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SCADA

Vendor Neutral

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - December 2012

(December2012) KC Electric Association expects soon to finalize installing a Sensus FlexNet network and iCon A electric meters to serve about 4,000 residential and small commercial members across a 5,000-square-mile territory in rural Colorado. Itron and C3 Energy formed an alliance to integrate and jointly market an energy management solution to North American utilities. And others...

Image: 
KC Electric Association is installing Sensus meters in rural Colorado.
PG&E became the first utility to deploy Picarro Surveyor mobile devices for gas leak detection.
Georgia Power started up the final unit at its new McDonough-Atkinson combined-cycle plant.
Siemens will supply a SGT6-5000F gas turbine for a new power plant in Manaus, Brazil.
Category: 
Vendor Neutral
Category (Actual): 
Generation & Markets
T&D Grid
Finance

Vendor Neutral

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - September 2012
Panda Energy awards turnkey $300 million turnkey contract to Siemens and Bechtel; Dominion starts up 585-MW CFB plant; Ocean Power Technologies and Lockheed Martin partner on wave power project; Infigen awards wind turbine service contract to Mitsubishi; ITC commissions 345-kV line in Oklahoma; ABB tests world’s biggest DC transformer; Xcel gets green light for Tres Amigas-area transmission upgrades; plus contracts and announcements from Elster, Sensus, Enertech, and others.
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Dominion Virginia Power started up the 585-MW Virginia City circulating fluidized bed power plant in July.
The latest inspection report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission indicates steam generator tube wear at the San Onofre nuclear plant was caused by excessive vibration under certain circumstances.
ITC Great Plains commissioned the Hugo-Valliant HVDC transmission line and substation project in Oklahoma.
The first three wireless EV charging systems were installed on Nissan LEAFs as part of the Plugless Power program. The systems use electromagnetic induction to charge EV batteries without driver interaction.
Category: 
Vendor Neutral
Category (Actual): 
Generation & Markets
T&D Grid
Finance

Security and the States

Byline: 

Nancy Brockway

Magazine Volume: 
Fortnightly Magazine - July 2012

State commissions can select from a toolkit of regulatory approaches to promote desired utility cybersecurity behavior. One approach is to allow the industry to selfregulate, and another approach is to leave the job to the federal government. But sofar, neither the industry nor the federal government have developed and implemented adequate standards for securing the smart grid. States can play a constructive role—albeit perhaps not in the form of traditional regulation.

Author Bio: 

Nancy Brockway is the principal of independent consultancy NBrockway & Associates. Previously she was a commissioner with the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission, and served on commission staffs in Massachusetts and Maine before that. Brockway acknowledges the insightful help of Alison Silverstein, but retains sole responsibility for errors and opinions.

Category (Actual): 
Cybersecurity, Reliability & CIP
Smart Grid

The regulator’s role in promoting cybersecurity for the smart grid.

Cyber War!

Hardening SCADA Systems against Internet Threats
Chris Petersen, LogRhythm
The United States is the superpower of cyber warfare, but we aren’t alone in possessing these capabilities. Sophisticated attacks raise new concerns about utility vulnerabilities -- SCADA systems in particular.
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