March 07, 2017
In the remote and isolated town of Sitka, Alaska, with no connection to a mainland power grid and escalating imported fuel costs, residents decided to raise the Blue Lake Dam to supply 100% of the town’s energy needs and reduce its dependence on outside energy providers. Partnering with Barnard Construction Company in Bozeman, Montana, the......
February 16, 2017
The Philadelphia Water Department has its share of old water pipes to contend with – in fact, they have increased investment in water pipes by 25 percent in their latest capital improvement program. However the Department’s Strategic Energy Plan also looks to better manage future expenses – it includes a facility that will extract energy......
February 16, 2017
Energy is one of the most expensive costs for wastewater treatment, but DC Water’s Combined-Heat-and-Power (CHP) facility is setting out to change that. DC Water’s largest recycling project will “pressure cook” the leftover organic matter, introduce bacteria to spur the anaerobic digestion of the solids, then the resulting methane will be captured to create electricity......
February 16, 2017
The City of Holland, Michigan was facing high demand for power coupled with aging existing facilities. In lieu of a planned and permitted coal-fired project, the Board of Public Works worked with the community to develop a forward-looking energy plan that included significant investment in renewable energy. In 2015, construction began on a $200 million......
February 16, 2017
San Diego Gas & Electric was the first electric utility to get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to test drones. The utility is testing one pound devices to see how well they monitor transmission lines in four sparsely populated areas of the county. There is the potential for these drones to help locate the......
February 16, 2017
Duke Energy has employed LiDAR technology to fly thousands of miles to map the topography of transmission routes and potential obstacles, capture weather data and electrical loading conditions. The utility is also exploring the idea of using drone technology to investigate power fluctuation at a test site near Charlotte, North Carolina. The site is ideal......
Smart Meters Improve Power Response Time
February 16, 2017
While city officials don’t oversee the local power grid, the energy conservation coordinator for the city of Philadelphia has started creating contingency plans for what every city office must do in the case of a power outage. In addition, the Office of Emergency Management established a local energy access plan to coordinate widespread emergency response.......
Plan to Work Together and Save
February 16, 2017
The Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) Project Coordination Office was started to prevent doing the same work twice. Traditionally, CDOT and Chicago’s Department of Water Management would coordinate work, but this new division went to the next level by working with private utilities including Peoples’ Gas and Commonwealth Edison. By coordinating the work of City......
Sustainable Air(port) Conditioning
February 16, 2017
Providing air conditioning through traditional means for the million-square-foot Nashville International Airport proved to be expensive, costing more than $430,000 a year. The airport looked to the abandoned Hoover Rock Quarry, which sits next to one of its busiest runways, as a source of cooling power for the air conditioning system. Once considered to be......
Software Pinpoints Vulnerabilities on Overhead Lines
February 16, 2017
In the energy sector, engineering and construction software for overhead power lines is rapidly changing that industry. It is estimated that software is now used on 80 percent of transmission line projects greater than 100kV in the United States. New lines can be routed and designed in the most efficient way which minimizes not only......
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