Consulting-Specifying Engineer - April 2008 - (Page 16) M/E Roundtable necessary safeguards for correction. Highefficiency UPS provide a means of correcting power quality disturbances including sags, surges, undesirable harmonics and as a bridge to backup generator, providing protection against long-term outages. CSE: Is the number of brownouts and blackouts increasing or decreasing nationally? PERKINS: As electricity consumption increases, we might expect the number of events to increase as well. If the number of events increases in direct proportion to consumption (i.e., events per GWh, etc.), we might say the reliability of the grid is constant. Increasing outages per unit consumption might indicate decreasing reliability and conversely, a decreasing rate might indicate increasing reliability even though the total number of events increases with time. An often-quoted resource for utility voltage disruption is the Electric Power Research Institute report TR-106294 (1996). The report data considered the degree of voltage disturbance in terms of percent voltage sag and event duration. We are unaware of a followon report that is available to assess changes with time that is needed to comment on the issue of brownouts. The Energy Information Assn. compiles data on major outages nationwide and it is possible to chart this data to observe trends. CSE: Who maintains the grid? PERKINS: Nationally, grid reliability is regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). FERC delegates reliability management to the North American Reliability Corp. (NERC). There are eight regional entities that report to NERC. NERC publishes reliability standards. CSE: Are energy efficiency programs having an impact on electrical generation capacity? PERKINS: PG&E, an investor owned utility, is on its way to deferring 700 megawatts of generation through efficiency incentives and rebates. PG&E is able to profit from incentives by working closely with the California Public Utility Commission to allocate a percentage of fees towards efficiency programs. Elsewhere, municipal utilities such as Austin Energy provide incentives via mandates such as compliance with City of Austin Climate Protection Plan. In general, the costs of incentive programs are spread across all utility customer bills. blog Get your on Visit www.csemag.com and read one of the most popular commissioning blogs in the industry: A Field Guide for Engineers by David Sellers, PE Consulting-Specifying Engineer (www.csemag.com) is the only engineering publication and Web site with a focus on providing integrated content including all MEP, fire, and control systems. CSE equips engineers with application-oriented design solutions and tactics to make better informed design-build decisions for commercial, industrial, and institutional building projects. Go to www.csemag.com today for a free subscription to CSE’s print and digital publication. cse0803_blogFillHLF.indd 1 3/26/2008 9:13:45 AM 16 Consulting-Specifying Engineer • APRIL 2008 http://www.csemag.com http://www.csemag.com http://www.csemag.com http://www.csemag.com
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