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March 20, 2007
What's hot and what's not
For four of the past five weeks I've been on the road. From San Diego to Houston to Amsterdam to Los Angeles, I've been hitting industry events to try and pick up what's hot and what's not. And you know what? Transmission is hot.
With renewable energy becoming less of a choice and more of a requirement lately, getting green energy to the grid is a paramount concern. That means more transmission lines. Take a look at Sandy Smith's feature "Putting wind on the wires: A Texas tale" to see how Texas, the state with the most installed wind capacity, is facing the challenge of getting wind energy to the grid.
Other issues are making transmission hot right now as well. The vision of the smart grid and the problem of an aging workforce/infrastructure will require investment in and transformation of the existing T&D infrastructure. Check out the third and fourth features below for more on those issues. Also take a look at the "T&D news in brief" feature to read about all the new transmission projects being implemented, some of them valued in the multi-billion-dollar range.
And don't forget to listen to the latest episode of Currents to hear what you missed at DistribuTECH 2007.
As always, thank you for reading. Please feel free to send me your article submissions, comments, and questions.
John M. Powers, online editor
jpowers@pennwell.com
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Feature Articles
Putting wind on the wires: A Texas tale
One major obstacle for achieving the goal of integrating more wind energy in to the grid is the inadequacy of the transmission system as it currently exists. Put simply: where wind is, transmission generally isn't. Sandy Smith of the Utility Wind Integration Group explains how Texas is tackling the problem.
Currents: The DistribuTECH Round Table
Episode 4 of Currents, The DistribuTECH Round Table, is now available. The editors of Utility Automation & Engineering T&D and Electric Light & Power got together and discussed the big issues that came out of DistribuTECH 2007. You'll hear about what impressed them, what surprised them, and what issues they think will take center stage at next year's DistribuTECH. Plus, host John M. Powers gives the Last Word.
5 product elements to deliver improvements to distribution systems
Distribution systems are crucial to the vision of the smart grid. David Moore and Don McDonnell share 5 elements that will deliver improvements to your distribution systems with the smart grid in view.
Defusing the perfect storm: Solving a triple threat of aging assets, workforce and IT systems -- Part three of three: Information technology service management
The final installment of a three part series: Part three discusses the convergence of information technology and operational technology from which utilities deliver service. As a whole, the three installments discuss solving the challenges of aging assets, workforce and IT systems.
T&D news in brief
Siemens to construct long distance HVDC transmission link in India, AEP & MidAmerican propose multi-billion-dollar transmission build in Texas, Sharyland Utilities files 800-Mile, $1.5 billion transmission proposal in Texas, and more. We've sampled the most recent T&D news articles from our website and put them all in one convenient place. Take a look at what's been happening in T&D since our last newsletter.
New Products
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UltraVac capacitor switch
The UltraVac solid dielectric vacuum switch from Maysteel is now available with a choice of either a low current motor operator or a new positive-latching dual solenoid operator. Designed to offer ease of installation and operational integrity, the UltraVac single phase capacitor switch acts as a drop-in replacement for oil switches. Key features of the UltraVac switch include: C2 rated interrupter, with no re-strikes in 1,200 sequential test operations; solenoid operator rated at 50,000 full OPEN/CLOSE cycles; motor operator rated at 30,000 full OPEN/CLOSE cycles; manual OPEN/CLOSE with high-visibility indication; 0.40 in. vacuum gap and 16 cu. in. bottle volume; 33 in. terminal-to-ground creep distance, 30 in. terminal-to-terminal; weather and impact resistant cycloaliphatic epoxy V-bushings; can be rotated 360 degrees for easy connections; corrosion resistant tank coating exceeds ANSI C57.12.31 requirements; standard 5-pin or factory configurable receptacle; accommodates pole, wall, lug, capacitor frame, substation or cross-arm mounting; and vertical or horizontal mounting in pad bank applications. UltraVac switches are suitable for 15kV, 25kV and 35kV systems at 200A continuous.
Maysteel
Visit the website to learn more.
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Maya GPS solution
NovaTracker is introducing a more intelligent generation of highly customizable wireless and GPS hardware solutions powered by proprietary technology that is designed to integrate easily with most vehicle tracking software and significantly cut transmission costs. The Maya is an in-vehicle GPS equipped, GSM capable data hub that allows existing fleet management software solutions to do more, with less. Engineered specifically for the fleet-tracking industry, Maya generates an array of customized and relevant data transmissions. Leveraging the technology developed by NovaTracker as the proprietary platform for its wireless and GPS solutions, Maya becomes an in-vehicle network hub. Specifically, the unit is capable of providing a range of data types such as location reporting, vehicle status and a wide variety of event codes including geofence violation. Maya is designed to be easily installed and integrated with the customer's existing web enabled routing and scheduling application software to enhance fleet management, routing, tracking and dispatching capabilities by giving users functionality through route verification, real-time vehicle tracking and in vehicle communications. Maya is equipped with two digital and one analog input channels. Options include Bluetooth and USB I/O.
NovaTracker
Visit the website to learn more.
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TotalVIEW TVC series display wall controllers
Christie's new TotalVIEW TVC series display wall controllers are designed to meet the needs of the most demanding display wall systems. The new TVC-1100 and TVC-1200 models are configured in Christie's North American factory to meet customer specific performance, input and output requirements. The TVC-1200 boasts an advanced video processing architecture, providing superior video quality with ability to display up to 16 simultaneous videos per display channel. At the core is Christie's MASTERSuite 4.1 software, a display wall management software available in eight languages. The new Christie TotalVIEW DLV1920-DX rear screen projector with native HD 1920x1080 resolution and 3-chip DLP technology provides a 41% increase in resolution over SXGA+ for tiling extremely detailed display scenarios. Featuring 2800 ANSI lumens and up to 2000:1 contrast ratio, the DLV1920-DX is designed for wide display wall applications. With its native wide HD format, it offers the possibility of reducing the number of projectors needed.
Christie
Visit the website to learn more.
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OASys version 4.0
Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI) announced the release of its advanced outage assessment system (OASys) version 4.0, which, based on the hardware configuration of the substation and meter, can identify outages or restorations at a rate of up to 1400 meters per minute. Such ability is provided to customers when using DCSI's AMIgo line of hardware products in their deployment plans. By utilizing group addressing, OASys can determine if a metering device is without power in as little as 1 second. Outage assessment tasks, schedules and sampling groups are user-defined, as well as the selection of substations, bus sections or feeder options that are to be checked. OASys version 4.0 enables the creation of more specific email notification on a per-job-basis by transmitting the meter serial numbers in the email notifications for blink alarms, meter offline and meter indeterminate states. OASys has the ability to collect blink counts from any metering product, but now has the added capability of metering devices to collect momentary and sustained outage counts. OASys now has the option of collecting this data from the Itron Sentinel, Landis+Gyr S4e, GE kV2 and the Elster A3Alpha. As an outage assessment job is in progress, resulting information is displayed in hierarchical format as a list and can optionally be displayed on a geospatial map with the addition of third-party software. The utility is provided with the data needed to send an appropriate utility crew to fix outage problems, and OASys monitors the restoration progress in real time. OASys also provides valuable distribution system reliability information by retrieving outage counts and storing this information in a database that is available for immediate or future analysis of power delivery reliability.
Distribution Control Systems Inc.
Visit the website to learn more.
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Electric Power Books
PennWell’s electric power books cover every aspect of the energy industry! We offer a complete line of business and nontechnical books
for sales and marketing professionals, as well as technical titles for engineers. Our experts include Richard Baxter,
Denise Warkentin-Glenn, and Tim Shaw. Shop our online bookstore here.
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