T&D

California’s summertime energy challenges are well-documented. While energy shortfalls appear less likely in 2023, thanks to the series of atmospheric rivers that drenched the Golden State this winter, we

Power grids around the world require upgrades to accommodate growth and incorporate new clean energy resources. Transformers are a necessary component in the modernization. Estimates suggest hundreds of

Climate change is a threat multiplier. Clean-up costs are ballooning and natural disasters are growing more expensive. In 2022 alone there were 18 natural disasters that caused more than $1 billion in damage, up from only three events in 1980. These are taking a bigger bite out of the energy sector’s operating costs and profits, […]

A number of companies with ties to the power industry revealed new projects and other interesting developments this week. The following are some the more noteworthy announcements that POWER has been monitoring. BWXT to Manufacture HALEU Feedstock for Advanced Reactors BWX Technologies Inc. announced on Aug. 30 that it had entered into a contract to […]

While power outages are not uncommon in the U.S., widespread blackouts that last more than a couple of hours are pretty rare. However, this summer marks the 20th anniversary of one of the most significant blackouts in North American history. The incident didn’t just affect the U.S., but also major parts of Canada. The blackout […]

Electric vehicle (EV) adoption is proceeding faster than anticipated even a year ago. Recent projections say EVs could account for 30 to 42 million light-duty vehicles on U.S. roads in 2030. That does not include municipal and school buses, delivery vans or medium- and heavy-duty trucks, which are also undergoing electrification. All will be new […]

South Africa is in the midst of an energy crisis characterized by electricity shortages, blackouts, and lack of new infrastructure investment. Eskom, the state-owned utility supplying more than 90% of the nation’s electricity, has suffered from operational failures, maintenance issues, and breakdowns at aging, poorly maintained power stations, leading to steady declines in the energy […]

Site safety, equipment reliability, and a balanced budget from smooth operations are the cornerstones of a successful power grid. Today’s utility companies face immense challenges with current equipment monitoring practices, such as failures from aging electrical equipment, the need to extend the life of critical assets, and carrying out ongoing lifecycle management that is essential […]

The 19th century battle between Nikolai Tesla’s alternating current (AC) and Thomas Edison’s direct current (DC) technologies had an undisputed winner. The vast majority of the world’s transmission and distribution grids work now on AC. But DC—and high-voltage direct current (HVDC)—is attracting renewed interest. New Applications Emerge for HVDC The benefits of HVDC include its […]

Tesla owners pulling up to plug in at specific Supercharger locations in the U.S. will soon be met with an unfamiliar sight: electric vehicles (EVs) from other car companies, parked in and charging at spots previously compatible just for a Tesla. COMMENTARY General Motors, Rivian, and Ford have all recently announced partnerships with Tesla to […]

A modern town without power—shuttered stores, empty parking lots and useless traffic lights—can resemble an eerie, dystopian future where residents struggle to get what they need. This is the short-term reality for localities that have been victims of targeted substation attacks, which have been rising steadily for the past decade. COMMENTARY At best, these widespread […]

A Colorado electric cooperative said it has joined with energy integrator Ameresco on a battery energy storage system (BESS) project that will serve customers along the state’s northern Front Range. United Power, founded as rural electric co-op in 1938 and today serving some of the fastest-growing areas of Colorado, on July 10 announced it had […]

Utilities need to modernize their grid infrastructure but face a unique challenge: change is tricky when the stakes are high. Technology is changing faster than ever, from the latest smartphones and devices to automated tools being introduced across industries to ease workloads. For essential mission-critical services such as electric power, failure is not an option. […]

Power projects are filled with risk. One of the biggest risks today for clean energy developers involves interconnection constraints. And according to Sarp Ozkan, vice president of Commercial Product at

As the frequency and intensity of wildfires continue to increase across the U.S., electric utilities face unprecedented challenges in maintaining a reliable power supply and keeping communities safe. In

OpenUtilities Enables Substation Intelligent Digital Design, Reducing Environmental Impact and Saving 50% in Costs With a network spanning 737,000 kilometers, covering approximately 95% of New South Wales, Australia, Essential Energy distributes electricity services to more than 870,000 homes and businesses in 1,500 regional, rural, and remote communities. Despite their large coverage area, Essential Energy has […]

A project to build more than 100 miles of transmission lines, along with multiple substations, to enable the use of more renewable energy in Maine has received support from state lawmakers. LS Power Grid Maine, a subsidiary of New York-headquartered LS Power, on June 26 said the Aroostook Renewable Gateway effort has received the first […]

A project that will developed by Propel NY—a partnership of the New York Power Authority and New York Transco—has been chosen to provide at least 3,000 MW of energy from offshore wind installations. The board of directors of the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the grid manager for New York State, on June 20 […]

The U.S. power grid has many vulnerabilities, but power companies, with additional support from the government, are investing in the system and enhancing its operation through new innovative technology. The

One concern some observers raise about the growth of inverter-based resources, such as solar, wind, and battery storage, supplying the power grid is that they don’t provide inertia. Inertia has historically

As the energy transition to inverter-based resources continues, reliability risk increases and requires additional investment to mitigate threats. But what measures should be put in place, what are the

There is a continued push in the power generation sector to make the industry more efficient through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and data science. Several companies are working to provide products and services for utilities and other power producers, focused on generation, transmission and distribution, and the way utilities interact with […]

The UK will back a “digital twin” of future multi-vector energy systems, including non-electric ones, that will support the country’s efforts to meet its 2050 net-zero objectives. The UK’s effort echoes several initiatives launched worldwide to deliver new visibility, knowledge, and understanding of future energy systems and integrate real-time modeling. UK transmission and distribution grid […]

The wealth of data available for today’s power generators is supporting more efficient electricity production, and more reliability and resiliency for the grid. There are many reasons utilities and power

Electrical substations utilize direct lightning stroke shielding to help ensure proper operation, and to prevent costly damages and extended outages. While modern substation designs and equipment make them

Grid-tied electric vehicles are batteries on wheels that can support grid resilience. To accelerate the deployment of vehicle-to-grid installations, EnergyHub, the industry’s leading grid-edge DERMS provider, and Fermata Energy, the leading V2G services provider, have partnered to accelerate utilities’ access to EVs as mobile distributed energy resources (DERs) As vehicles and buildings rapidly electrify, utilities are racing […]

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (April 24, 2023) — Camus Energy, a leading grid orchestration software platform, announced today a partnership with Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC), its first with a utility in the Northeast. The collaboration directly benefits 33,000 VEC members across 75 communities, ensuring reliability, low costs, and efficiency as the grid evolves. “VEC and Camus share […]

COMMENTARY The American grid is reaching a tipping point. With electric vehicles (EVs) making up 5% of all new vehicle sales last year, there is an urgent need to prepare for the unprecedented strain that will be placed on the U.S. power grid as adoption continues to ramp up—and this is to say nothing of […]

Perhaps the most devastating thing that could happen in any developed country would be widespread catastrophic damage to its electric power grid. Nearly everything in an industrialized nation relies on electricity to function. Without it, normal water supplies, sewer systems, and communication services are cut off. Furthermore, things like food and transportation are quickly affected […]

SAN FRANCISCO, April 5, 2023: Aetheros, with its leading IoT operating system for massive machine type computing and communications, today entered the U.S. market to power the next wave of smart meter deployments with distributed intelligence. Commercially deployed and proven across Australia and New Zealand, and processing over one billion meter reads daily, the Aether […]