- March 11, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the March/April 2019 issue of electroindustry.
The notion of quality can be elusive. In the manufacturing world, quality typically connotes a degree of excellence or a measurable Standard by which we compare like items. To a consumer, however, quality can be all of that and much more. Quality can involve personally subjective attributes, such as style and taste. In the lighting world, both types of quality play an important role in our daily lives.
Before 1925
Read More[...]
- March 8, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the March/April 2019 issue of electroindustry.
By Morgan Pattison, Ph.D.
A principal of SSLS, Inc., Morgan Pattison is Senior Technical Advisor to the U.S. Department of Energy Solid-State Lighting Program and lead author of the DOE Solid-State Lighting R&D Opportunities document.
The development of electric light in the 19th century improved efficiency, made lighting safer, reduced costs, and enabled unforeseen additional benefits. Today we are undergoing another major lighting revolution, similar in scale, thanks to LED technology.
Read More[...]
- February 27, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Charles W. Denny, a Falk Award recipient and former Member of the NEMA Board of Governors, died in November 2018, leaving a legacy of technological and trade achievement, marketing and managerial excellence, and dedication to his family.
In presenting the Falk Award in 2001, then–NEMA Chairman Peter McIlroy called him “a hardworking leader who is committed to doing the right things for his company and for the industry.”
In 1960, Mr. Denny began
Read More[...]
- February 25, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Kevin J. Cosgriff, NEMA President and CEO
As highlighted in this issue, where and how we get our power is changing. We still rely on large power plants, but rooftop solar panels, wind farms, and other sources are emerging in the market. Members of the NEMA Utility Products & Systems Division expect that this model of more distributed generation closer to where power is consumed—along the edge of the network, rather than
Read More[...]
- February 22, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Upon returning from attending their first annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), new staff with the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA), a division of NEMA, shared their experiences.
ZACK HORNBERGER, DIRECTOR, CYBERSECURITY & INFORMATICS, MITA
RSNA touts itself as the biggest medical imaging event in the United States, and it lives up to that hype in spades. It was an excellent opportunity to learn more about the devices
Read More[...]
- February 20, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Ann Brandstadter, Manager, Standards Publications and Marketing, NEMA
NEMA GMOD 1-2018 Reviewing the Business Case and Cost Recovery for Grid Modernization covers grid modernization investments, summarizes the benefits of grid technologies, and documents cost recovery mechanisms and business cases. It is available at no charge to NEMA Members and to the general public in hard copy and electronic download for $100 at www.nema.org/grid-modernization-report.
NEMA BE P1-2018 Building System Efficiency Modeling—Improving the Accuracy of
Read More[...]
- February 18, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Craig Updyke, Director, Trade and Commercial Affairs, NEMA
As noted in “Outlook for 116th Congress” (page 16), Congress is expected in 2019 to consider the new U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), intended as a modernization of and replacement for the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At present, the prospects are colored by competing priorities: on one hand, demands for changes in the compromise agreement from members of Congress from both sides of
Read More[...]
- February 12, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
By Clark Silcox, NEMA General Counsel
There is a revolution in lighting underway, and it is being led by lighting consumers, retailers, and manufacturers. We have reached the energy savings goals for the Standard light bulb sought by Congress in 2007. The tipping point has already occurred, and there is no turning back. It is not about to be “rolled back” by government regulation as a few have mistakenly argued.
Our colleagues in the energy efficiency advocacy community are asserting that the
Read More[...]
- February 11, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Mike Stone, West Coast Field Representative, NEMA
In the Western United States, approximately 80 utilities collaborated with the Electric Utility Service Equipment Requirements Committee (EUSERC), which was formed in 1983 by the merger of two different groups in Southern and Northern California that had been active since the 1940s. There are 14 Western states that have utility members represented in EUSERC. The NEMA West Coast Field Representative and an Underwriters Laboratories (UL)
Read More[...]
- February 8, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Brian Marchionini, PMP, Senior Program Manager, NEMA
Smart grid devices, systems, and applications require extensive data exchange, necessitating well-defined interfaces to transfer and translate this data from point to point across the grid.
Clarifying the communications protocol and data model performance requirements is essential to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and its ongoing update of the Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards (see infographic below).
NIST has published three
Read More[...]
