Utility Automation & Engineering T&D articles from December 2007

Utility Automation & Engineering T&D archives from December 2007

Vendor M & A's continue at steady pace.(FROM THE EDITOR)
December 1, 2007... Back in our July issue, we published an article titled "How Vendor Mergers are Shaping T & D." That article gave details on 16 mergers that had occurred over roughly the previous 16 months between vendors of utility products, services and...

Nova Scotia Power awards contract.(NEWS)(Nova Scotia Power Inc.)(Open Systems Inc.)(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Open Systems International Inc. (OSI) has been awarded a contract to supply a next-generation energy management system (EMS) to Nova Scotia Power, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. The OSI monarch system will replace a legacy SCADA/EMS system....

KCP & L garners award.(NEWS)
December 1, 2007... PA Consulting Group has named Kansas City Power & Light (KCP & L) the winner of the National Reliability Excellence Award at the 2007 ReliabilityOne awards. KCP & L was also selected as the recipient of the ReliabilityOne award in the Plains...

Siemens builds world's largest cast-resin transformer.(NEWS)
December 1, 2007... At the end of September, the world's largest cast-resin transformer with a rated power capacity of 40 MVA left the Siemens factory in Kirchheim/Teck, Germany. Two of the new 40-MVA transformers will be used for testing high-voltage direct...

NERC survey results released.(NEWS)(North American Electric Reliability Corporation)(Survey)
December 1, 2007... NERC conducted an online survey from July 17, 2007, to Aug. 7, 2007, receiving responses from a broad range of utility users, owners, and operators at various levels of leadership and management to find out what they consider the most important...

Wind farm, transmission line dedicated.(NEWS)
December 1, 2007... Minnesota's largest wind farm and the state's largest transmission line built to carry wind power into the Twin Cities was dedicated in mid-November and will soon become fully operational, subject to final approvals by the regional transmission...

PJM board approves interstate transmission line.(NEWS)
December 1, 2007... PJM Interconnection, operator of the Mid-Atlantic power grid, has approved Pepco Holdings Inc.'s proposal to build a 230-mile interstate power line to enhance electric reliability and improve transmission capacity in one of the country's most...

Rome Looks at Link.(EYE ON EUROPE)
December 1, 2007... Italy's Centro Elettrotecnico Sperimentale Italiano (CESI) has completed a feasibility study looking at a potential electricity connection linking Libya and Sicily, possibly via Malta. This is the latest in a series of power connections planned...

Tidbit.(NEWS)
December 1, 2007... Group EFACEC, a supplier of automation systems and infrastructure solutions to the global energy and transport sectors, has acquired Atlanta-based Advanced Control Systems, Inc. (ACS) for undisclosed terms.

Aging infrastructure benefits Serveron.(NEWS)(Financial report)
December 1, 2007... Serveron Corp. reported revenues for the first half of 2007 increased 38 percent over the same period of 2006. The company said its strong results came primarily from sales of its systems that enable on-line monitoring of the large power...

Western Area Power Administration energizes 20 miles in Arizona.(NEWS)
December 1, 2007... The Western Area Power Administration (Western) has energized the first 20-mile segment of an 80-mile transmission line upgrade under way in Arizona and Nevada with 3M's metal matrix, high-capacity Aluminum Conductor Composite Reinforced...

DistribuTECH powers up with launch of TransTECH.(Calendar)
December 1, 2007... As its name implies, the DistribuTECH conference and exhibition has had the power industry's distribution side as its main focus for most of its 18-year existence. DistribuTECH actually had its origins in what was called the DA/DSM Conference,...

Designing the Utility of the Future: Duke Energy takes a holistic view of distribution.
December 1, 2007... A number of utilities are beginning to take what might best be termed a "holistic" approach to distribution system improvement. Rather than piecemeal, siloed projects focusing on one specific area--like advanced metering, distribution...

LiDAR imaging takes flight in Canada.(Interview)
December 1, 2007... As a girl excited about the possibility of getting a free helicopter ride for this issue's aerial inspection article, I was more than gung-ho to take on the topic when assigned. While it didn't pan out for me to take a flight myself, I did get...

