Smart Power Grid

September 2013
Utilities jump into the weather business
How can you accurately control, if you don't have precise input? In the face of increasing cost penalties for the inaccurate predicting of power and gas requirements, many local utilities are asking
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Date:
09/30/2013
Efficient fossil fuel technologies will drive the ongoing growth of the global thermal power market, with generation expected to hit 19,869.1 TWh by 2020, as countries across the world work towards
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Date:
09/30/2013
ROHMs 1200V SiC MOSFETs deliver cost-effective breakthrough performance
ROHM Semiconductor recently released new 1200V SiC (Silicon Carbide) MOSFETs, designated SCT2080KE and SCH2080KE, that are designed to deliver cost-effective, breakthrough performance. Both are 80-milliohm
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Date:
09/30/2013
Messe Düsseldorf recently added another energy storage conference and exposition to its product family: the first staging of Energy Storage India (ESI) will take place from December 4 - 6, 2013 in
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Date:
09/28/2013
Kerite, a leading manufacturer of high quality insulated utility and industrial power cable, will highlight their full line of high voltage (HV) power cable and Underwater Specialty Cable at the 2013
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Date:
09/28/2013
AMETEK ships power grid simulation system to Chinese governments solar cell test center
AMETEK Programmable Power, a leader in programmable AC and DC power test solutions, is shipping regenerative 810kVA AC + DC source systems. AMETEK most recently shipped a system to the Chinese National
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Date:
09/26/2013
What is the Smart Grid, really?

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Figure 1: Escalating installations of renewable energy sources are likely to be distributed far and wide

The Smart Grid - a changing landscape of supply, demand and storage Definitions of the "Smart Grid" range from highly technical descriptions to purely commercial interpretations, but whichever one
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Date:
09/26/2013
The Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA) and SmartPower released a report that reveals a proven model for dramatically reducing the cost barrier that has stood in the way of wide-scale
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Date:
09/25/2013
SustainX begins startup of world's first grid-scale isothermal compressed air energy storage system
SustainX, a leader in utility-grade bulk energy storage technology, has completed construction and begun startup of the world's first megawatt-scale isothermal compressed air energy storage (ICAES™)
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Date:
09/25/2013
Analog Devices challenges the standard in mixed-signal control processors to revolutionize industrial motor and solar inverter designs
Analog Devices, a global leader in high-performance signal processing technology, launched today a mixed-signal control processor that integrates the industry's only embedded dual 16-bit A/D converter
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Date:
09/25/2013
Understanding power factor and the need for power factor correction

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Figure 1: An ideal waveform with a power factor of 0

Until the era of switching power supplies, Power Factor - and power factor correction - wasn't a big concern for all but a handful of electrical engineers working with large electric motors, and other,
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Date:
09/24/2013
Whenever a new wind turbine project is announced, it's common for critics to pipe up and complain about the risk of bird kills. That strategy may fall a little flat with a planning application being
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Date:
09/23/2013
Wireless communication ICs compatible with M-Bus standard for smart meters in Europe
LAPIS Semiconductor, a ROHM Group Company, has recently developed a wireless communication IC compatible with 868MHz Wireless M-Bus, the European smart meter communication standard. Signal processing
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Date:
09/20/2013
Solar & wind power now cheaper than coal power in US
It's less costly to get electricity from wind turbines and solar panels than coal-fired power plants when climate change costs and other health impacts are factored in, according to a new study published
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Date:
09/20/2013
As part of Google's quest to power their operations with 100% renewable energy, They've agreed to purchase the entire output of the 240 MW Happy Hereford wind farm outside of Amarillo, Texas. This
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Date:
09/20/2013
The challenges inherent to integrating renewable energy into utility power grids will be in focus at the Renewable Energy Integration & Energy Storage Conference from 15-17 October in Amsterdam.
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Date:
09/20/2013
Selecting the Right MOSFET for Power Factor Correction Applications