- February 4, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Gerard Winstanley, Program Manager, NEMA
The NEMA Capacitor Section is initiating a project to develop a new Standard for direct current power capacitors rated ½ kVAR and larger. The Capacitor Section is part of the Utility Products & Systems Division and covers the use of power capacitors for power factor improvement and harmonic filtering.
Power capacitors are used in power generation, transmission and distribution, and industrial applications.
The need for a dc capacitor Standard
Read More[...]
- February 1, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Jonathan Stewart, Industry Director, Utility Products & Systems Division, NEMA
Just as the electrical power grid is developing into a system of systems with millions of interconnected parts, so, too, is the NEMA Utility Products & Systems Division moving toward an integrated coalition of product Sections.
The Division is creating a Leadership Committee that reflects a movement within NEMA from a focus on being a product-centric technical organization to one that looks at
Read More[...]
- January 28, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
Steve Griffith, Industry Director, Transportation Division, NEMA
The Internet of Things (IoT) wave was evident more than ever at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held this month in Las Vegas where more than 4,500 exhibitors showcased their latest tech innovations. The impact of 5G across the industry was evident throughout the conference. From transportation, virtual reality, sports technology, and digital health, 5G is a game changer.
How does this affect the industries into which NEMA and MITA Members sell their products
Read More[...]
- January 28, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
In 2016, NEMA published NEMA MGRD 1-2016 Powering Microgrids for the 21st- Century Electrical System, a white paper introducing the concept of microgrids as an integral component of the power delivery system of the 21st century. Microgrids, once viewed as islanded systems of generation and load, valued mostly for their ability to disconnect from the grid and serve individual customer facilities during outages, are now seen as part of distribution system
Read More[...]
- January 25, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Garry Golden, Futurist, Forward Elements
Mr. Golden consults on issues shaping business and society in the 21st century.
For years, fuel cells have been a disruptive technology that failed to meet expectations.
The technology gained popularity in the late 1990s as Ballard Power stocks went up and down with the dot-com boom and bust. Since the early 2000s, fuel cells found narrow success in remote power systems for telecommunications networks and as an uptime-focused
Read More[...]
- January 21, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Gary Rackliffe, Vice President, Smart Grids and Grid Modernization, ABB Inc.
Similar to the smart grid concept introduced by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007), “grid modernization” is both difficult to define and subject to varying opinions.
In addition to operational and information technology (OT/IT) deployment, grid modernization builds on the previous smart grid definitions and addresses several underpinnings:
Grid reliability and resiliency, especially the frequent occurrence and severity of
Read More[...]
- January 18, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Ivan Jovanovic, Managing Director, Cable Accessories, G&W Electric Company
For decades, oil-filled terminations have been the norm for high-voltage cables. Moving away from this traditional technology are pre-molded dry-type outdoor terminations.
In 2018, 138 kV pre-molded dry-type outdoor terminations were installed in three different regions of the world for the first time: Malaysia, the Philippines, and Ansonia, Connecticut; each applied mechanical shrink installation technology to new and existing grids.
To meet the
Read More[...]
- January 14, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
Richard Glick, Commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently concluded that we are on track to see global temperatures rise by 1.5°C as early as 2030. The Trump Administration’s most recent National Climate Assessment also indicates that, absent a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the annual economic consequences of climate change will reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars by the
Read More[...]
- January 11, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
John V. Lampe, Business Development Director, Distribution Automation, Itron
The electrical industry is in transition from a predictable grid—with few sources of energy and few monitoring and control points—to a dynamic one with many monitoring and control points. Three categories of change motivate this transition:
the public’s reduced tolerance for outages;
increased emphasis on cybersecurity; and
society’s desire to employ more renewable energy for electricity and transportation.
These changes require greater resilience from the
Read More[...]
- January 9, 2019
- NEMA Communications
-
This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry.
When the 116th Congress convenes on January 3, 2019, NEMA Members will face a two-party federal legislature for the first time since 2013 when Democrats held a majority in the U.S. Senate. Democrats’ new majority in the House of Representatives, coupled with Republicans’ majority in the Senate, presents exciting challenges and opportunities as we work to achieve advocacy objectives of the Association as well as specific product groups.
We expect
Read More[...]