Electical Contractor

Most of the talk about federal politics these days has centered on the mortgage crisis and the failing banking industry. The bulk of the money in the Obama administration’s bailout packages has been for banks, investment companies, other large industries and homeowners at risk for foreclosure.

Dartmouth engineering professor and entrepreneur Victor Petrenko—along with his colleagues at Dartmouth and at Ice Engineering, LLC in Lebanon, N.H.—have invented a way to cheaply and effectively keep ice off power lines.

Electric vehicles are closer than ever to becoming a large-scale reality. Chevrolet’s much-hyped Volt is still on schedule for a 2010 introduction, despite the manufacturer’s financial woes. Toyota may be releasing its own plug-in hybrid (PHEV) to fleet customers later this year.

The market for residential energy management will increase significantly over the next four years due to increased consumer demand and new government and industry initiatives. The number of U.S. households with a smart meter will grow to more than 6 million by 2012, according to Parks Associates.

Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) of California, which delivers energy to 15 million people in northern and central California, has announced plans to deploy as many as 3.3 million GE smart meters.

Last month, ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR reported that the Virginia State Corporation Commission authorized construction of the Virginia segments of the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line (TrAIL). Now, the Trans-Allegheny Interstate Line Co.

In its first official step to implement the Green Communities Act, NSTAR, a Massachusetts electric and gas utility, filed a plan to expand its energy-efficiency programs that are aimed at helping residential heating customers in time for the upcoming winter season.

The phrase "the good old days" describes a time (real or imagined) that a person thinks was better or simpler. The good old days were when the electric bill was proportional to how many times the black line on the thin metal disk inside the glass of the electric meter rotated.

PJM Interconnection President and CEO Terry Boston testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that transmission is the enabler of virtually all of the energy goals Congress is considering.