An Ignoble Experiment

eBook | Creating A Scalable Enterprise

PA Consulting Group has recognized five regional investor-owned utilities to receive this year's award for providing outstanding reliability and customer service. The selections are based on overall system-wide performance in outage duration and frequency, and sustained leadership, innovation and achievement in the electric reliability.

New York City. Credit: Paulo Barcellos Jr./Wikimedia Commons

All utilities operating electric delivery networks in North America are eligible for consideration for the award. There are a total of five regional awards. The provisional selection is based primarily on system reliability statistics that measure the frequency and duration of customer outages. After provisional recipients are selected, each company undergoes an on-site certification process, which provides an independent review and confirmation of the policies, processes and systems used to collect, analyze and report a company's reliability results.

The winners are as follows:

Public Service Electric and Gas Company, Mid-Atlantic Region, Outstanding Response to a Major Outage Event and National Reliability Excellence Award
Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Northeast Region and Outstanding System-wide Reliability
San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), West Region and Outstanding Response to a Major Outage Event
We Energies, Midwest Region
Kansas City Power & Light, Plains Region

SDG&E took top honors for reliability performance among utilities in the western states and Canada for the eighth year in a row.

A customer-first commitment tends to pervade the company culture of the winners, according to PA Consulting.

"At SDG&E we are committed to deploying new technology that will improve reliability and our customer's experience," said David L. Geier, vice president of electric operations for SDG&E. "From our linemen to our customer care center, SDG&E is customer-focused and continually investing in cost-efficient solutions for furthering reliability."

In the last eight years, SDG&E has taken an aggressive approach to improving reliability. In 2012, the utility completed the new Outage Management System (OMS), which leverages real-time data from 1.4 million smart meters and employed smart grid technology to speed up the detection of power outages, helping SDG&E to respond to an outage faster than ever before.

Con Edison's reliability was 90 percent better than the industry average, and the utility achieved one of the highest levels of reliability performance PA Consulting has ever seen from an investor-owned utility in the U.S.

"Our employees take great pride in their work, and strive for continuous improvement in providing safe and reliable service," said John Miksad, Con Edison senior vice president of electric operations. "[This] recognition is a tribute to Con Edison's people, who deliver electricity to New York City and Westchester, as we work to harden our system against an increasingly greater number of weather-related challenges."

For more:
- see this report
- see this fact sheet

This week's sponsor is Windstream.

As enterprises capture and create data scaling up into petabytes and beyond, it’s not just a matter of adding a few more CPUs and disks. The storage may need to reside physically closer to the processing resources. Learn more today!

2. Former staffers slam Gov. Brown on CA fracking

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Comment |

3. Ontario swaps coal for advanced biomass

The extracting of shale gas has attracted the attention of environmental groups and others who have raised concerns about the impact of hydraulic fracturing technology. Nowhere is this clearer than in California currently where 27 former campaign and administration staffers of Governor Jerry Brown are urging him to impose a moratorium on fracking in the state.

A hydraulic fracturing operation at a Marcellus Shale well. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

The former staffers are calling on Governor Brown to impose an immediate moratorium on fracking until independent scientific studies prove that fracking for oil in the Monterey Shale will not accelerate climate change, poison California's water and pollute the air. SB 4, signed into law by Governor Brown, allows oil and gas companies to frack in California until 2015.

At the same time, a new public policy study from the Heartland Institute is attempting to open what it calls a "better-informed discussion" surrounding the advantages and disadvantages of smart drilling and the alternatives.

Vast reserves of oil and natural gas have been known to exist in shale formations throughout the United States for decades, but extracting these resources was not economically viable until the advent of "smart drilling" technology -- the combination of horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing techniques, and computer-assisted underground monitoring, according to the study.

"Hydraulic fracturing can be done in a safe and environmentally responsible manner. State governments have done a commendable job working with environmental and industry leaders to craft legislation that protects the environment while permitting oil and gas production to move forward," Heartland Research Fellow Isaac Orr writes in the research. "Federal regulations would be duplicative, resulting in higher costs without significantly increasing environmental protections."

To the contrary, Governor Brown's former staffers are asking him to "give science a chance" before allowing fracking in California.

