ACEP Intern Puts All Arctic Transmission Lines on the Map

Noah Faso-Formoso is a senior electrical engineering student at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He is one of ACEP’s utility student interns and is working on the Arctic Energy Atlas, a product that plans to deliver information on energy resources, infrastructure and access across the Arctic. Working in collaboration with ACEP’s Gwen Holdmann, Erin Trochim and graduate student Kate Robb, his part of the project is the collection, validation and visualization of transmission line data across the Arctic. The information from this project will be used to develop economic policies that more accurately reflect the reality of pan-Arctic electrification.

Faso-Formoso hopes to gain experience in the electrical engineering field by contributing to a project that uses techniques involving large data sets, data analysis and data visualization.

So far, he has learned about the current economic policies in the Arctic and, on the technical side, Google Earth Engine and the way that it interfaces with the rest of the Google suite.

Faso-Formoso is from Chugiak, Alaska, and hopes to work with large-scale power generation and transmission infrastructure after graduating from UAA. This would likely require him to go to graduate school, which would take him outside Alaska and possibly to another country to continue his studies. 

The Arctic Energy Atlas and Faso-Formoso’s internship are funded by the Office of Naval Research Arctic Regional Collaboration for Technology Innovation and Commercialization grant.

For more information on this project, please contact Erin Trochim at edtrochim@alaska.edu. 

 

Noah Faso-Formoso is an intern this summer working on making sure all Arctic transmission lines are represented in a new Arctic atlas. Photo courtesy of Noah Faso-Formoso.