Maine power upgrade: CMP closing in on finish of 5-year project | SeacoastOnline.com

A lineman, fastened to a hovering helicopter, works on a pole seen from Route 236 in South Berwick. The work is being done as part of the Maine Power Reliability Program, a five-year, $1.4 billion project to upgrade the existing 115-kilovolt system and construct new 345-kilovolt high-voltage transmission lines from Eliot to Orrington.Deb Cram/dcram@seacoastonline.com

Read the Full Story:

                   Maine power upgrade: CMP closing in on finish of 5-year project | SeacoastOnline.com

Systems Engineering and Consumption Challenges | The Energy Collective

A system is a set of inter-related components that interact in an organized fashion toward a common purpose.  When you add living organisms like humans, it becomes an ecosystem.  The electric grid was a complex system, but the advent of Smart Grid technologies started a grid transformation into a complex ecosystem or collection of related systems that are generally identified as the electricity value chain.

Read the Full Story:

Systems Engineering and Consumption Challenges | The Energy Collective

American Electric Power Improves Substation Design with Bentley Substation > ENGINEERING.com

Last week, American Electric Power (AEP), one of the country’s largest electrical utilities, adopted Bentley Substation to improve the design of their power stations.

Bentley’s building information modeling (BIM) software is able to design 3D models, assist in electrical design functions, automatically provide BOMs and generate reports for the production of electrical substations.

READ THE FULL STORY:

American Electric Power Improves Substation Design with Bentley Substation > ENGINEERING.com

Hackers seek to disrupt electric grid through 'smart' devices - SFGate

FILE- In this Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2003, file photo, the setting sun silhouettes electric transmission lines crossing Berea, Ohio. Americans are paying more to maintain the nation's electrical grid than a decade ago, but they appear to be getting little for their money from utility services that are no more reliable and in some cases seem to be getting worse. An Associated Press analysis of utility spending and reliability nationwide found that electric customers are spending 43 percent more than they did in 2002 to build and maintain local electric infrastructure. Since then, power outages have remained infrequent; but when the lights do go out, it now takes longer to get them back on. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan) Photo: Mark A. Duncan, Associated Press

Read the Entire Story:

Hackers seek to disrupt electric grid through 'smart' devices - SFGate

Small-Scale Attacks Could Bring Down U.S. Power Grid, Report Says : The Two-Way : NPR

A power outage in August 2003 darkened New York City. A report warns that the national power grid could be knocked out if just a handful of key power stations were sabotaged.

Read the full story:

Small-Scale Attacks Could Bring Down U.S. Power Grid, Report Says : The Two-Way : NPR

Smart Grid: Utilities: Why it's time to get tougher on energy theft (And on ourselves)

Many utilities are surprisingly tolerant of energy theft. As you'll read in this guest editorial by Alan Snook, there are some understandable reasons for that forbearance. Including the difficulty of easily and accurately detecting theft.

But that is now changing, as he describes. As this information filters out to regulators and ratepayer advocates, I predict that they will begin to demand that utilities do more to detect and prevent theft. Use the Talk Back form at the bottom to agree or disagree. – By Jesse Berst

Read the Full Story:

Smart Grid: Utilities: Why it's time to get tougher on energy theft (And on ourselves)

BBC News - Transformer travels 5,500 miles to Willington village

The National Grid described the transformer as the "size of a bungalow"

The transporter was brought to Derbyshire on a trailer, with a police escort

Read the Full Story:

BBC News - Transformer travels 5,500 miles to Willington village

'Oh, not again': Northeast is hit by another storm

A convoy of utility trucks rolls through Martinez, Ga., a suburb of Augusta. Crews in the South worked to restore power to 800,000 homes and businesses. Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Read more at 

'Oh, not again': Northeast is hit by another storm

Worcester gets a jump on smart energy technology - Worcester Telegram & Gazette - telegram.com

                     

Transmitting antennae, which connect to smart devices, are seen on top of utility poles at the National Grid Training Center in Millbury. (T&G Staff/TOM RETTIG)

Read the full story:

Worcester gets a jump on smart energy technology - Worcester Telegram & Gazette - telegram.com

WICS NewsChannel 20 :: News - Top Stories - Crews Battle Elements, Work to Restore Power

At the peak, Shelby Electric Co-op had about 600 customers without power, since then they've been busy trying to get electricity  back on as outages keep popping up.

Most of the time that means going out in the exact same conditions that caused the lines to break in the first place.

"When it gets this cold you get all kinds of challenges," said Brian Chevalier, "lines that break just because it's cold, of course the snow, the drifts, can't get these trucks through them, we don't have 4 wheel drive trucks, we have tire chains."

When they aboslutely can't get the truck to a downed line, they have backup transportation, a Polaris Razr off-road vehicle one of the linemen brought in.

But not having the bucket truck means climbing the pole the old fashioned way, with spikes mounted to their boots.

Read the full Story:

WICS NewsChannel 20 :: News - Top Stories - Crews Battle Elements, Work to Restore Power