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Figure 1: PFC schematic

Power factor is the ratio of the real power (P = Watts) to the apparent power (VA = Volt Ampere); the goal is to achieve a power factor as close to 1 as possible. A load with a lower power factor
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Date:
09/19/2013
skytron launches redesigned smart combiner box to cost-effectively serve PV power plant operation
skytron® energy, a leading supplier of high quality monitoring, control and supervision solutions to the renewable energy sector. has expanded its ArrayGuard® combiner-box series for PV systems to
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Date:
09/18/2013
IEEE Online Conference on Green Communications (OnlineGreenComm 2013), the virtual forum dedicated to the advancement of energy-efficient communications, will hold its third annual event from October
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Date:
09/18/2013
Solar Power International 2013 (SPI ‘13), North America's premier business-to-business event for professionals in solar energy, brings new formats and focused sessions to educational programming during
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Date:
09/18/2013
Powering the future with poop
Experts have been explaining how they have harnessed the energy locked up in sewage to power our waste water treatment at the British Science Festival. Sewage plants have the ability to produce the
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Date:
09/18/2013
NRL achieves highest open-circuit voltage for quantum dot solar cells
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) research scientists and engineers in the Electronics Science and Technology Division have demonstrated the highest recorded open-circuit voltages for quantum dot
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Date:
09/17/2013
IBC SOLAR commissions megawatt-scale PV power plant for commercial self-consumption
IBC SOLAR, a leader in photovoltaic systems, has finalized three ground-mounted PV power plants for WVE Kaiserslautern, Germany, as general contractor (EPC). As the owner of the plant, WVE, a subsidiary
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Date:
09/17/2013
Genscape's newly released 2013 NYISO Fall Outlook reports long term transmission outages will compound recent coal-fired generation retirements to drive bullish price anomalies this fall. The retirement
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Date:
09/16/2013
The IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm), the leading international forum dedicated to communications technology for the advance of the world's power delivery
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Date:
09/16/2013
Production scale, not lower labor costs, drives China's current advantage in manufacturing photovoltaic (PV) solar energy systems, according to a new report released by the Energy Department's National
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Date:
09/13/2013
During a visit to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz dedicated the nation's first major research facility focused on clean energy grid
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Date:
09/13/2013
Penn scientists demonstrate novel method for harvesting energy from light
Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a novel mechanism for extracting energy from light, a finding that could improve technologies for generating electricity from solar
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Date:
09/12/2013
The Call for Papers PCIM Asia 2014 is now open. The deadline for submissions for Chinas leading power electronics conference is 15 November 2013. The PCIM Asia 2014 international exhibition and conference
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Date:
09/12/2013
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) and The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) invite everyone interested to a free briefing highlighting the challenges facing electric
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Date:
09/11/2013
ProSymmetry™ has dashboard functionality in the Resource Planning module of its Tempus Decisionware™ that provides an effective method for conveying the results of a simulation or what-if analysis
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Date:
09/11/2013
Admirals Bank, a leading national provider of residential renewable energy financing, recently agreed to participate in the Solarize Asheville initiative to offer interested homeowners innovative
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Date:
09/11/2013
The global High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) converter stations market will expand significantly in the next few years, driven by the rising demand for electricity in the Asia-Pacific region and
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Date:
09/10/2013
The growing importance amongst the various stakeholders in the utility industry of collaboration, interoperability, shared targets and joint ambitions will be in focus at the upcoming, annual European
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Date:
09/09/2013
The California Public Utilities Commission has issued a proposed decision for energy storage targets and policies to bring about rapid deployment of grid-scale energy storage in the state, a watershed
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Date:
09/06/2013
Last month brought a wide range of activity, from the third LNG export terminal approval, to finalized Renewable Fuels Standards (and industry opposition), and California's fourth GHG allowance auction.
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Date:
09/06/2013
Renewable energy accounted for nearly 50% of added capacity in US in 2012
Renewable energy projects in the United States experienced a banner year in 2012, with wind deployment adding a record 13,124 MW of capacity and solar adding 3,313 MW of solar photovoltaic capacity.
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Date:
09/05/2013
Solar module installations enjoyed a significant increase from approximately 1.4 GW in 2006 to 29 GW in 2011, but the industry has started to move away from the initial spur, according to research
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Date:
09/05/2013
DuPont Chemicals & Fluoroproducts continues to meet wire and cable (W&C) industry demands for innovative solutions with advanced new materials based on DuPont™ ECCtreme® ECA 3000 perfluoroplastic
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Date:
09/05/2013
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