Archive of the 'Transmission Technologies 2008' Category

Walking around the floor with some young engineers can really be fun. They bring a freshness to what

we mature (old) engineers see. I have met Rob Morrow and Kris Johnson previously. They introduced me to Holly Spracklia. They are all from High Energy Inc, an engineering consulting firm from Denver. High Energy sent their young engineers to the Expo to learn about the new technologies. They sure had lots of smart grid questions, so I introduced them to Holly Bounds of Siemens. She took them into the Smart Grid Tour and let them play with the technology - thanks Holly.

The engineers tell me they really enjoyed the Siemens event. I hope you all do too.

Remember when Mom told you to eat your salad? No desert until you finish your dinner… etc, ect, etc. She had tons of dietary rules you had to follow or else! Well Mom’s spirit is pretty upset with me right now. In a place like Nawlins that could be dangerous. The spirits are strong here. Yesterday I told you all about beignets, but I didn’t say that was lunch. Today I have sweet tater pie for lunch at the plantation (sorry no picture - there was a hungry wolf feeding frenzy). On yes, pecan pralines (pure sugar) and a chocolate pecan turtle too. Pam is trying to keep me on the right path, but I bought her off. I gave her half of the chocolate turtle.

Yesterday at the PES press conference, Wanda Reder, PES President, announced a new award has been approved by PES. It will be called the Douglas M. Staszesky Distribution Automation Award. It is to be given yearly to a person in the industry who has demonstrated the enthusiasm for promoting and implementing Distribution Automation Projects. Doug recently passed away, but was told of the honor a few months ago. He said, “This is truly a high honor and just the sort of legacy I’d like to leave the industry.” It includes a scholarship to the school of the recipient’s choice and a travel stipend to the awards banquet. Doug was a good friend to all of us and we will miss him. He helped me with a lot of articles I have written. He could really get you excited when he explained a concept. Stop by the S&C exhibit and talk to them about the award. They have supported this award from the start.

The folks at Trench have been doing so neat things with series coils. They can install one of these on a transmission line and keep the current in manageable levels. That beats taking the line out of service to reconductor it. Stop by and ask Tony or Dave to explain how it works. It’s pretty cool and switchable.

Have you ever wanted to see the insides of a transformer? Talk to Vince Paparo at MTC Transformers. His group is going to tear down a trashed core and coil (on the exhibit floor) and rebuild it. They will take a couple of days to let everyone see how it goes. Vince took some time out of his busy day to explain transformers to my student group. Thanks Vince. Everyone go see this exhibit.

Hi campers. There are some pretty intersting things around here today. I met Art Becker, fleet specialist for ComEd. He has a full electrical hybred line truck on display. It runs on bio-diesel. The hybred electrical system can run the aerial system for about 40 minutes with the truck silent - no engine running. Art says that is very important in a residential area late at night.

In an earlier posting I said Tommy Mayne was all over the place. Well, I kept running into him tonight at the reception. Tommy checks and double checks all the activities. As he says, he makes sure everyone is having fun. I caught up with him and John Paserba (PES VP of Meetings) as they checked things out. As you can see by the smiles, everything was good. I hope you didn’t miss this happening.

After a couple of hours on the floor, it was time for a break. As luck would have it, McDonalds is right in McCormick Place – these folks think of everything. If you think – yeah right just another rude fast food place. Well you got that wrong. I met Otis today. He was manning the cash register and he had a smile and kind word for everyone in line. When it was my turn he took my order and chatted while it came up. I asked about the pace starting tomorrow - would it be hard on them. He smiled and said that after the Chicago Auto Show this would be very nice. It is good to kept things in perspective. Of course, I had ordered something that had to be made fresh. I guess I looked tired after dodging fork lifts and Otis told me to go sit down, he would bring me my order when it came up. It as great meeting this gentleman, he was making the Expo better one person at a time.

The first person I ran into was Tommy Mayne. He is everywhere and he is excited. I don’t see how one person can be in so many places. Tommy said the last time the PES Expo was in Chicago was in 1993. That Expo holds the PES record for the most attendees. I remember it, I was there and it was awesome, but the 2008 is poised to surpass that one. So far the pre-registration is over 11,000! Tommy said, if you count dogs, cats, and passing political folks it is going to be huge by any standards.