The CHIPS and Science Act Will Increase Demand for Engineers

CHIPS-Act

By EE Times / Design Lines:

“The $52 billion spending plan outlined in the CHIPS and Science Act that has been signed into law has significant implications for the semiconductor ecosystem—from chip manufacturers to engineers and production teams.

EE Times asked two design engineers to weigh in on the implications of the Act for engineers in the U.S., in the short and long term. Will it simply help return the design engineering process to status quo pre-2020? Or are there greater changes afoot that will drive a significant shakeup of the semiconductor design and manufacturing process? The answer lies somewhere in between.”

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DOE: Distributed Energy Resources Need to Be Designed with Cybersecurity Protection

Cyber-protection-of-DERs

By Utility Dive:

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) present major obstacles in grid reliability and protection against cyberattacks and threats. DOE states “they should be designed with security as a ‘core component.’

An attack on distributed solar or battery storage resources would have ‘negligible impact’ on grid reliability today, DOE said, but the capacity of DERs on the electric system is expected to quadruple by 2025 and the agency warned that each of those systems could be hacked.”

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Entergy Plans to Build a 250 MW Solar Farm in Arkansas

Entergy-PV-Solar-Project

By Renewable Energy World:

Entergy is planning to build a 250 MW solar farm project which will end up being Arkansas’s biggest renewable project. It will provide power to “steel manufacturing plants near Osceola in Mississippi County.

The Arkansas Public Service Commission greenlit the 250 MW Driver solar project, which would be built by Lightsource bp, one of the largest solar developers in the world.

Lightsource bp has completed development and permitting of the solar field and plans to build the facility under a build-transfer agreement with Entergy Arkansas.”

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Alabama Power Purchases the Calhoun Gas-Fired Generating Plant

Calhoun-Gas-Plant

By PowerEngineering:

Alabama Power purchased the Calhoun Natural Gas Facility in order to help improve its grid reliability. “The Calhoun facility, located in Eastaboga, Alabama, includes four simple cycle combustion turbine units that can operate on either gas or oil, having onsite oil storage as a backup fuel source. Constructed in 2003-2004, the units have a combined maximum generation capacity of 743 MW.”

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Will Fusion Energy Power the Grid in the Next Decade?

Nuclear-Fusion

By EE Times/Design Lines:

Fusion Energy is becoming exceedingly more popular with an investment increase of nearly 150% (just shy of $3 Billion) from last year. “The industry is becoming more optimistic that fusion power will be accessible to the grid by the 2030s, according to the Fusion Industry Association (FIA).

Six participating companies have collectively raised more than $200 million, the FIA reported. Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $1.8 billion, and Helion Energy raised $500 million.”

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The DOE Announces $1 Billion Plan for Improving Power Systems to Rural Areas

Rural-Electric

By T&D World:

The US Department of Energy (DOE) is seeking information (RFIs) from rural areas in order to improve power generation to rural and remote users. DOE will spend $1 Billion for this plan to enhance the power grid by strengthening the power “resilience, reliability, and availability of energy systems, while simultaneously helping communities unlock the public health and cost-saving benefits to cleaner, and more efficient energy providers.”

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