Utility Automation & Engineering T&D articles from March 2004

Utility Automation & Engineering T&D archives from March 2004

Bad apples spoil survey population.(From the Editor Southern )(California Edison Co.)
March 1, 2004... I'm suspicious of poll and survey results--always have been. Using the opinions of a small, supposedly representative sub-set of the population has never seemed to me like an accurate way to represent the sentiment of the population as a whole....

KCP & L rolls out cap bank monitoring & control Project.(News)(Kansas City Power and Light Co.)(Telemetric Corp.)
March 1, 2004... Kansas City Power & Light (KCP & L) is moving forward with a wireless monitoring project using Telemetric Corp.'s TC012 MicroRTU capacitor bank monitor. KCP & L is using the Telemetric MicroRTU to monitor and remotely control capacitor banks in...

State estimator gives Midwest ISO better view of grid.(News)
March 1, 2004... In mid-January, the Midwest ISO announced it had completed installation of a state estimator that will provide control room operators with an in-depth view of the Eastern Interconnection. "Implementation of the state estimator model is a...

ABB heads team to develop fast simulation & modeling system.(News)(Electric Power Research Institute)
March 1, 2004... The Electricity Innovation Institute (E21), an affiliate of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), has selected a team headed by ABB to help develop software for fast simulating and modeling of power delivery system behavior. The project...

Multi-building demand response system passes test.(News)
March 1, 2004... Researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have completed the first successful test to evaluate automated demand response at five large building facilities. Demand response technology manages electrical...

Cinergy offering broadband over power lines in Cincinnati.(News)
March 1, 2004... Cinergy Broadband, a subsidiary of Cinergy Corp., and Current Communications Group are beginning to offer broadband over power line (BPL) services in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area. Expansion of the service is planned for Northern Kentucky and...

Nolin RECC.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Hunt Technologies)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Nolin RECC of Elizabethtown, Ky., has chosen to install Hunt Technologies' TS2, two-way power line carrier-based AMR solution across its entire service area. Nolin RECC staff will install TS2 units on all 27,000 residential meters and 1,400...

Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions recently announced contract signings with three North American utility companies.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Lansing Board of Water and Light)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions recently announced contract signings with three North American utility companies: Hydro Ottawa Limited, Madison Gas and Electric and Lansing Board of Water and Light. Hydro Ottawa Limited signed a...

Three electric cooperatives recently signed contracts with Itron.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Anza Electric Cooperative)(South Plains Electric Cooperative)(City of Tarboro)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Three electric cooperatives--Anza Electric Cooperative in California, South Plains Electric Cooperative in Texas and the City of Tarboro, N.C.--recently signed contracts with Itron to implement the ESRI-based Origin GIS software to manage their...

Comision Federal de Electricidad.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Itron also announced that Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) will implement 1,950 of Itron's G5 handheld computers for CFE meter readers across Mexico. The contract more than doubles CFE's previous investment in Itron handheld computers.

Ketchikan Public Utilities of Alaska has awarded a contract to Open Systems International (OSI) to supply a replacement SCADA system for the utility.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Ketchikan Public Utilities)(Open Systems International)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Ketchikan Public Utilities of Alaska has awarded a contract to Open Systems International (OSI) to supply a replacement SCADA system for the utility. The proposed system is based on OSI's "monarch" architecture and includes SCADA, DNP...

Open Systems International has also received a contract from Nebraska's Lincoln Electric System.(Contract Awards and Extensions)
March 1, 2004... Open Systems International has also received a contract from Nebraska's Lincoln Electric System to supply a replacement SCADA and energy management system. The proposed system includes SCADA, ICCP data communications, automatic generation...

Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI) and Idaho Power Co. have signed a contract.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Distribution Control Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI) and Idaho Power Co. have signed a contract for Phase I of an AMR system utilizing DCSI's Two-way Automatic Communications System (TWACS). The contract calls for installation of TWACS and approximately...

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Eletrotek Concepts)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) has awarded a contract to Eletrotek Concepts to provide power quality training to NRECA members.

PECO Energy.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... PECO Energy has placed an order for up to 2,000 of Nighthawk Systems Inc.'s CEO-700 whole-house disconnect units. PECO will use the units for load-control purposes.

GE Energy has received an order from Pacific Gas and Electric.(Contract Awards and Extensions)
March 1, 2004... GE Energy has received an order from Pacific Gas and Electric (PG & E) to build packaged control buildings at three PG & E substations in Northern California. The combined value of these projects is in excess of $4 million. For these projects,...

ABB.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... ABB has won a turnkey contract worth $43 million to install flexible ac transmission system (FACTS) technology on Comision Federal de Electricidad's transmission system. The order includes ABB's Static VAr Compensator technology and is...

Hydro One Networks Inc.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Innovative Organizational Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Hydro One Networks Inc. has chosen Relay Settings System by Innovative Organizational Systems Inc. (IOS) to manage its protective relay settings. As part of the implementation, IOS will provide data migration services, customized security and...

Oklahoma power wholesaler Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) has upgraded its electric metering system with an enterprise energy management system from Power Measurement.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Oklahoma power wholesaler Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA) has upgraded its electric metering system with an enterprise energy management system from Power Measurement. GRDA's new ION energy management system replaces an assortment of older...

Beltrami Electric Cooperative of Bemidji, Minn., will implement MiniMax Corp.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Beltrami Electric Cooperative of Bemidji, Minn., will implement MiniMax Corp.'s StakeOut field design and work order automation tool to help improve efficiency after a 30 percent turnover in the co-op's engineering work force.

