Streaming Now
H.R. 5889: American Energy Efficiency Act
To amend title VI of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 to establish a Federal energy efficiency resource standard for retail electricity suppliers and retail natural gas suppliers, and for other purposes. Introduced November 4, 2021.
Homeland Power Security
We collaborate with the US Army Corps of Engineers harvesting data for its homeland power reliability enhancement project. Artificial intelligence applications to power systems depend upon an statistically significant data set for "training" power systems within education facilities and in the communities that host them. We encourage our colleagues in education community facility units to contribute data to this project.
Rightsizing Electrical Power Systems
For decades, application of the National Electrical Code resulted in unused capacity in all occupancy classes. Catalyzed by the University of Michigan, with collaborators at the University of Houston, the 2014 NEC was revised to provide an exception in Section 220.12 that permits designers to reduce the size of the power chain to lighting loads. It is a conservative, incremental step toward oversized power chains; saving 10's of millions of dollars annually for the education industry and others. As with all market-moving research -- "more research is needed".
Power
Are the ambitions of energy policy-makers over-promising what electrotechnical systems can do? How do we build electrotechnologies for the Learn From Home transformation? Can we gather data to "teach" a university power system to be more resilient? These possibilities inform our responses to changes in best practice literature during our 4-times monthly collaboration with the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers on the safety and sustainability of campus electrical energy systems.
Heat Tracing
In the Northern Hemisphere, 'tis the season for collapsing roofs, frozen pipes and icicles falling on people's heads. NECA 202 is one of a constellation of interdependent titles that set the standard or care for the installation of these systems which work invisibly in on roofing systems and piping systems exposed to low temperatures.
Syllabus
Best practice titles relevant to education community safety and sustainability change at a rate of 100 to 1000 times per day. Many of them are unstable (i.e. still in draft form), time-sensitive and copyright protected. We break down this action every day, assign priorities, then schedule a separate teleconference to formulate responses to public consultations. Daily colloquia topics are shown on our CALENDAR.
Electrical Safety in the Workplace
We have advocated education industry user-interests in electrical codes and standards since 1993; driving a few safety concepts into it that close the gap that results when campus power systems become too large for NFPA's National Electrical Code and too small for IEEE's National Electrical Safety Code. Public Comment closing date on the First Draft of 2024 Revision is due May 31, 2022.
National Electrical Safety Code
This title sets the standard of care for construction, operation and maintenance of power and telecommunication infrastructure on the supply side of the point of common coupling. It is the first title to reach for when disasters happen; with most public utilities bound to its best practice by statute. The 2022 revision is nearing the close of its 5-year revision cycle. Public consultation opens in late 2021 and ends (nominally) January 14, 2022.
Electricity and Water Conservation on College and University Campuses
“Campus Conservation Nationals” is a recurring, nation-wide electricity and water-use reduction competition among dormitories on college campuses. We conducted a two year empirical study of the competition’s effects on resource consumption and the relationship between conservation, use of web technology and various psychological measures.