U-Z

Utility Prepares for Smart Meters and Plug-ins

From smart meter pilot programs to plans for electric vehicle charging stations, utilities are moving from concept to reality as the ways in which electricity is used and delivered is radically altered in the early 21st Century.

Northeast Utilities, based in Hartford, Connecticut, is venturing into both directions with perhaps the largest smart meter pilot program in the United States and with preliminary plans to develop charging stations for plug-in electric vehicles. The smart meter pilot is for Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) customers. The vehicle charging venture is proposed for CL&P and Northeast's Massachusetts subsidiary, Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECO).

With 3,000 customers in the meter pilot during this summer -- 1,500 residential and 1,500 commercial and industrial customers -- the company says it is the largest customer-focused pilot of its kind in North America to date.

Details Here

first published week of:   10/19/2009

Waxman-Markey Flunks Math
the numbers behind green energy

Electricity is a good thing. It powers our computers, drives economic growth, transmits images from Tehran’s streets, keeps preemies alive in hospitals, prevents meat from rotting and keeps us enchanted and cool in movie theaters.

Yes, electricity is a good thing. But from where does it come? In the U.S. electricity is produced mostly from these sources:

Details Here

first published week of:   08/10/2009

West Texas wind farm billed as world’s largest begins operations

A massive West Texas wind farm billed as the largest in the world is up and running. German company E.ON Climate and Renewables on October 1 announced the completion of the 100,000-acre wind farm near Roscoe that spans four counties. The company says the 627-turbine wind farm is now producing energy. It has the capacity to generate 781.5 megawatts, enough electricity to power more than 230,000 homes. Texas is the nation’s top wind power-producing state.

Details Here

first published week of:   10/05/2009

Wind turbines show up on radar as tornadoes

Wind turbines in Iowa and across the country are showing up on weather radar and looking like tornadoes. Recently, the Des Moines National Weather Service office received a call from an emergency worker who mistook a wind turbine for a twister on doppler radar. A meteorologist says only an amateur would make that mistake. “Wind turbines can produce a false radar echo and you can see it on reflectivity on the internet,3 he said. “They look like splotches, they may look like a storm, but to a trained eye it’s obviously what it is - it’s not a meteorological echo.” But, elsewhere in the country there have been discussions about shutting down wind farms prior to bad storms. In Kansas, a computer program misidentified a wind turbine on radar and mistakenly issued a tornado warning. A meteorologist quickly called off the alert.

Details Here

first published week of:   09/14/2009

World’s power grids infested with (more) SCADA bugs

Areva Inc., a Paris-based company that serves nuclear, wind, and fossilfuel power companies, is warning customers to upgrade a key piece of energy management software following the discovery of security bugs that leaves it vulnerable to hijacking. The vulnerabilities affect multiple versions of Areva’s e-terrahabitat package, which allows operators in power plants to monitor gas and electric levels, adjust transmission and distribution devices, and automate other core functions. A swarm of buffer overflow and denial-of-service bugs makes versions 5.5, 5.6, and 5.7 of e-terrahabitat susceptible to tampering, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team warns (CERT). Customers using earlier versions need to upgrade as well. “An unauthenticated attacker may be able to gain access with the privileges of the eterrahabitat account or an administrator account and execute arbitrary commands, or cause a vulnerable system to crash,” CERT’s advisory states. Users should apply the patch immediately, it adds. The warning is the latest to affect so-called SCADA, or supervisory control and data acquisition, software used to control valves and switches at manufacturing plants, power generators, and gasoline refineries throughout the world. In theory, such a bug should not pose much risk, because SCADA systems and other critical industrial controls should never be exposed to the Internet. Indeed, a spokesman at Areva’s Maryland outpost suggested on February 6 that the vulnerabilities like the ones included in the advisory did not amount to much of a threat. “Computers used at nuclear power plants are not connected to the internet and therefore they’re not vulnerable to viruses of any kind,” he said. But in the real world, there are plenty of ways vulnerable SCADA systems could be exploited. As plants struggle to cut costs, they frequently turn to SCADA to manage systems remotely, over telephone lines, or private networks. Corporations also connect SCADA systems to their data networks to collect data, and those networks are sometimes connected to the Internet, some security experts have said.

Details Here

first published week of:   02/16/2009

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