Utility Automation & Engineering T&D articles from February 2008

Utility Automation & Engineering T&D archives from February 2008

A gift for us energy misers.(FROM THE EDITOR)
February 1, 2008... I'm kind or an energy miser. I follow family members around the house turning off lights as soon as they've set one foot outside a room. I program my thermostat so that when we're away from the house in the winter it's an ice box and a hot...

At the heart of the volatile transformers market.(NEWS)(Interview)
February 1, 2008... In a follow-up to our January issue article on escalating transformer costs, we solicited yet another opinion on the subject--this time from ABB's Rich Bocim. Bocim is vice president of commercial operations for ABB's transformers business unit...

Toronto Hydro-Electric System passes milestone meter number.(NEWS)
February 1, 2008... Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited (Toronto Hydro) has installed more than 345,000 EnergyAxis System smart meters throughout its service area. Toronto Hydro selected Elster's EnergyAxis System to meet the requirements of the Ontario Smart...

Tidbit.(NEWS)
February 1, 2008... Bermuda Electric Light Company (BELCO) has selected Cayenta Utilities for a new customer information and billing solution. BELCO is Bermuda's sole supplier of electricity, operating a generating plant as well as transmission and distribution...

Landis+Gyr receives approval from Measurement Canada.(NEWS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Landis+Gyr Inc. received a 10-year initial re-verification approval from Measurement Canada (MC) for resealing on its already approved S4e and FOCUS electricity meters. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Previously we had approval for six-year...

France sells shares in EDF.(EYE ON EUROPE)
February 1, 2008... The French State divested 45 million shares--representing 2.5 percent of the capital--of Electricite de France (EDF) in a sale reserved to institutional investors, implemented through an accelerated bookbuilding placement. This transaction...

Union for the Co-ordination of Transmission of Electricity (UCTE) holds elections.(EYE ON EUROPE)
February 1, 2008... A new UCTE Bureau has been elected for the term 2008-2009. The high participation of UCTE members in this voting procedure (86 percent) provides the new bureau with a broad support for its future action. This UCTE body will comprise: *...

KCP & L, ECS sign contract for demand response partnership.(NEWS)(Kansas City Power and Light Co.)(Energy Curtailment Specialists)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Energy Curtailment Specialists (ECS), a private demand response provider headquartered in Buffalo, N.Y., and Kansas City Power & Light (KCP & L) have entered into a contract whereby ECS will provide a full range of demand response (DR) services...

S & C winner of Chicago Innovation Award.(NEWS)
February 1, 2008... S & C Electric Company was named one of 10 winners in 2007's Chicago Innovation Awards Competition, for the company's TripSaver dropout recloser. The winners--chosen from 249 nominees from four states--were judged on their success in satisfying...

Tidbit.(NEWS)(Municipal Electric Utility)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... The Municipal Electric Utility of St. Charles, Ill., has chosen Open Systems International to supply a new comprehensive SCADA system. St. Charles is a municipal distribution utility near Chicago, Illinois, with a peak load of 130 MW. The main...

Prysmian to supply cable for Beijing 2008 Olympic Village.(NEWS)
February 1, 2008... Prysmian Cables & Systems has won two tenders organized by China State Grid, comprising four projects. Prysmian will supply high voltage energy cables for new key power transmission links in China, in areas such as Beijing (2008 Olympic...

Lexington Electric begins AMI system deployment.(NEWS)
February 1, 2008... Lexington Electric, a public electric utility operated by the City of Lexington, Tenn., has begun deploying the TS2 advanced metering solution from Cellnet+Hunt. Lexington Electric will fully deploy the TS2 system to 22,000 meters over the...

AEP, Allegheny PATH project to establish FERC transmission rate.(NEWS)
February 1, 2008... American Electric Power (AEP) announced that Potomac-Appalachian Transmission Highline LLC, its transmission joint venture with Allegheny Energy, has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to establish a transmission rate to...

AEP's PSO unit responds to worst ice storm in Oklahoma history.
February 1, 2008... December 2007 brought to Tulsa and parts of northeastern Oklahoma the worst ice storm in the history of American Electric Power's Public Service of Oklahoma unit. PSO had 226,000 customers without service in Tulsa, which is about 78 percent of...

