FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Rep. John Boozman helped the University of Arkansas National Center for Reliable Electric Power Transmission dedicate its new facility on Friday, Oct. 31, at the university’s Engineering Research Center in south Fayetteville. During the dedication, the university announced receipt of a $1 million gift from the American Electric Power Foundation to enhance the center’s research into new applications to improve the nation’s electricity distribution.

The lab is a two-story high-bay facility covering 7,000 square feet. It will be capable of testing power systems up to 6.5 megawatts. The programmable loads will also avoid enormous energy waste by enabling the output energy to be recirculated. As a result, even at full power, only kilowatts of power will be drawn from the power grid.

The test facility consists of several transformers, many circuit breakers and regeneration drives that are connected in a highly reconfigurable manner enabling many types of application scenarios including distributed generation (wind, solar, etc.) and protection devices. The regeneration drives used in this facility were manufactured by Baldor Electric Co., based in Fort Smith, Ark.

“This new addition will propel our program as we establish a world-class power electronics test facility for use by ourselves, other universities and businesses,” said Alan Mantooth, director of the center. Mantooth also serves as an electrical engineering professor at the University of Arkansas and holds the 21st Century Chair in Mixed-Signal IC Design and CAD.

The center is funded as part of the federal government’s focus on research and development to improve technology for the nation’s power grid. Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2003 and created the GridWorks Initiative in response to the massive blackout of the Northeast United States in 2003.