Fortnightly Magazine - June 2016

EPRI Explores Augmented Reality to Improve Grid Reliability

Innovating Like Edison: Utility workers with superpowers?

Smart meters are a reality but are smart poles and smart helmets right behind them? Often in the form of wearable computers or “wearables,” devices are potentially able to communicate from an endless variety of devices in the form of visual cues and data, sound, and even information based on touch.
Byline: 

John Simmins

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Getting Berned

What’s the price tag of banning fracking?

Ironically, a ban on fracking would increase coal generation, which emits carbon dioxide at twice the rate of gas generation.
Byline: 

Steve Huntoon

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Line Dividing Regulation and Management

Utility performance, investment versus dividends, rate of return incentives

Generally speaking, regulatory commissions and courts are not anxious to substitute their judgement for that of utility management. A recent example where state regulators found it prudent to gingerly cross the line can be seen in a recent case involving Indianapolis Power and Light Company.
Byline: 

Phil Cross

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Beware of Vertical Arrangements for Gas Procurement

Owning gas reserves benefits consumers?

Regulators should start with the premise that long-term contracting with an independent gas producer or middleman is preferable (e.g., with a marketer). Vertical arrangements pose a number of tough questions for state public utility regulators.
Byline: 

Kenneth Costello

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Who Are You Guys?

I asked ACS.

ACS, Advanced Control Systems, a high-tech company based in Atlanta, is a go-to, real-time energy management solution provider of the highest quality innovative products.
Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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First Look at 2015 CO2 Emission Trends for the U.S.

Part 2 – Electric Power Sector

Shifts in the generation mix in recent years have had an enormous impact on carbon dioxide emissions. For 2015, the carbon intensity of total generation was more than 20 percent lower than in 2005, accounting for 476 million metric tons in reductions. The dramatic decline is our focus here in Part 2.
Byline: 

Daniel Klein

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James Maxwell and Charles Coulomb

June Birthdays

On June 14, 1736, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born in France.

The name might seem vaguely familiar. In an electrical engineering or physics class that you struggled to keep awake in, the prof defined the unit of electric charge.

The coulomb, or just C, is the unit of electric charge. It is the charge transported by a constant electrical current of one ampere in one second.

C comes into plays in capacitance, the storing of charge. C is also the amount of excess charge on a capacitor of one farad charged to a potential difference of one volt.

Byline: 

Steve Mitnick

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