Solar Energy at Night

The energy emanating from the sun can be converted into electricity by using: Photovoltaic Cells where semiconductor materials absorb photons and releases electrons, or Solar-Thermal Turbines that generate steam from the sun’s heat, spinning a turbine to produce electricity. Since cloudy days and nighttime limit the practical conversion time of the sun’s energy, traditional applications of...

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)

ANWR – The Developing Controversy The Arctic National Wildlife Range is a fairly desolate frozen tundra region encompassing 8.9 million acres in the Northeast corner of Alaska. It was established in 1960 by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a wildlife refuge. Eight years later the largest oil field in North America, known as Prudhoe Bay, was discovered and developed nearby and the...

Energy Storage in the Electric Grid

Today's Electric Grid Massive blackouts are fortunately few and far between but when they occur their impact is devastating. The 2003 Northeast U.S.blackout ended up costing the region an estimated $6 billion. How does such an event occur? This event was not the result of a natural disaster, nor a sinister terrorist plot to undermine the U.S. Rather, like many other similar events, it was a...

Broadband Communications and the Smart Grid

Smart Grid and the Need for an Improved Communications Infrastructure Electric Grid The U.S. electric grid consists of over 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and more than 6 million miles of distribution lines that serve over 100 million customers (283 million people). Electricity usage continues to grow and it now represents over 40 percent of overall energy consumption in the...

The ABCs of the Smart Grid

Smart Grid-Improved Reliability The U.S. electric power grid consists of more than 300,000 miles of transmission lines weaving there way across the country that despite its age performs remarkably well. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) assigns it a reliability rating in excess of 99.9 percent However, the relatively few outages that do occur each year in the U.S. cost the American economy an...

Net Metering – A Developing Concept

What is Net Metering The prospect of dwindling energy resources and increased attention to environmental stewardship have expanded the role consumers can play in improving energy efficiency. Certainly the installation of solar panels on roofs and turning off of lights and appliances when not in use contribute to these initiatives. Despite these best of intentions, the problem of unused (i.e....

Nuclear Power – Part of the Solution

Nuclear Power – Safe, Clean, and Efficient Electricity Despite the controversy which often surrounds nuclear power, it remains a vital part of the solution in generating safe, clean, and efficient electricity: Among its many environmental friendly attributes, nuclear power produces no controlled air pollutants or greenhouse gases, contributing to clean air, addressing concerns around...

Integration of MDMS and OMS

Outage Management-An Evolving Process The electric industry has come a long way since the 1980s with respect to service restoration during unplanned system outages: The manual process of collecting and sorting trouble reports to the call center and manually discerning patterns from which to generate work orders has largely been replaced by sophisticated algorithms of computerized outage...

Maintenance Testing of Protective Relays

Protective Relay With the increased focus on testing practices for protective relaying systems brought about by the NERC Standard PRC-017-0 – Special Protection System (SPS) Maintenance and Testing, electric utilities are taking measures to ensure that their installed SPS is: Properly designed, Performing to applicable specifications, and Coordinated with the overall protection schemes. As a...

Geothermal Energy – Earth Driven Electricity

Geothermal Compares Favorably with Other Renewable Sources Geothermal Energy Geothermal Energy originates from the heat stored in the earth, drawing from underground heated water and steam to drive electricity-generating turbines. In comparison to other well-accepted renewable technologies (e.g. wind and solar), geothermal energy: Is available 24/7 and avoids the challenges of variability or...