PowerAmerica Institute Award Number: DE-EE0006521 CX(s) Applied: A9, A11, B3.6, B5.23 Advanced Manufacturing Office Date: 6/13/2016 Location(s): NC Office(s): Golden Field Office
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance
July 19, 2016
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PowerAmerica Institute
Award Number: DE-EE0006521
CX(s) Applied: A9, A11, B3.6, B5.23
Advanced Manufacturing Office
Date: 6/13/2016
Location(s): NC
Office(s): Golden Field Office
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is proposing to provide federal funding to North Carolina State University (NC State) to establish, effectively manage, and assess the performance of PowerAmerica: The Next Generation Power Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute (referred to interchangeably as “PowerAmerica” or “Institute.”) The Institute is planned as a consortium established under a Cooperative Agreement with the DOE and led by NC State (the prime recipient), with participation from sub-recipients of the award, Member Companies, universities and other educational institutions, as well as other state and federal government agencies and research organizations. The Institute would define and manage a program to enable the next generation of energy-efficient, high-power electronic chips and devices by making wide bandgap (WBG) semiconductor technologies cost-competitive with current silicon-based power electronics in the next five years. This project has five budget periods but only project activities within budget period 1 and 2 (BP1 and BP2) have been defined. BP1 was reviewed in a previous NEPA Determination (GFO-0006521-001; 11/14/2014). This NEPA Determination is specific to BP2 only. Further NEPA review will be required for the remaining budget periods once those activities have been defined and negotiated.
Proposed activities in BP2 are generally laboratory scale operations; equipment installation; data analysis and modeling; or educational, managerial, and reporting activities. The location of the facilities and description of proposed activities for the prime recipient and each sub-recipient is detailed within question 2b of the completed EQ1 for the project. Initially, entries detailed in question 2b include only those projects approved by the contracting officer at the start of BP2. Additional entries in question 2b may be incorporated as new partners are brought into the PowerAmerica project and specific sites are identified as long as these additional entries conform to the rationale and CXs applied in this NEPA Determination. Any new sub-recipients that do not fit the above will be required to submit separate EQ1s for further review.