When Valero's pipeline group wanted to be able to more accurately account for energy usage, they looked to Schneider Electric?s local Square D team for a solution, which revealed that the refinery was over-billing them to the tune of $200,000 a year!

Download this case study >>

After continually losing money due to unexplainable electrical disturbances, a semiconductor plant in the northeastern US challenged the local utility company's claim of delivering 99.9% reliable power, capturing incriminating evidence from the plant?s new PowerLogic power monitoring system.

Download this case study >>

Harmonics and capacitors do not mix very well, so this battery plant engineer needed a way of historically characterizing the harmonic levels and their sources. The PowerLogic historical charting function and steady state waveform capture allowed him to see when and where high levels were occurring (as high as 67% on Voltage).

Download this case study >>

Thanks to a local community college?s PowerLogic system, a sudden electrical explosion at the nearby County Courthouse was captured in waveform and used as part of the documentation to collect a $4M claim.

Download this case study >>

The San Francisco International Airport (SFIA) has applied its inclination toward advanced technology to its power management system, linking state-of-the-art power meters and circuit monitors with software to monitor its power system. The PowerLogic system from Schneider Electric provides early notification of power system trouble and vastly reduces the labor required to monitor tenant electrical usage and produce bills. The system allows the airport to pass along all aspects of the electrical rate, including time of use and multiple tier energy and demand rates. It also provides detailed power usage information that the airport can share with tenants. Click here to see January 2006 Energy & Power Management cover story

Download this case study >>

Stephen Pauli is with Bayer Material Science in Baytown, Texas. This article first appeared in its original form at the 2003 IEEE/IAS Petroleum and Chemical Industry Technical Committee Conference. The IEEE Industrial Application Solutions published this paper in the Volume 11, Issue 2 in 2005 and granted permission for this posting. The paper is a guide to specifying, justifying, and installing substation monitoring and control systems based on Bayer's experience. Between 1996 and 1999, a large chemical firm made US$1 billion in capital investments, adding production capacity and doubling the site load to 220 MW. This growth strained the capacity of critical substations to carry loads had its companion transformer failed(in a typical main-tie-main arrangement). In parallel to a year 2000 cogeneration agreement, this firm funded a US$13 million project to improve the electrical distribution system infrastructure. This project installed a third 138-kV yard, a 138 kV/34.5 kV 2 × 64 MVA substation, and a satellite 2 × 34 MVA 13.8 kV substation.

Download this case study >>

Like many universities, the University of Mississippi is always interested in maintaining its quality of education without increasing costs. The University wanted to increase funds available for educational programs without raising fees, so when it learned of a load curtailment initiative introduced by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that would allow it to reduce its electricity costs, it was eager to participate.

Download this case study >>

Oracle Corporation, the software giant based in Redwood Shores, California, is the world's leading supplier of information management software. Its products operate in everything from personal digital assistants to global information networks. For Oracle's thousands of software developers, as well as customers that depend on non-stop 24-hour-a-day technical support, power interruptions can be extremely costly. "It can mean as much as 5 to 10 million dollars per day for us in lost sales and productivity," states Jeff Byron, Oracle's Corporate Utility Manager. "It also affects our customers who have mission-critical support needs."

Download this case study >>

Today's utilities have a critical need for real-time energy information, especially in a true market economy where both energy suppliers and consumers can influence the amount and price of power. RETX focused on price response and emergency response, where end users can adjust usage based on the price of electricity, release power back to the grid by shedding loads or starting up generators, and respond to utility requests for load curtailment due to power supply shortfalls or transmission constraints. Suppliers don't have to invest in new generation, and can satisfy their customers during peak demand and avoid expensive capacity contracts. Reducing demand by 5% can drop market prices by 50%, but all participants need access to the same information and the ability to react immediately. Intelligent PowerLogic ION devices installed at participating end-user sites provide the necessary metering and communications to allow this. Participants needn't buy software, and there aren't any expensive integration points between customer and utility, or the utility and ISO. The system creates a marketplace where end users can sell their capacity, profitably, on the basis of price or reliability.

Download this case study >>

For NASA and its Kennedy Space Center(KSC) the value of having a robust system to monitor its power events and consumption wasn?t enough. The greater value came in implementing a system that could be integrated into a basewide supervisory control and data acquisition system (SCADA), allowing for more advanced monitoring and opening the door for uses that go well beyond simply power.

Download this case study >>