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Top Story
NSTAR Awarded $10 Million in
Federal
Stimulus Funds to Enhance Electric Reliability
NSTAR, the investor-owned electric and gas utility in
Massachusetts, is teaming up with Atlanta-based GE Energy, one of the
world’s leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery
technologies, to reduce power outages and restore service faster,
thanks
to the $10 million in federal stimulus funding it recently received
from
the Department of Energy to advance the roll-out of the company’s
electric grid “self-healing” project.
By using GE’s smart grid technologies, NSTAR will further improve
service reliability by reducing the extent, frequency, and duration of
customer outages. NSTAR, which already possesses one of the largest
automated systems in the country, intends to use this project to
modernize more of the grid in its service territory. Today, utilities
often have to rely on customer phone calls to learn of power outages,
and then must send work crews to the site to restore power. With a
smarter grid, NSTAR can automatically isolate the outage, reroute power
around the outage, and even correct some outages without having to
deploy a truck or crew. As a result, customers will have fewer and
shorter outages. The system combines detection, assessment, decision
support, and network control to automatically reroute power around
outages, limiting the households affected to those closest to the
damaged equipment. According to NSTAR, customers whose power can’t be
restored remotely can still see shorter outage times, as the system
analyzes the outage causes and immediately dispatches the best
resources
to fix the problem.
To learn more about how smart grid technology works, watch this video.
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Industry News
GE Teams with
Validus DC Systems to Introduce DC Data Center System
GE Consumer & Industrial's electrical business recently
signed a an agreement with Validus DC Systems, Brookfield, Conn., a
provider of fully integrated direct current (DC) power infrastructure
for datacenters and telecommunications facilities, to promote the new
Validus DC Data Center system using advanced GE electrical components.
In addition to providing improved end–to–end reliability, according
to the company, the new system can lower facility costs for equipment,
real estate, and energy, effectively reducing the total cost of
ownership by 30% to 50%.
To read more on this story, visit EC&M's Web
site.
New Products & Services
High-Temperature Battery
Falcon Electric,
Irwindale, Calif., recently added a new long-life battery to its SSG
Series Industrial-Grade UPS Plus product line. For environments with
temperatures that typically exceed 40°C, such as a factory floor, a
desert setting, or any computer rack, the batteries are rated to last
at
least twice the service life of standard five-year/40°C-rated
batteries, according to the company. The new batteries, which are
optional on all Falcon UPS systems, are rated for 10 years of expected
life in a temperature-controlled environment (up to 25°C). Because of
its regenerative online design, the company says the SSG Series UPS is
free from the “overcycling” of batteries caused by the
“buck-boost” feature of less-expensive “switching” or
“line-interactive” UPSs. According to Falcon Electric, the SSG
Series is the only UPS to carry a 55°C UL listing for operating at
high
temperatures.
UPS Infrastructure Management
Software
Chloride
North America, Libertyville, Ill., recently announced that its
popular ManageUPS CIO UPS centralized infrastructure management
software
is capable of sending e-mail alerts to all mobile devices, providing IT
professionals with remote visibility of key UPS performance measures,
regardless of location. According to the company, the software acts as
a
"single pane of glass" for real-time monitoring of multiple and
remote-site UPS as well as for the automated shutdown of server
computers due to utility power failure, low batteries, or an
environment
threshold-related event that requires automated load shedding or server
protection. Because the software is vendor-neutral, it can be deployed
to monitor a UPS from Chloride or from other manufacturers via
SNMP.
Rack-Mount Inverter
The AEP-A2000R Series of efficient, pure sign wave
inverters from Schaefer
provides 2kVA of power in a compact 1U rack design. Available in three
standard input configurations of 12VDC, 24VDC, and the less frequently
found 48VDC, the product features outputs that are regulated to +/-3%
or
better. A built-in, 4-6ms automatic bypass switch allows for redundant
operation from utility power if the DC supply drops out. According to
the company, all models in the series feature comprehensive protection
circuitry and a front panel digital display to monitor/indicate low
input voltage, short circuit, input overvoltage, over temperature,
overload, and low battery. The display also indicates voltage,
amperage,
power, and temperature. Efficiency ranges from 86% to 92%. Class B EMI
compliance allows for minimum interference to other sensitive
equipment.
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