Remote disconnect programs proving successful for America's rural utilities.
December 1, 2007... Remote disconnect devices are giving rural utilities the ammunition to combat those consumers that are more than willing to take advantage of their neighbors. This hits home especially hard in America's rural electric cooperatives where...

An insider's view of PG & E's IT transformation.(Company overview)
December 1, 2007... Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG & E), headquartered in San Francisco, is one of the largest combination natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Approximately 20,000 employees carry out our primary business--the...

Protecting infrastructure from insider threats.
December 1, 2007... Utilities have made significant progress in guarding themselves against external IT security risks such as viruses, worms, Trojans and spyware. However, they must put an equal focus on internal security risk. Information assets held within...

The need for field testing of transformers.
December 1, 2007... Field-testing of power transformers provides the maintenance engineer with a group of tools to assess the transformer's condition and to identify problems before they become catastrophic. Consider field-testing as a collection of tools in a...

Wildlife Outage Protector.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... InsulBoot announces a new addition to its Wildlife Outage Protectors product line. The Stirrup Cover is an insulated, pliable, reusable, plastic molded boot for use on high-voltage lines. It is designed to prevent outages caused by raccoons,...

Ethernet switch.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... RuggedCom Inc. has introduced the new compact RuggedSwitch RS940G 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet switch for high bandwidth applications found in electric utility substation automation. The RS940G features: six triple-speed 10/100/1000BaseTX ports and...

Relay Test Set.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... The new RTT Desktop Test Set from GE Multilin is a compact, portable tool that allows engineers, technicians, consultants and integrators to test and validate the protection, control logic and configuration of protection relays, meters and PLCs...

Substation I/O processing unit.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... The new Cybectec SMP I/O from Cooper Power Systems is a distributed, substation-hardened, contact input/output processing unit. The SMP I/O offers savings for utility plants and facilities by reducing the amount of wiring required as well as...

Hybrid-electric lift truck.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... Odyne Corp., a developer of hybrid electric vehicle technology, and Dueco Inc., a utility equipment manufacturer, recently introduced a plug-in hybrid aerial lift truck. Odyne and Dueco have developed a plug-in hybrid propulsion system for the...

GSM/GPRS added to Telemetric prodcuts.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... Telemetric Corp. has added new GSM/GPRS (Global System for Mobile communications/General Packet Radio Service) models to its MicroRTU, capacitor bank control and voltage monitoring products. The new products are based on three years of...

Serial Control Switch Relay.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... The new Series 24 Serial Control Switch Relay (SCSR) from Electroswitch facilitates remote control and monitoring of circuit breakers, while retaining local control through a manual trip/close handle. An addressable network device with...

Solid/state residential meter.(NEW PRODUCTS)(Landis+Gyr Inc. introduces residential electric meter)(Brief article)
December 1, 2007... Landis+Gyr's FOCUS AX solid-state residential electric meter is available to the market and orders are now being accepted. The FOCUS solid-state electric revenue meter was originally released in 2002 as a low-cost, kWh-only meter. With the...

Vacuum circuit breaker.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... ABB has extended its line of R-MAG outdoor circuit breakers to include 3,000 A and 3,700 A, 15.5-kV ratings. The 15.5-kV R-MAG offers a 3,000 Ampere rated continuous current capability and does not require a cooling fan or auxiliary cooling...

Power distribution applications.(NEW PRODUCTS)
December 1, 2007... Advanced Control Systems (ACS), a global provider of smart grid solutions to the electric power industry, now offers its FASTapps solution for electric utilities. ACS developed its feeder automation and substation technology applications...

Calendar.(Calendar)
December 1, 2007... DistribuTECH and TransTECH 2008: The utility industry's most comprehensive conference on automation, information technology and T & D engineering Jan. 22-24, 2008. Tampa, FL //Phone 918.832.9265// www.distributech.com DECEMBER 11-13 ...

Adopting open standards for advanced metering infrastructure.(SMART GRID PERSPECTIVES)
December 1, 2007... Who knew 20 years ago that many of us would abandon TV for the Internet, searching for everything from poison ivy treatments to real-time basketball scores to viewing the real-time eruption of a raging Hawaiian volcano spewing molten lava. To...