Utility Automation & Engineering T&D articles from February 2007

Utility Automation & Engineering T&D archives from February 2007

Transmission buzz reaches critical mass.(FROM THE EDITOR)
February 1, 2007... Between late December and late January, when this issue was completed, we saw more major transmission news announcements come across the wires than we had in the previous 12 months put together--maybe even longer. This would seem to indicate...

Eye on Europe: EU releases Energy Policy plan.(NEWS)
February 1, 2007... In January, the European Union's (EU) Energy Commission released its latest findings on emissions and markets within the Union. While the plan, labeled by the EU "Energy Policy for Europe," focused heavily on the emissions and gas areas, there...

Power grid Europe conference on track.(Conference notes)
February 1, 2007... In mid-December, the advisory committee for PennWell's newest conference, PowerGrid Europe, met in Seville, Spain to discuss the upcoming 2007 summer program. Representatives from vendors and utilities attended, including: Juan Marti...

GE Industrial to acquire Microwave Data Systems.(NEWS)
February 1, 2007... GE Industrial, a unit of General Electric, will acquire the assets of Rochester, NY-based Microwave Data Systems (MDS), a subsidiary of Moseley Associates and a world leader in industrial, wireless, and networking solutions. The acquisition...

Fort Mojave tribal utility to install 3M's high-capacity ACCR conductor.(NEWS)
February 1, 2007... Aha Macav Power Services, a utility owned and operated by the Fort Mojave Tribe in the Southwest, will become the first Native American utility to deploy 3M brand Aluminum Conductor Composite Reinforced (ACCR), a heat-sag-resistant overhead...

Chavez eyes utility nationalization, AES potentially impacted.(NEWS)
February 1, 2007... In January, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave a televised speech announcing his plans to nationalize electric and telecommunications companies in the country. Aligning himself with the sentiments of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, Chavez...

Cellnet, we energies expand advanced metering program.(We Energies)(Cellnet Corp.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Cellnet has entered a new 15-year expansion contract with Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based We Energies, a subsidiary of Wisconsin Energy Corp. Under the terms of the agreement, Cellnet and We Energies will expand the fixed-network advanced...

Con Edison announces New Vegetation Management program.(NEWS)
February 1, 2007... Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc. (Con Edison) is initiating a three-year, enhanced tree-trimming program in hopes of preventing storm-related power outages throughout Westchester County. The company estimates that the new program,...

WECC selects PowerBase and PROMOD IV.(Western Electricity Coordinating Council)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... NewEnergy Associates, a Siemens company, announced that the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) has licensed NewEnergy's PowerBase and PROMOD IV for performing economic analysis of transmission expansion projects. The selection...

Field data communications: thin-pipe processes in a fat-pipe world.(Cover story)
February 1, 2007... With the continued expansion of commercial high-speed data networks (3G cellular, WiFi, WiMax, etc.), utilities are tempted by the pleasing marketing melodies of this fat-pipe (high-bandwidth) world, but it is unclear whether the fat-pipe world...

Integrating AMR and GIS: the right tools for the job.
February 1, 2007... Geographic information systems (GIS) help power companies put their data to work in ways that make their businesses more efficient and effective. Meter reading data, which is a utility's bread and butter, is also valuable for monitoring and...

KUA weathers storm outage management--and weathers it well.(Interview)
February 1, 2007... Who do you go to when you want to discuss managing disaster-related outages? Well, a utility that juggles hurricane season seems a natural choice. So, this month, Utility Automation & Engineering T & D magazine spoke with Ken Davis, vice...

Cybersecurity: complying with NERC CIP standards.
February 1, 2007... SCADA/EMS and DCS systems were initially designed with reliability in mind, rather than security. Due to the increasing integration of business information systems, power grids are open to more potential vulnerabilities, making it more critical...

By the numbers: a look at the substation automation and integration market.
February 1, 2007... The Newton-Evans Research Company four-volume research series "The World Market for Substation Automation and Integration Programs in Electric Utilities: 2005-2007" has found that more than 80 percent of global utility respondents indicated...

Understanding power system models and predicting the next blackout.
February 1, 2007... How can we ensure that the United States doesn't suffer another major blackout in the coming years? The answer to this question is multi-faceted and not easy to arrive at. We can predict load growth based on historical averages. We can inspect...

How rugged is your rugged mobile computer?(GETTING EQUIPPED)
February 1, 2007... When computer manufacturers like Panasonic, Itronix and Xplore Technologies tout their machines as "rugged," it's not just an empty marketing term. These computers are specifically designed for the harsh conditions encountered by utility field...

Emergency resource management.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2007... Resources on Demand Version 2.0 from Macrosoft is an automated emergency resource management tool for electric utilities. Resources on Demand replaces existing workarounds, manual processes, and spreadsheets with a single, central database,...

Pole analysis software.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2007... Pondera Engineers, a software and engineering services company to the global transmission and distribution industry, has introduced PoleSTAR (Pole Structure Analysis and Rendering). PoleSTAR complements Pondera's suite of software products by...

Thermal imager.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2007... FLIR's InfraCAM enables electricians and facility maintenance managers to proactively monitor electrical systems to detect hot spots, avoid electrical failures, increase safety and prevent fires. With the INFRACAM, users can find small...

Workforce management.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2007... MDSI Mobile Data Solutions Inc. has released Advantex 8, the next generation enterprise workforce management solution. This release includes significant improvements to scheduling, workflow, customer configuration and scalability--enabling MDSI...

Substation Gateway.
February 1, 2007... The latest offspring from Cybectec's well-known line of SMP Substation Gateways, the SMP 16/SG supports all the basic functions of the field-proven SMP gateway, plus advanced functions that take it beyond basic protocol translation and data...

Outage Assessment System.(Distribution Control Systems, Inc.)(Brief article)
February 1, 2007... Distribution Control Systems, Inc. (DCSI) has released its advanced Outage Assessment System (OASys) Version 4.0, that, based on the hardware configuration of the substation and meter, can identify outages or restorations at a rate of up to...

Calendar.(Calendar)
February 1, 2007... DistribuTECH 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 FEBRUARY 28-MARCH 3 GENERA...

Why (and how) to make the smart grid more appealing.
February 1, 2007... 2006 was a year of great progress for the smart grid. Standards began to appear thanks to groups such as IEEE, IEC, and the GridWise Architecture Council. Useful planning frameworks began to appear from programs such as Intelligrid and the...