Utility companies reveal storm restoration practices.
February 1, 2008... Editor's note: The following article was edited from a report distributed by software design and development company Macrosoft. This report is the outcome of an online survey conducted in 2007. The results are based on responses from more than...

Enhancing outage management with AMI.(advanced metering infrastructure )
February 1, 2008... With the advent of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and its associated near real-time meter information, many utilities are examining how that information can enhance their outage management systems (OMS). Interfacing AMI systems more...

Lending a hand: how banks make loans--and assess credit risk--for distribution utilities.
February 1, 2008... Since mid-2007 it's been difficult to ignore the cascade of negative headlines about the U.S. sub-prime lending crisis. The resulting global credit crunch has rippled well beyond financial institutions that provide home financing, impacting...

Using the MultiSpeak specification for integration.
February 1, 2008... Over the years, many different approaches have aimed to case the interoperation of applications. The first approach was data integration, which ensured that data stored in different programs was consistent, but otherwise each program handled...

For the fashionable lineman: tools and gifts of the trade.
February 1, 2008... I spoke with three experts on the opposite ends of the lineman fashion industry to get the alpha and omega of goodies for your favorite pole guy. Assistant editor Kellie Sandrik with our sister publication Utility Products and Matt Clemens with...

Insulation bushings.(NEW PRODUCTS)(Electro Composites Inc)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Electro Composites Inc.'s 69 kV-145 kV solid insulation bushings replace conventional oil-impregnated paper (OIP) and resin-impregnated (RIP) porcelain bushings typically used in substation circuit breakers and transformers. Compared with OIP...

TWACS Operations Center.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... TWACS OC (Operations Center) from Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI) features an easy-to-use interface to ensure smooth navigation across the TWACS Net Server (TNS) application environment. Using the TWACS OC interface, TNS will provide...

Control room displays.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... The Clarity RP and RX rear-projection displays from Planar Systems are designed for demanding utility control room environments. Available in 50-inch and 67-inch sizes, the Clarity RP and RX lines feature Texas Instruments' single-chip DLP with...

High-temp transmission conductor hardware.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... THERMOLIGN hardware from Preformed Line Products is designed for use with high-temperature low sag transmission conductors. The products are designed for use with conductors operating at continuous temperatures up to 250 degrees Celsius and are...

Network management software.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... RuggedCom Inc. has introduced RuggedNMS, an enterprise-grade network management software platform designed for the rugged communications industry. RuggedNMS provides a comprehensive platform for monitoring, configuring and maintaining...

Power grid simulator.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... Opal-RT Technologies Inc. has introduced eMEGAsim: a fully digital real-time power grid simulator. eMEGAsim allows an engineer to conduct real-time high-fidelity simulation of electrical and power electronic applications, which is particularly...

Portable radios.(NEW PRODUCTS)(Brief article)
February 1, 2008... Tait Radio Communications' new TP8100 series of IP67-rated trunked and conventional portable radio solutions are available in both 5 Watt VHF and 4 Watt UHF versions with many complimentary professional-grade accessories. The TP8100s are...

Overhead Conductor Manual.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... Southwire Company has revised and released the Second Edition of its Overhead Conductor Manual: a design reference that consolidates basic information needed to evaluate the design, construction, uprating and upgrading of overhead T & D...

Compact SCADA RTU.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... The Kingfisher G30 compact remote terminal unit from Semaphore introduces advanced capabilities, normally found only in much larger products, into a compact RTU that is cost-effective for small installations. The 32-bit, ARM9 main processor...

Substation switches.(NEW PRODUCTS)
February 1, 2008... Moxa has introduced a range of IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613 compliant Ethernet switches suitable for electric utility substations. The 19-inch rack mountable switches feature a high level of reliability and the new Turbo Ring technology with...

Calendar.(Calendar)
February 1, 2008... DistribuTECH and TransTECH 2008: The utility industry's most comprehensive conference on automation, information technology and T & D engineering Feb. 3-5, 2009, San Diego, CA. // Phone 918.832.9265 // www.distributech.com FEBRUARY 11-15...