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Energy People: Ken Gerling

We talked with Ken Gerling, vice president of transmission projects at Burns & McDonnell.

During his twenty-five-years at Burns & McDonnell, Ken Gerling has managed transmission projects with capital costs of nearly two billion dollars, and led teams with as many as three hundred and fifty members.
Byline: 

Ken Gerling, with Steve Mitnick

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Nuclear Life Extension

Deciding whether to go forward with a second license renewal.

A majority of nuclear power plant operators already have received operating license renewals – to operate their plants for 20 years beyond the 40 years outlined in their initial operating licenses. As utilities decide whether or not to invest in license renewal, they must consider three key questions.
Byline: 

Lee Williams

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PJM's Three-Way Proposal

A re-defined capacity product, revised parameters for generator performance, and a new role for demand response.

The proposal creates a new capacity product called the “Capacity Performance Resource.”
Byline: 

Bruce W. Radford

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Playing Safe with Capacity Markets

PJM would minimize risk, but so did regulation.

Changes envisioned by PJM call for ever more structured markets, further reducing the scope of the competitive landscape from which RTOs arose. They may produce a system that is actually more costly and less innovative than regulation.
Byline: 

David K. Bellman

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Reliable But Costly

Recent trends in distribution line undergrounding.

Utility distribution lines increasingly are going underground, but costs are still prohibitive for replacing existing overhead lines.
Byline: 

William Atkinson

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Wireless Sensor Technology

Equipment health monitoring for the modern utility.

Wireless sensors open new, novel applications for utilities, replacing expensive cabling network options to sense incipient equipment failures.
Byline: 

Ramesh (“Rudy”) Shankar

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Taking Digital to Scale

Eight key ‘plays’ to alter how work is managed and performed.

Adopting digital capabilities to transform operations and processes holds immense promise for utilities. Indeed, it’s the best path to growth.
Byline: 

Greg Bolino and Jack Azagury

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Next-Gen Nuclear

Tomorrow’s options for low-carbon baseload generation.

The nuclear renaissance might be postponed, but technologies continue advancing. The next generation of plants will apply innovation for safety, efficiency, and modularity.
Byline: 

John A. Bewick

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Reinventing the Grid

How to find a future that works.

The traditional central-station grid is evolving toward a more distributed architecture, accommodating a variety of resources spread out across the network. An open and thoughtful planning approach will allow an orderly transition to an integrated system – while fostering innovation among a wider range of industry players.
Byline: 

Michael T. Burr

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Appendix: Opening the Black Box

 

 

Appendix:

Mathematical Structure of the Methodology

In this appendix to “Opening the Black Box,” (Fortnightly, January 2014), we briefly describe the basic components of the models for managing aging assets: how to represent the condition of such assets and the outcome of replacement, maintenance, and testing decisions.  

The model structure is one of optimal control with dynamic state variables and uncertainty. Let 

Byline: 

Charles D. Feinstein and Jonathan A. Lesser

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