The Brattle Group’s recent study on Energy Efficiency and Demand Response in 2020 (featured in Smart Grid News) shares an interesting prediction: U.S. electricity consumption will drop 5-15% by 2020 relative to forecast trends, while peak demand will drop 7.5-15% compared to forecasts. The push to reduce energy costs and consumption will no doubt be [...]
Archive | November, 2011
Six Solutions to the Billion-Dollar Copper Theft Problem
In my previous post I talked about how copper theft impacts projects in the electric industry. It’s easy to talk about the problems, but how can this type of theft be prevented? Here are the pros and cons of six different solutions that can reduce the risk of copper theft: Control Access. Thieves look for easy [...]
Copper Theft: A Billion Dollar Problem
It’s 4 a.m. on a Monday morning and you are driving to your job site to continue construction on a new substation. You arrive as the sun is rising only to find that the fence to your material storage area is cut and your copper wire is gone. Sound familiar? It should, as this is [...]
Rapid Response for Transmission Lines? Think Distribution Grid Technology
To many, government equals bureaucracy. And there’s no better case in point than the process for siting new transmission lines. As anyone involved in securing right-of-way (ROW) for transmission lines knows, local, state, federal, and tribal agencies can all have jurisdiction and all need to provide approval through their own review processes. The resulting compliance [...]
Why EPC is a Project Owner’s Dream
Engineering, Procure, and Construct (EPC) is a delivery method that is gaining momentum in both the public and private sectors of the power industry because of its potential cost savings. Sometimes referred to as design-build, the concept behind the EPC delivery method is for the owner to have a single source of responsibility for the [...]
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