Lead Items
May is Electrical Safety
Month—yes,
you probably knew that, but the Electrical Safety Foundation International offered
a release reminding all of us—early.
President plans boost for
DOE unit—the
Building Technologies program at the Dept. of Energy would get an increase from
$219 million to $470 million—114.9%—under President Obama’s proposed budget,
according to ASHRAE.
Green/Electrical Contractors
& Their Work
EV charger install—Christensen
Electric of Portland, Ore., has a partnership with EV4 Oregon, a start-up (as
described in a release posted to NECA’s site) which makes the Energy Transfer
Merchant. ETM is described as “a solar-powered charging and energy storage system
designed to resemble an African acacia tree.”
Ground-mount solar system—customer:
Southern California Edison. Contractor: Cupertino Electric. What: Said to be
California’s largest utility-owned solar PV generating station (5MW), built
on a fast-track basis.
HA charging stations—American
Electric has installed charging stations at Hawaii Nissan dealerships. Pacific
Business News reported in January.
Mesquite Solar 1—this
power plant in Arizona, to be built for Sempra Generation, will combine the
services of Zachery Holdings (the contractor, of San Antonio, Texas) and more
than 800,000 solar panels from Suntech to generate 150MW, which is to be sold
to Pacific Gas & Electric.
MD Transit Admin.—signed
a 15-year, $6.2 million energy savings performance deal with Pepco Energy Services
(a unit of the local utility). Efforts to be pursued “Lighting retrofits, occupancy
sensors, and daylight harvesting,” as well as installation of a rooftop solar
PV array on one building.
MI prisons—Energy Systems Group, Johnson Controls,
and Chevron Energy Solutions will each work on one of three prisons involved
in a grouping of three Michigan correctional facilities in $17.3 million of
clean energy performance contracts. The projects will save the state $1.7 million/year
over the next decade, the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor & Economic
Growth (DELEG) said.
NY schools—Value Energy Solutions, which has more
than 30 locations (most east of the Mississippi, plus three in Texas), said
it recently started a large lighting retrofit project for the Newburgh (N.Y.)
School District. Existing 40W T12 lamps were replaced with 18W T5 adapters (“designed
to burn a 28W T5 lamp at 18W”). VES described itself in the release as “one
of the largest lighting installation and lighting retrofit companies in the
nation.”
NJ ISP—the Indoor Sports Pavilion, with more than
60,000 square fee of fields—places to play and even hold birthday parties—is
in Randolph, N.J. It recently added a 360kW solar PV system, with the help of
Vanguard Energy Partners (“a leader in the Northeast for design and installation
of large-scale solar project”).
3 PG&E solar PV arrays—Cupertino
Electric (see above) will build two of the plants (20MW near Helm, Calif., and
15MW near Five Points), with SOLON handling the third (15MW, also near Five
Points).
U.S. Bank—picked Bara Environmental and Energy Management
to identify further energy-reduction opportunities in properties owned by the
Bank, said to be the fifth-largest U.S. commercial bank.
Toledo Zoo—Romanoff Electric of Ohio did the electrical
work on an installation of PV modules that power LED lights, the Solar Walk.
TX wind farm—to
be built for Here Enterprises near Floresville, “established wind energy and
electrical systems contractor” is Collier Services, which “installs foundations,
connections, and highly efficient 40-foot Talon variable pitch turbines.” Ground
has been broken; the release doesn’t include the farm’s ultimate generating
capacity.
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