Hurricanes often cause flooding & power outages. Here is how you can prepare for whatever #Sandy throws your way http://1.usa.gov/mNuf9l fema
Reliability
Hurricanes often cause flooding & power outages. Here is how you can prepare for whatever #Sandy throws your way http://www.Ready.gov/hurricanes
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Data centers are a vital cog in our digital world. As data centers become increasingly important, we need to look at the infrastructure behind them: the electric power grid. The grid is aging infrastructure designed in the 20th century well before the advent of digital services like those provided by data centers – and it’s simply not suited to meet the power demands of data centers.
Data centers depend on a reliable supply of electricity in order to perform 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Today’s electric infrastructure isn’t capable of providing the level of power reliability that data centers require, so these centers spend huge amounts of money on back-up systems in order to protect the facilities from power outages. There is increasing pressure to reduce the costs associated with electric service, however. A recent Gartner report showed that the annual cost to power an 8,000-square-foot data center can hit $1.6 million, and the cost is rising. These costs don’t include expenses associated with building, operating and maintaining back-up systems either. Keep reading →
When it comes to energy and politics, the United States is not what it appears. Deregulation of the power markets is one example. Some regions of the nation have developed robust power markets. Others regions do not and they don’t want it.
The regionalization of the power markets means there is no such thing as a national grid. According to The ISO/RTO Council, the United States has seven formalized power markets and vast regions where no markets exist at all. Approximately two-thirds of US consumers are served by the seven deregulated power markets. The objective of these markets is to provide buyers and sellers price discovery, liquidity, and non-discriminatory access to wholesale power. Keep reading →
The commercial building sector is the largest energy consumer in the US, which means it has been a rich initial target for efforts to cut back usage in ways that can ease strain on transmission grids and prevent the need for mostly-unused additional power plants currently sitting idle.
FirstFuel Software’s CEO Swapnil Shah spoke at a White House sponsored meeting on the intersection of data and energy efficiency, and his company shared this video with Breaking Energy. Keep reading →
At a glance, it may not look like FERC’s Order 1000 has much to do with renewables. It looks more like it’s all about transmission. And it is to a point. The order, which FERC begins enforcing this week, is a wide-ranging and complex set of guidelines for planning, building and figuring out who pays for new transmission lines.
But as a Bloomberg editorial makes clear, the order addresses more than streamlining project approvals, cost allocations and other ways to speed up much needed upgrades for our creaking transmission system. In addition to helping meet increased demand and ensuring system reliability, new transmission lines are critical if far-flung energy resources like wind and solar are to be brought onto the grid. Keep reading →
For 100 years, Americans have lived with what amounts to a corner store for electricity, but the smart grid means someone, somewhere, will start building Walmarts.
And the Sam Waltons of the power grid won’t wait for a regulatory invitation to start.
Steve Corneli, Senior Vice President, Policy and Strategy of NRG, challenged the experts gathered at GridWeek 2012 in Washington, DC last week to think of the smart grid as an interstate highway that will enable entire new forms of commerce. Keep reading →
IBM and ESB pioneering a smart charging IT system for electric vehicles in Ireland with Peter O’Neill, IBM country general manager Ireland; ESB chief executive Pat O’Doherty; and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton, TD, launching details of the project.
For years (literally) I have been griping and whining that vendors and utilities are spending too much time on electric vehicle hardware and not enough on smart charging. Smart charging, after all, is what can unlock the benefits of EVs for consumers and utilities alike. Smart charging is essential if we want to use EVs to take advantage of late night wind energy, for example. And if we want to avoid excessive peaks and other potential EV problems. Keep reading →
California-based distributed generation technology leader gen110 celebrated the opening of its new office in the town of Petaluma in an unusual way. They went to the streets to find out how little people knew about the business of paying for electricity.
Americans have long enjoyed low-cost, reliable electricity supply, but there are signs that era may be coming to an end as long-delayed upgrades and new strains on the system combine to undermine reliability and boost consumer prices. Jason Brown, gen110’s CEO, is convinced that California is at a tipping point for distributed generation. Keep reading →
Every day we walk past energy vampires, sucking away on our power supply, and most of us don’t even know it.
Cars left running or huge buildings with their lights glowing all night are obvious wasteful consumers of energy, but many times it is actually smaller and less noticeable power consumers that are – when aggregated across hundreds of millions of homes and offices – adding significant strain onto the US power production and transmission system at a time when blackouts are creating real concerns for companies relying on constant power supply. Keep reading →
Natural gas is an efficient, safe, and reliable fuel source. It costs less than heating oil, and is one of the cleanest-burning fuels available. If you are not currently using natural gas in your building, converting to natural gas is a wise choice for property owners who want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the air quality in your community.
For buildings already using natural gas, there are ways to minimize equipment replacement costs, lower operating costs and enhance the overall value and infrastructure of your property. One way is to commission an energy efficiency study to evaluate your property’s energy use and learn how to increase its energy efficiency. Regular maintenance and tune-ups to natural gas heating systems, as well as upgrading to high-efficiency furnaces, boilers and controls are often worthy investments. Keep reading →
