Future Green Jobs Protecting Cities from Power Outages:Smart Grid

Zenergy Power plc recently announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Zenergy Power Inc., has been contracted by The Consolidated Edison Company of New York to build and test a ‘Smart Grid’device for improving the stability and reliability of New York City’s electrical system. The equipment, known as a Fault Current Limiter (‘FCL’), instantly detects and absorbs spikes in power that, left unmanaged, could damage electrical equipment or trigger power outages. It is through the development of innovative technology such as this that will create future green jobs across the country and around the world.

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From the Official Press release.

Today, power disruptions from faults and related issues are estimated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to cost the U.S. economy more that $100 billion per year. Under its mandate to lead the modernization of the electric grid, the DOE partially funded Zenergy’s development of the FCL to address these issues. Nationally, a major effort is underway to develop and deploy “Smart Grid” devices to help the present infrastructure meet the country’s growing energy requirements. Devices like Zenergy’s FCL greatly improve grid reliability and security, which is necessary to establishing a more stable service, fewer outages and more rapid power restoration following electrical interruptions.

Common events, such as storms or accidents, can produce large spikes in current on the grid. These surges are termed “faults” and may damage electrical equipment or cause partial or total power failures on an electrical network. In part due to steadily increasing electricity demands of New York City, Con Edison has been active in studying new technologies to manage the impact of these ‘faults’ and maintain its system’s reliability. In practice, Zenergy’s FCL is electrically connected to the grid it protects. It allows normal current to pass through unimpeded but, when it senses a fault current, instantly counters the electrical flow. This reaction, created in part by the superconductor in the device, chokes off a potentially damaging electrical spike. Once the fault current subsides, the FCL again allows standard levels of current to flow, protecting the electrical system automatically without human intervention
Con Edison, a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., authorized a project to design, build and test a single-phase FCL of a type that would be applicable to a number of substations within the utility’s electrical systems. Zenergy expects to deliver the prototype by the end of August, 2009.

ZEnergy Power plc is a global specialist manufacturer and developer of high efficiency industrial and renewable energy devices that employ superconductor technologies and is listed on the London Stock Exchange‘s AIM market (ZEN).

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Posted by admin on May 7 2009. Filed under Alternative Energy, Environmental, Green Jobs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry