NC State professors Aranya Chakrabortty and Alex Huang are part of a team that is developing the future of energy infrastructure.

Whether you call it the “smart grid” or the “Energy Internet,” North Carolina State University (NC State) engineers are revolutionizing the way we use energy.

Faculty and student researchers at NC State’s FREEDM Systems Center are developing what can be called the “brain” of the smart electrical grid — devices and networks that will one day seamlessly connect rooftop solar panels with batteries that store energy in the basements below. At the same time, electric cars will charge in millions of garages, and consumers will sell extra electricity they generate back to the power company.

In 2011, a new type of transformer under development at the FREEDM Systems Center was named to MIT Technology Review’s 2011 list of the world’s 10 most important emerging technologies.

The devices, called smart solid-state transformers, represent a big step toward developing the smart energy grid of the future. Today’s grid, which has changed little since the days of Thomas Edison, only lets power flow in one direction — from the power company to the consumer. But as the cost of renewable energy technologies comes down and plug-in electric vehicles become more widespread, the grid will need an upgrade to handle the flood of devices that will not only consume energy, but push it back onto the grid.

The FREEDM Center’s smart transformers are built to manage power more effectively than today’s transformers. They will precisely control voltage, frequency and other electrical properties as they communicate with the rest of the grid. The devices will also help utilities incorporate lots of renewable energy into the grid with fewer blackouts or power surges.

Stephen Cass, special projects editor for the Technology Review, called the devices “a major advance for smart grids, allowing the flow of electricity to be controlled and rerouted in a manner similar to how data is routed around the Internet.”

FREEDM, which stands for Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management, was formed in 2008 by a five-year, $18.5 million Engineering Research Center grant from the National Science Foundation.

The FREEDM Center and NC State students benefit from their location in the Triangle, one of the world’s top smart grid hubs. A recent Duke University study counted nearly 60 smart grid companies in the region. These companies include the power systems giant ABB, which is developing a Smart Grid Center of Excellence only meters away from FREEDM on NC State’s Centennial Campus.