Looking back on DistribuTECH 2004.
March 1, 2004... During a sunny week in Orlando, more than 3,700 people visited one particularly powerful attraction. Not Disney-owned or Universal-operated, instead the attraction was more of a traveling show of more than 200 exhibits, namely DistribuTECH...

A new vision for distribution's future.(Distribution's Future)
March 1, 2004... The North American power distribution system performs admirably, supplying power to customers with 99.99 percent reliability. It's a remarkable statistic when one considers the inherent frailty of a network of wires supported by wood poles and...

Distributed intelligence: a new solution to old reliability problems.
March 1, 2004... Utilities face a daunting challenge: to provide alternate power sources for an ever-increasing number of power-sensitive customers. In the past, the solutions were limited. Often the utility had to route an additional feeder with sufficient...

Improving transmission performance without replacing equipment.
March 1, 2004... Transmission owners are seeing their networks pushed to the limits as never before. Existing transmission line loadings are often close to allowable ratings due to large power transfers and the vastly increased number of energy transactions the...

Entergy's environmentally friendly transmission upgrade.(Entergy Project)
March 1, 2004... Louisiana's wetlands, which support an amazing range of wildlife and a healthy outdoor recreation industry, are essential to the state's economy. They're also essential to the nation's long-term ecological health, since Louisiana is home to...

GIS and GPS come down to earth for utilities.(GIS/GPS)
March 1, 2004... In most respects, utility managers have brought their businesses into the digital age, and, in so doing, have created essential efficiencies and productivity gains. But, for many companies, those gains aren't showing up in the field, where...

Accuracy in field data: how much is enough?(Data Accuracy)
March 1, 2004... When it comes to taking inventory of a utility's field assets--poles, transformers and other T & D equipment--and assessing customer-to-transformer connectivity, conventional wisdom tells us that the more accurate the data is, the better. On...

Underground distribution: attractive but difficult to justify.(Getting Equipped)
March 1, 2004... The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) recently conducted a study and released a report examining the costs and benefits of placing distribution infrastructure underground. The study concludes that while it is difficult for utilities to justify...

USB RF modems.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... The 9XStream-PKG-UA and 24XStream-PKG-UA. are USB-enabled radio frequency modems that allow testing, monitoring and control of MaxStream wireless systems through a laptop or stationary PC's USB port. These RF modems are ideally suited for...

Enterprise GIS.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... Hitachi Software has released Any*GIS Version 3.5, a geographic information system that lets utilities and government agencies integrate disparate facility spatial data sources, enable business workflows, facilitate GIS data management with...

Wildlife protection.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... A new wildlife protection feature for S & C Omni-Rupter Switches effectively prevents animals from making phase-to-ground contact. Angled wildlife discs cover the bases of the switch's support insulators. The discs snap together without tools...

Load research package.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... MeterSmart now offers SummerPeak, a six-month load research package for utilities. With SummerPeak, utilities can more accurately benchmark and forecast power supply needs. The package, priced at $1,098 per submeter, includes an installed...

Aerial Wedge Splice.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... FCI-Burndy's QikSleeve Aerial Wedge Splice features design, energy and labor-saving improvements over conventional tubular connection methods. The open design, anti-reverse clip and visual indicator allow visual inspection and easy...

900 MHz transceivers.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... New 900 MHz versions of Cirronet's HopNet and SEM products are now available. Cirronet's Class I Division 2 spread-spectrum Ethernet bridges (SEMs) provide long-range, high-speed wireless connectivity among Ethernet devices. The company's...

Control switch relay.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... A versatile control switch relay (CSR) from Electroswitch provides both manual and supervisory control of power circuit breakers. The Series 24 CSR combines the functions of a control switch and a remote-controlled solenoid. The Series 24 CSR...

Hotstick attachment.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... The Live Wire from Origo Corp. virtually eliminates "hot-spiking" by helping linemen determine whether an underground cable is hot or not. Cable status is determined by touching the instrument's end to the cable. A panel of LEDs indicate cable...

Fuse Limiter.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... S & C Electric's 34.5-kV Fault Tamer Fuse Limiter combines the functionality of a conventional fuse cutout and a backup current-limiting fuse in one package. Fault Tamer minimizes equipment damage, improves service continuity, reduces momentary...

Power protection.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... Protecting sensitive single-phase power circuits is easy with a new combination surge protector and EMI/RFI filter device from Phoenix Contact. The TRABTECH Surge Filter includes a coordinated TVSS and EMI/RFI filter circuit to provide tight...

Peer-to-peer protocol.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... AeroComm's MeshRF peer-to-peer technology is a decentralized mesh topology that will be embedded in the company's 900 MHz transceivers. MeshRF's instinctive networking architecture allows a wireless LAN system to forward traffic between...

Utility truck solenoids.(New Products)
March 1, 2004... Cole Hersee introduces its newly expanded line of electromechanical solenoids: the 24800 series. The solenoids are ideal for use with motors on utility trucks, including the motors used for drilling holes on power poles, hoists and cable...

Calendar.(Calendar)
March 1, 2004... DistribuTECH 2005: The utility industry's most comprehensive conference on automation, information technology and T & D engineering Jan. 25-27, 2005. San Diego, Calif. // Phone 918.831.9443 // Fax 918.831.9875 // Website www.distributech.com...

Question: what is one specific innovation or advancement you expect--or hope--to see in power distribution over the next decade?(Parting Shots)
March 1, 2004... Answer: "As cell phones have revolutionized personal communications, the all-solid-state intelligent universal transformer (IUT), being developed cooperatively by EPRI, will revolutionize distribution system operations in the coming...