lab building to be constructed on Centennial Campus. It will house, among other offices and labs, the NSF-funded FREEDM Systems Center that will develop new technologies to transform the century-old power grid.

Media are invited to attend the event, which begins at 11 a.m. Monday, May 18, at the corner of Varsity Drive and Main Campus Drive on Centennial Campus. Media parking is available at the south end of Partners Way.

The FREEDM Systems Center is partnering with universities, industry and national laboratories in 28 states and nine countries, and it is being supported by an initial five-year $18.5 million grant from NSF, along with an additional $10 million in institutional support and industry membership fees. The goal of the consortium is to decentralize the nation’s century-old power grid so that a new power system can enable consumers to generate their energy from renewable sources and sell excess energy to the power companies. Researchers plan to develop the system based on breakthrough power semiconductor and power electronics technology, advanced energy storage technology and state-of-the art digital communication technology.

For more information on the center, visit the center’s Web site.

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