Electical Contractor

According to the Burlington Free Press, the summer heat wave of 2006 cost businesses in Stamford, Connecticut, tens of millions of dollars due to resulting power failures.

In April 23-26, 2007, the inaugural GridWeek event took place in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, DC. The purpose was to raise awareness and generate support for advancing and modernizing the grid and bring attention to an impending problem.

Inadequate investment in the power grid transmission network remains the Achilles’ heel of the nation’s electric system, according to an engineer who specializes in utility policy at the University of Illinois (UI).

Though the rules of Kirchoff's and Ohm's Laws are always the same, the emphasis on power quality (PQ) changes throughout a facility's life cycle and equipment within.

Up to 2,500 megawatts (mw) of wind energy capacity are scheduled to come online in the United States this year, bringing new power to the equivalent of 700,000 homes and injecting more than $3 billion of investment into the power generation sector. Wind power has truly become a reality.

Unusual circumstances affected the planning for the new Omaha JATC facility. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 22 and National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) Nebraska chapter shared a building and were looking for more space together.

An energy transition with the potential to revolutionize the country's infrastructure is gaining momentum. It is not brokered through expanded power grids or traditional fossil-based economics-it is powered through fuel cells. Fuel cell development is on the upswing.

Photovoltaic (PV) modules convert sunlight directly into electrical energy. Integrating PV into a building will impact its operation. Not only will the PV system produce electric energy to serve building loads but it can also reduce the building's electric demand and air-conditioning heat load.

Manufacturers of standby power generators aren't sitting back and waiting for someone else to reinvent the market-they're doing it themselves. Don't think of backup power generators as noisy, chugging units that struggle into operation.