Articles

1-10 of 50 items listed

Hurricane Irene, Nikola Tesla, and Improving Outage Management

By Tim Taylor, Industry Solution Executive, Ventyx, September, 16, 2011 - On Sunday August 28, the center of the hurricane/tropic storm named Irene went about 30 miles west of Shoreham, NY, located on the Long Island Sound. Being on the east side of the storm, Shoreham and the rest of Long Island were exposed to its greatest fury. At its peak, 523,000 Long Island Power Authority customers were without power. more...
Article Viewed 3303 Times | 8 Comments

Three Big Band-Aids

By Gay Gordon-Byrne, Vice President, TekTrakker Information Systems, LLC, August, 25, 2011 - These three terms are deeply deceptive marketing terms intended to hide the very real problems of electronic equipment in the field. The fact is that electronics break a lot. If they didn't break, networks wouldn't need to be self-healing, scada systems wouldn't need to be fault tolerant or fully redundant. That these marketing concepts even exist is testimony to the weaknesses of the equipment. No one should strive to seek these "features" in their equipment choices. The goal should be to deploy equipment that is so solid that equipment failure is a non-issue. more...
Article Viewed 2446 Times | 17 Comments

Smart Compatible Units in Emergent Work

By Mithun Das, Senior Consultant, Infosys Technologies Ltd., June, 01, 2011 - With the advent of the smart grid solution there would be an increasing need of smart planning and designing especially the routine repetitive work. Increase in the real time data coming from the Smart equipments in the upcoming Smart Grid World will ensure correct diagnosis of the issues and appropriate actions being taken. This will ensure faster response to the outages and reduction of manual effort as well as errors. more...
Article Viewed 2611 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

Leveraging "Analytics" to Drive Enterprise Performance Improvements in Utility Smart Grid Initiatives

By Subroto Kar, Practice Manager, Infosys Technologies Ltd., May, 18, 2011 -

more...
Article Viewed 2953 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

SMART GRID -- Education + Information + Knowledge = End of Monopoly

By Joao Gomes, Technical Manager, , January, 04, 2011 - The break in the Monopoly in the area of Electric Power Distribution is closer than we could imagine, education, information and knowledge is a combination similar to an avalanche, know how it starts, but not when it ends. more...
Article Viewed 4617 Times | 24 Comments

Coordination: A Discussion About the Operating System for a Smart Grid

By Jack Ellis, , , October, 06, 2010 -

Boiled down to its essence, the Smart Grid concept is all about coordination. Smart Grid proponents note that it will spur the development of microgrids, distributed generation, demand response, electric vehicles, storage and renewables by allowing these technologies to operate seamlessly and efficiently alongside central station generation. Indeed, all of these things are possible, but it’s also necessary to sort out exactly how that coordination will take place. Just as the iPhone (or any other “smart phone” for that matter) has an operating system that coordinates operation of all the useful applications it can provide, a Smart Grid needs an operating system that coordinates the actions of market actors, large and small, from central station generating plants to the gadgets that many expect will someday help consumers manage energy usage in their homes and businesses. more...
Article Viewed 2363 Times | 30 Comments

Content continues below ↓

Canadian Prospects of Increasing Electric Power Exports to the USA

By Harry Valentine, Commentator/Energy Researcher, , September, 16, 2010 - Beginning during the 1960's, the US Northeast began taking delivery of low-cost hydroelectric power from Quebec and Labrador. A few years ago California imported hydroelectric power from British Columbia during a summertime power shortage. Changing weather patterns have the potential to reduce rainfall across some regions across the USA and reduce hydroelectric generating capacity, as is the case at the Hoover Dam. The higher cost of solar and wind generated electric power makes Canadian hydroelectric power cost competitive in many American markets. more...
Article Viewed 2433 Times | 3 Comments

The Coming Smart Grid Boom -- and Bust

By Jack Ellis, , , April, 08, 2010 - Smart Grid is the power industry's version of the legendary dot.com boom. It could bring some long overdue innovation and excitement to the industry, or it could leave enormous disappointment in its wake. There are certainly some interesting parallels -- legions of starry-eyed entrepreneurs with big ideas chasing venture capital; a whole cottage industry of newsletters, seminars and conferences; and lots and lots of hype. In 2000, every company was a dot.com company. Today it seems announcements for every new device and every new service in the power industry claim they're either Smart Grid ready, or an essential building block of the Smart Grid. more...
Article Viewed 4100 Times | 16 Comments

Inducing Private Investment for Grids

By Jeff Dalebroux, Attorney, Dykema, March, 03, 2010 - There has been much discussion about the need for increased transmission capability and the so-called smart grid. The need has been framed in terms of repair of deteriorating infrastructure, energy independence and security, and economic competitiveness. There is agreement that grid development would help meet the goals of carbon reduction and climate change damage modification, yet there has been relatively little successful activity. The intent of this article is to explore some of the issues involved in going forward to enhance transmission capability in the U.S., some of the obstacles to achieving that goal and some suggested paths to follow. more...
Article Viewed 3942 Times | 7 Comments

Managing Tree-caused Electric Service Interruptions

By Siegfried Guggenmoos, President, Ecological Solutions Inc. (Ecosync), November, 16, 2009 - Throughout their one hundred year history, utilities have been challenged by tree-conductor conflicts. On transmission systems tree-conductor contacts can have devastating results as demonstrated by the fact that trees were involved in the last three major cascading outage events in North America. For many utilities, trees are the number one cause of unplanned distribution outages. Across the utility industry, tree-related outages commonly comprise 20% to 50% of all unplanned distribution outages. While these percentages indicate trees are a major threat to reliability, the convention of excluding outage statistics arising from severe storm events means the extent of the problem is, in fact, understated. more...
Article Viewed 3838 Times | Be the first to comment on this article.

1-10 of 50 items listed