Edison

David Bowie, Nikola Tesla and The Iron Giant

It takes Hogarth to pull down a massive off-switch to disconnect and save Iron Giant and protect grid assets.

Tesla and Edison have been depicted in a number of films over the years. “The Secret of Nikola Tesla” was a 1980 biopic made in Yugoslavia. “The Prestige” was a 2006 thriller, and in the role of Nikola Tesla, David Bowie in his final picture.

Byline:

Steve Mitnick

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James Maxwell and Charles Coulomb

June Birthdays

On June 14, 1736, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb was born in France.

The name might seem vaguely familiar. In an electrical engineering or physics class that you struggled to keep awake in, the prof defined the unit of electric charge.

The coulomb, or just C, is the unit of electric charge. It is the charge transported by a constant electrical current of one ampere in one second.

C comes into plays in capacitance, the storing of charge. C is also the amount of excess charge on a capacitor of one farad charged to a potential difference of one volt.

Byline:

Steve Mitnick

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Arc Light, Gramme Machine, The Great Train Robbery

April Birthdays

Charles Brush, Zenobe Gramme, Edwin Porter, Hydro-Quebec, Guglielmo Marconi

Byline:

Steve Mitnick

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March Birthdays: Kirchhoff to Kaiulani

Gustav Kirchhoff, Albert Einstein, Reddy Kilowatt, George Ohm, Robert Millikan, and the light bulb patent.

Gustav Kirchhoff, who you can blame for the miserable complexity of electrical transmission and distribution systems, was born on March 12, 1824. Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879. And others ...

Byline:

Steve Mitnick

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Washington Can't Save Utilities from the Solar Onslaught

If energy storage succeeds, it’s a new battlefield.

Solar rooftop installations are fraying the very fabric of the utilities and their business models and, for the first time in a long time, the powerful lobby that is EEI cannot help.

Byline:

Llewellyn King

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People (June 2015)

Andrew L. Ott will be PJM Interconnection’s president and CEO later this year; American Transmission Co. named Mike Rowe the company’s future president and CEO; DTE Energy named Paula Silver as v.p. for corporate communications; Georgia Power named Craig Barrs executive v.p. of the company’s customer service and operations organization; ITC Holdings promoted Christine Mason Soneral to senior v.p.; E.ON Energy Services named Keith Day president; Gil C. Quiniones was elected chair of EPRI; Jane Palmieri was elected industry co-chair at the Alliance to Save Energy; Rich Meyer was named president of the nation’s Energy Bar Association; and others.

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The Driving Ambition of Elon Musk

An electric car in every driveway, a battery in every garage.

Tesla’s Elon Musk is driving the electric car off the lot and onto the premises of America’s electric utilities, proposing to build and sell energy storage batteries on both a residential and grid-wide scale – ideas that the chief executive will fully flesh out at the Edison Electric Institute’s annual meeting in New Orleans this June.

Byline:

Ken Silverstein

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People (November 2014)

El Paso Electric named Mary Kipp president; Edison International appointed Ronald L. Litzinger and Pedro J. Pizarro presidents at subsidiaries; OGE Energy promoted Sean Trauschke to president; Alan Oshima was named Hawaiian Electric’s president and CEO; Plus board of directors changes at ISO New England and sPower; VP appointments at GDF SUEZ Energy Resources NA, and Georgia Power; and others…

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