The Coffee Lab

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena,

it will make more progress in one decade

than in all the previous centuries of existence.”

—  Nikola Tesla

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Electrical Power System Research

NFPA Electrical Standards Landing Page  Ω NFPA Standards Council  Ω NFPA Fire Safety Landing Page

ASHRAE Landing Page |  ASTM Electrical & Electronics | IES Illumination

Draft IEEE Paper Abstracts | Mike Anthony Short Biography | Electrotechnology OEMS

 IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee Recent Meeting Minutes 

IEEE Southeastern Michigan Section Welcome August 2024

IEEE & SWE Student Tour of Michigan Stadium Scoreboard | April 2024

IEEE SEM Student Activity 2025

Trending

Electrical Power System Research

NFPA Electrical Standards Landing Page  Ω NFPA Standards Council  Ω NFPA Fire Safety Landing Page

ASHRAE Landing Page |  ASTM Electrical & Electronics

Draft IEEE Paper Abstracts | Mike Anthony Short Biography | Electrotechnology OEMS

We examine the proposals for the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code; including our own. The 2026 National Electrical Code where sit on CMP-15 overseeing health care facility electrical issues should be released any day now. We have one proposal on the agenda of the International Code Council’s Group B Committee Action Hearings in Cleveland in October. Balloting on the next IEEE Gold Book on reliability should begin.

“Tomorrow’s Girls” | Donald Fagan

Policy:

OUTERNET: Crossing over data gap using cubesats

Department of Energy Portfolio Analysis & Management System

Department of Energy Building Technologies Office

FERC Open Meetings | (Note that these ~60 minute sessions meet Sunshine Act requirements.  Our interest lies one or two levels deeper into the technicals underlying the administrivia)

January 23: NARUC Congratulates New FERC, FCC and NRC Chairs

January 22: Newly Appointed FCC Chairman Announces Staff Changes | Related: Falsus in uno, Falsus in omnibus

January 6: City of Ann Arbor Postpones Phase II Study to Municipalize DTE Energy distribution grid

January 27, 10 AM Low-Income Energy Policy Board Meeting: Michigan Public Service commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: January 16, 2025 Open Meeting

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Notice of Request for Comments (Posted November 25, 2024)

Interregional Transfer Capability Study: Strengthening Reliability Through the Energy Transformation Docket No. AD25-4-000

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission | November 21, Open Meeting

Press Conference

Michigan Public Service Commission Meetings

Michigan Public Commission Meeting  February 27, 2025

MPSC DTE CMS Electric Power Reliability Case No. U-21305

Michigan Electrical Administrative Board Meeting February 13, 2025

FCC Open Meeting | November 21 

[Mike Anthony Opinion] on the gales of innuendo against limited federal government voices in federally financed National Public Radio

National Infrastructure Advisory Council: Addressing the Critical Shortage of Power Transformers to Ensure Reliability of the U.S. Grid

H.R. 9603 (September 16): To amend the Federal Power Act to prohibit the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from issuing permits for the construction or modification of electric transmission facilities in a State over the objection of the State, and for other purposes.

Technical: (Also Electrical Power System Research)

Empower Pre-Trained Large Language Models for Building-Level Load Forecasting

Uptime Institute (via NEXT DC) : AI Inference in the Data Center

Majorana Nanowires for Topological Quantum Computing

Linearized Data Center Workload and Cooling Management

Oxford Researchers Discovered How to Use AI To Learn Like A Genius

Lex Fridman: DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters 

IEEE: Experts Weigh in on $500B Stargate Project for AI

IEEE: AI Mistakes Are Very Different Than Human Mistakes .  We need new security systems designed to deal with their weirdness

High-Performance Tensor Learning Primitives Using GPU Tensor Cores

Department of Electrical Engineering, Columbia University, New York

Causes and Consequences of Widespread Power Blackout Across Taiwan on 3 March 2022: A Blackout Incident Investigation in the Taiwan Power System

Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan

First Draft Proposals contain most of our proposals — and most new (original) content.  We will keep the transcripts linked below but will migrate them to a new page starting 2025:

Electrical Safety

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-1

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-2

Public Input Report CMP-3

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-4

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-5

Public Input Report CMP-6

Public Input Report CMP-7

Public Input Report CMP-8

Public Input Report CMP-9

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-10

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-11

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-12

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-13

Public Input Report CMP-14

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-15

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-16

Public Input Report CMP-17

2026 NEC Standards Michigan proposals | Public Input Report CMP-18

Related:

2026 National Electrical Code

N.B. We are in the process of migrating electric power system research to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers bibliographic format. 

Recap of the May meetings of the  Industrial & Commercial Power Systems Conference in Las Vegas.  The conference ended the day before the beginning of the 3-day Memorial Day weekend in the United States so we’re pressed for time; given all that happened.

We can use our last meeting’s agenda to refresh the status of the issues.

IEEE E&H Draft Agenda 28 May 2024

On site conference agenda:

IEEE E&H Conference Agenda 21 May 2024

NESC & NEC Cross-Code Correlation

We typically break down our discussion into the topics listed below:

Codes & Standards:

While IAS/I&CPS has directed votes on the NEC; Mike is the only I&CPS member who is actually submitting proposals and responses to codes and standards developers to the more dominant SDO’s — International Code Council, ASHRAE International, UL, ASTM International, IEC & ISO.  Mike maintains his offer to train the next generation of “code writers and vote getters”

Performance-based building premises feeder design has been proposed for the better part of ten NEC revision cycles.  The objective of these proposals is to reduce material, labor and energy waste owed to the branch and feeder sizing rules that are prescriptive in Articles 210-235.  Our work in service and lighting branch circuit design has been largely successful.  A great deal of building interior power chain involves feeders — the network upstream from branch circuit panels but down stream from building service panel.

