Electical Contractor

From microwave ovens to Humvees, the military has a long history of developing and fine-tuning new technologies that later become accessible to the general public. To be sure, some have flopped while others have become household necessities.

Although preconvention workshops begin Friday, Oct. 21, the major kickoff for NECA 2011 San Diego is the first-of-its-kind program scheduled for the next day—the NECA Energy Forum.

One of the biggest hurdles electrical contractors must jump when marketing their energy services is owners’ concerns about the initial investment they must make in order to reap the savings from a project.

A power quality problem, according to the Power Quality Service Center, Portland, Ore., is defined as any deviation of electricity applied to the equipment that results in damage or misoperation of electronic equipment or other electrical devices.

It is estimated that the nation’s servers and data centers consumed about 61 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2006, which was 1.5 percent of total U.S. electricity consumption.

Until the economic collapse of 2008, the residential solar market was doubling every year, according to Don Sipes, director of solar product development for Sunovia Energy Technologies, Sarasota, Florida; however, according to Ted Campbell, senior vice president of renewable energies for Schneider

One of the ways a building’s energy consumption can be reduced, as part of an energy management plan, is to incorporate a heat-recovery system, which intercepts waste gases before they leave the industrial process or before they are exhausted from a building.

The North Carolina State energy office reports that the typical office spends 29 percent of its electrical energy costs on lighting. Occupancy sensors can reduce these charges by 50 percent or more, at a savings of 5 to 20 cents per square foot.

When inspecting a small office facility for a customer, I was surprised that he had a fuel cell system for his main power source that was backed up by an optional standby generator system. In other words, the complex did not depend on utility power.