Reliability

Shell’s Grounded Alaskan Oil Rig Determined Stable: Set to Move to Asia

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The multi-million dollar oil drilling rig named Kulluk that ran aground offshore Alaska on New Year’s Eve has been deemed stable enough to tow out of Kiliuda Bay to Dutch Harbor. The Kulluk will be brought to a purpose-built dock from which it can be safely prepared for “dry-tow transit to Asia” for repairs.

“The completion of the damage assessment revealed that the inner hull of the Kulluk was not breached and that all fuel tanks remain intact. The outer hull did receive damage as expected with a vessel being aground during adverse weather. In addition, the Kulluk encountered water damage to its superstructure which resulted in damage to technical equipment and a breach of windows and hatches. Over the past few weeks, all damaged windows and hatches on the Kulluk’s main deck have been secured, and where necessary, temporary steel structures have been put in place to ensure that the vessel is weather tight and prepared for the tow,” according to an update issued by the Unified Command in charge of the operation. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 14, 2013 at 3:15 PM

Superbowl Blackout: Company Responsible Says Power Cut ‘As Designed’

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What’s next, a blackout at the Academy Awards?

During one of the highest profile television events of the year in the US, viewers and players sat in the dark after one half of the storied Superdrome stadium was plunged into extended darkness. The first thought for many in the energy sector was of Entergy, the electric generating firm that is the dominant power supplier to the region. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 4, 2013 at 11:50 AM

Google Spending Millions to Influence Smart Grid Regulations

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Like many firms before it, Google has come to realize that policy and regulation are the biggest obstacles to grid modernization. As Michael Terrell, one of the firm’s senior lobbyists explains on a company blog, “the challenge is that the rules governing electricity distribution were written for last century’s grid.”

Until recently, Google has often preferred to go its own way when seeking to influence policy. This time around, it has decided to fund the Energy Foundation with a $2.65 million grant to support policy reforms in three areas: Keep reading →

 /  Published January 25, 2013 at 3:00 PM

Cisco Unveils ‘Connected Grid’ Approach for Power Companies

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Reliability has long been the most important element of operations to electricity generators and providers; the modern economy has been built around it. But as new technology evolves rapidly in management of energy consumption and both financial and regulatory limits remain on a comprehensive rebuild of the US electricity industry, the sector has found itself stuck mid-disruption.

A belief that smart meter installation would somehow finish the job of making any utility a connected, operationally forward-thinking powerhouse has been proved wrong by the substantial number of smart meter installations that have failed to alter any part of traditional utilities’ businesses (in many cases data is not even collected, or if collected isn’t acted on). The inability of all the different pieces of the energy system to “speak” to each other electronically has in many cases made traditional reliability practices futile, while not quite bringing the new reliability systems into full practice. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 25, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Engineers Highlight US Infrastructure Investment Gaps: The $3.1 Trillion Problem

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Without adequate investment on infrastructure the US could face a $2.4 trillion drop in consumer spending by 2020, a $1.1 trillion loss in total trade and experience the loss of 3.5 million jobs in 2020 alone.

This is just a sliver of the doom and gloom the American Society of Civil Engineers predicted this week with the release of their final report in the “Failure to Act” series that focuses on the impacts associated with continued infrastructure deterioration. The latest installment of the ASCE reports focuses on specifically on economic impacts. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 16, 2013 at 2:00 PM

National Grid Puts Together a Smart Grid Dream Team

By Greentech Media


Don’t get too excited; it’s just a pilot.

Sometime in 2014, National Grid is poised to deliver the “energy system of the future.” Keep reading →

 /  Published January 15, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Rebuild For the Next Sandy

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After Hurricane Sandy ravaged the Atlantic shoreline, my 88-year-old mother-in-law sat in her New Jersey home, unwilling to leave her things, for over a week with no electricity. Another friend of mine spent that same week waiting in gas lines to refill a generator and keep his brother’s small business going. These two examples don’t even include the truly unfortunate folks who completely lost their homes and businesses; they just lost their electric power.

There has been quite a bit of buzz about whether the “smart grid” and associated technologies and applications actually helped in the Sandy recovery efforts. They may have but I think we can do better. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 7, 2013 at 3:00 PM

Energy Theft: From Bad to Worse (And What Some Utilities are Doing About It)

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Mention energy theft and many will think Brazil or India where electricity losses are staggering. Yet no corner of the world seems immune from it – be it meter tampering, pilfering copper wire from substations, illegal hookups, siphoning or other unlawful schemes. Consider: Ireland’s main energy supplier has seen a 50% increase in meter box tampering in the last three years. In Virginia, Danville Utilities reports a growing problem with people tampering with smart meters

 /  Published January 4, 2013 at 1:30 PM

Top Energy Stories of 2012

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The past year has proved a fundamental pivot in North American energy markets, and set the stage for the coming years to look very different from the past four decades of US energy industry history.

I’ve reviewed the ways the changes that originated in 2012 will affect the political scene in the US here, but in looking through our most popular and most compelling posts on Breaking Energy in the last year I noted how many of them supercede easy categorization. Stories about fracking cut across the buckets in which we seek to put our daily dose of energy news, analysis and discussion, but so have stories about the wind industry, financial shifts and smart grid technology. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 31, 2012 at 1:00 PM

Threats to the Power Grid and the Advances in Cyber Security to Thwart Them

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Utility companies confront security challenges daily, especially those related to securing the North American power grid. Increasingly, they’re responding by implementing comprehensive cyber security plans across their business networks and their generation, transmission and distribution systems.

From broad-based threats against corporate e-mail systems to targeted spear-phishing attacks aimed at nuclear operations, utilities face new challenges regularly. A focus area is the regular increase of vulnerabilities reported in the security of industrial control systems that monitor and control manage the power grid, as noted by the Department of Homeland Security and the media. Keep reading →

 /  Published December 28, 2012 at 9:00 AM
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