Our history of advocating for developing this approach, inspired by the NFPA 101 Guide to Alternative Approaches to Life Safety, and recounted in recent proposals for installing performance-based electrical feeder design into the International Building Code, appears in the link below:

Access to this draft paper for presentation at any conference that will receive it — NFPA, ICC or IEEE (or even ASHRAE) will be available for review at the link below:

Toward Performance-Based Building Premise Feeder Design

NFPA 110 Definitions of Public Utility v. Merchant Utility

NFPA 72 “Definition of Dormitory Suite” and related proposals

Buildings:

Renovation economics, Smart contracts in electrical construction.  UMich leadership in aluminum wiring statements in the NEC should be used to reduce wiring costs.

Copper can’t be mined fast enough to electrify the United States

Daleep asked Mike to do a Case Study session on the NEC lighting power density change (NEC 220-14) for the IAS Annual Meeting in October.  Mike agreed.

Exterior Campus & Distribution:

Illumination.  Gary Fox reported that IEEE 3001.9 was endorsed as an ANSI accredited standard for illumination systems.

2024-ICPSD24-0012 PERMANENT DESIGN OF POWER SYSTEMS Parise

This paper details primary considerations in estimating the life cycle of a campus medium voltage distribution grid.   Some colleges and universities are selling their entire power grid to private companies.  Mike has been following these transactions but cannot do it alone.

Variable Architecture Multi-Island Microgrids

District energy:

Generator stator winding failures and implications upon insurance premiums.  David Shipp and Sergio Panetta.  Mike suggests more coverage of retro-fit and lapsed life cycle technicals for insurance companies setting premiums.

Reliability:

Bob Arno’s leadership in updating the Gold Book.

Mike will expand the sample set in Table 10-35, page 293 from the <75 data points in the 1975 survey to >1000 data points.   Bob will set up meeting with Peyton at US Army Corps of Engineers.

Reliability of merchant utility distribution systems remains pretty much a local matter.  The 2023 Edition of the NESC shows modest improvement in the vocabulary of reliability concepts.  For the 2028 Edition Mike submitted several proposals to at least reference IEEE titles in the distribution reliability domain.   It seems odd (at least to Mike) that the NESC committees do not even reference IEEE technical literature such as Bob’s Gold Book which has been active for decades.  Mike will continue to propose changes in other standards catalogs — such as ASTM, ASHRAE and ICC — which may be more responsive to best practice assertions.  Ultimately, improvements will require state public utility commission regulations — and we support increases in tariffs so that utilities can afford these improvements.

Mike needs help from IEEE Piscataway on standard WordPress theme limitations for the data collection platform.

Mike will update the campus power outage database.

Healthcare:

Giuseppe Parise’s recent work in Italian power grid to its hospitals, given its elevated earthquake risk.  Mike’s review of Giuseppe’s paper:

Harvard Business School: Journal of Healthcare Management Standards

Mike and David Shipp will prepare a position paper for the Harvard Healthcare Management Journal on reliability advantages of impedance grounding for the larger systems.

The Internet of Bodies

Forensics:

Giuseppe’s session was noteworthy for illuminating the similarity and differences between the Italian and US legal system in handling electrotechnology issues.

Mike will restock the committee’s library of lawsuits transactions.

Ports:

Giuseppe updates on the energy and security issues of international ports.  Mike limits his time in this committee even though the State of Michigan has the most fresh water international ports in the world.

A PROPOSED GUIDE FOR THE ENERGY PLAN AND ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE OF A PORT

Other:

Proposals to the 2028 National Electrical Safety Code: Accepted Best Practice, exterior switchgear guarding, scope expansion into ICC and ASHRAE catalog,

Apparently both the Dot Standards and the Color Books will continue parallel development.  Only the Gold Book is being updated; led by Bob Arno.  Mike admitted confusion but reminded everyone that any references to IEEE best practice literature in the NFPA catalog, was installed Mike himself (who would like some backup help)

Universities with Quantum Computing Facilities

Papers in Process:

Impedance Grounding Papers 1 and 2 with David Shipp.  Previous Discussion:

https://ieeetv.ieee.org/channels/ieee-region-events/uc-berkeley-s-medium-voltage-grounding-system

Over Coffee and Beers:

Mike assured Christel Hunter (General Cable) that his proposals for reducing the 180 VA per-outlet requirements, and the performance-base design allowance for building interior feeders do not violate the results of the Neher-McGrath calculation used for conductor sizing.  All insulation and conducting material thermal limits are unaffected.

Other informal discussions centered on the rising cost of copper wiring and the implications for the global electrotechnical transformation involving the build out of quantum computing and autonomous vehicles.  Few expressed optimism that government ambitions for the same could be met in any practical way.

Are students avoiding use of Chat GPT for energy conservation reasons?  Mike will be breaking out this topic for a dedicated standards inquiry session:

GPT Power Grid

Education & Healthcare Facility Electrotechnology Committee

Workspace IEEE 1366: Guide for Electric Power Distribution Reliability Indices

Largest U.S. Electric Utility Companies Ranked by Generation Capacity  For IEEE 493 update we seek outage data from the 100 largest campus power system experts.