"If Governor Brown gives science a chance, he'll discover that fracking for and burning dirty oil is incompatible with any serious plan to fight climate change," said Michael Kieschnick, Governor Brown's former economic advisor. "I agree with Governor Brown that climate change is the 'greatest existential challenge' of our time and I hope that he will do the right thing to protect Californians by imposing a moratorium on fracking in our state."

For more:
- see this report
- see this letter

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Comment |

4. CU boasts nation's largest wind testing facility

Over the next year, the Thunder Bay Generating Station (TBGS) will stop burning coal and be converted advanced biomass for electricity generation, bringing Ontario closer to achieving its goal of eliminating coal-fired generation by the end of 2014. Ontario has already closed its Lambton Generating Station (October 2013) and will close Nanticoke Generating Station by the end of 2013.

Thunder Bay Coal Generating Station. Credit: Loimere/Wikimedia Commons

Operated by Ontario Power Generation (OPG), TBGS will be the first advanced biomass station in the world that was formerly a coal plant. Modifications to the plant, which will have a five-year contract to generate electricity, will begin in 2014 and is expected to begin operations in 2015. In September 2013, OPG conducted a successful test burn using 100 percent advanced biomass -- the first of its kind in the world. The conversion of the Thunder Bay Generating Station to burn advanced biomass will ensure Thunder Bay has access to clean, reliable power.

Advanced biomass is a renewable fuel derived from forest or agricultural sources that has characteristics similar to coal and has better transportation, storage, and combustion characteristics than traditional biomass. Advanced biomass emissions contain about 75 percent less nitrogen oxide than coal emissions and virtually no sulphur dioxide.

Eliminating coal-fired generation and protecting the environment while providing clean, reliable and affordable power is part of the government's plan to invest in people, build modern infrastructure and support a dynamic and innovative business climate across Ontario.

"Northwestern Ontario is on the leading edge of some very exciting new mining and forestry developments and I am pleased… that our government is taking action to support healthy communities while ensuring important energy needs are met," Michael Gravelle, MPP of Thunder Bay-Superior North and Minister of Northern Development and Mines said in a statement. "By moving off coal and converting the Thunder Bay Generating Station to advanced biomass we are cleaning our air and supporting local jobs."

For more:
- see this report

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Comment |

5. Consumer EV awareness could be a ways off

North Charleston, South Carolina is now home to the nation's largest wind energy testing facility. Led by Clemson University's Restoration Institute, the facility will help test and validate new turbines, particularly for offshore wind, helping to speed deployment of next generation energy technology, reduce costs for manufacturers and boost global competitiveness for American companies. The testing facility is also one of the world's most advanced.

Clemson University President's Park. Credit: Spyder_Monkey/Wikimedia Commons

Located at a former Navy warehouse with easy access to rail and water transport, the Clemson facility will test machinery that converts both onshore and offshore wind to electricity and allow engineers to simulate 20 years' worth of wear and tear on drivetrains in a few months. The facility's proximity to the coast also makes it ideal for U.S. and international companies to testing larger offshore wind turbines.

Supported by a $47 million Energy Department investment as well as about $60 million in outside funding, the facility is equipped with two testing bays for up to 7.5 MW and 15 MW drivetrains, respectively. The facility will also be able to simulate real-world grid conditions, and can help private industry and public researchers better study interactions between wind energy technologies and the U.S. power grid.

Over the past four years, the Energy Department has made significant investments in wind turbine testing capabilities, including the Scaled Wind Farm Technology facility in Lubbock, Texas, to help optimize whole wind farms' performance and power production, as well as the United States' first commercial large-blade test facility in Boston Harbor. The Department's National Wind Technology Center in Boulder, Colorado, has helped drive new wind technology development since 1993.

Last week, the Department of Energy dedicated a new 5 MW dynamometer at the Boulder center to conduct research on stronger, more durable wind drivetrains for land-based wind farms. Connected to a grid simulator, as well as operating multi-megawatt turbines at the center, the new installation will also help study grid interactions and test energy storage devices simultaneously.

For more:
- see this report

By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Comment |