Special Report: 6.25.2009

Posted by TED Magazine on Thursday, June 25, 2009

Bits & Pieces of Note

By Joe Salimando

Soon, TedMag’s weekly “Special Report” converts to a blog. I’ve been blogging since 2005 on www.eleblog.com. I hope to keep you informed, educated, entertained, and to provide food for thought.

I’ll be blogging both places (here and the EleBlog)—different stuff! Consider what follows, short bits that didn’t post elsewhere, as a rehearsal.

LEDs & DRIVERS: May/June LED Journal

A Special Report posted here in May had some bad stuff about LED drivers. I later discovered that LED Journal’s May/June issue (32-page PDF downloadable here) included “Optimizing LED Drivers for Power, Display Life, and the Visual Experience.”

Here’s the conclusion of the three-page article (starts on page 21):

“…while LED performance is improving rapidly thanks to a number of industry achievements, system designers who integrated these devices into their lighting fixtures might not be able to fully utilize these improvements if they do not have the proper LED driving expertise in-house.

“It is important to appreciate how specifically-designed LED drivers differ from existing low-cost power suppliers that were optimized over the years for older lighting technologies.

“Even more important, designers need to take a system approach in order to ensure optimal power and light management using LED light sources.”

LARGE SUPPLIER NEWS: Schneider Electric’s Q1 Call

From a 7,446-word transcript of Schneider’s Q1 conference call—interesting comments from Jean-Pascal Tricoire, president/CEO:

• “Organic sales in North America declined by 21.3% and the region was again the most impacted by economic deterioration. Most end-markets are hit, but residential and commercial buildings, industry and data centers underperformed other segments…”
  
  

• “China, at the end of the day, was less affected but declined as well; let’s say, in the magnitude of 10%. The industry market here again was suffering, as business with OEM was very much correlated with declining exports in the period. Buildings are also weaker, impacted by the erosion of business confidence for new projects…but also remember that, speaking about China, we are coming from a very challenging base of comparison in the first quarter of 2008, where the organic growth [with respect to 2007] was more than 30%.”

FACTOLITO: Hubbell’s Contractor/Director

Did you know: Anthony Guzzi, age 45, is an independent member of Hubbell Inc.’s board of directors? The guy’s full-time job is president/COO of EMCOR Group, the company that contains the nation’s largest electrical contractor.

Note that the companies are located less than 30 miles from each other (Hubbell in Orange, Conn., and EMCOR in Norwalk).

RESIDENTIAL STATUS: Home Depot’s Q1 Call

An 8,000-word transcript of THD’s conference call is here. Words of possible interest:

“For the quarter, every merchandising department experienced negative comp sales growth compared to the first quarter of 2008. In the first quarter, departments that outperformed the company’s average comp were seasonal, building materials, paint, plumbing, and flooring. Electrical, millwork, lumber, kitchens, and hardware underperformed.”—Craig Menear, senior vice president merchandising.

“Private, fixed residential investment as a percent of GDP is now at 2.7%. This is down 40 basis points from the fourth quarter and is well below the 60-year average of 4.8% and also below the previous 60-year low of 3.2%….
“We believe most of the correction on this index is now behind us, but there remain mixed signals elsewhere within the market. On the positive side, year-over-year 21 markets out of our top 40 are showing a lower rate of decline.”—Frank Blake, chairman/CEO.

“For average tickets of $50 and below—roughly 20% of our business in the United States—sales were basically flat year-over-year. Average tickets of $900 and above—representing approximately 20% of our U.S. business—sales were down around 15%. In total, the average [Q1] ticket was down 8.2% to $52.67.”—Menear.

In answer to a question on California: “What we saw, when we had this call [on Q4 results], we were kind of saying, ‘hey, we think California is on an improving trend.’ That reversed for us in the first quarter. One of the things we see—and it is not unique to California, it is in other states—is where you see this accelerating rate of foreclosures; you see pressure on comp performance.”—Blake.

LIGHTING: Orion Energy Systems Q1 Call

For some reason, this May 14 conference call with analysts hasn’t been posted (one month later) to www.seekingalpha.com. Of note:

“Despite the weak fourth quarter and the current softness, our wholesale channel was a bright spot for us across the full year. Revenues generated by our electrical contractor channel grew 49% compared to fiscal year 2008. During the year, we added over 244 contractor partners and finished with over 450 contractors who conduct business with Orion on a recurring basis.”—Eric Birkerts, COO

“Frankly, the power of our value proposition couldn’t defy the extreme pain and dislocation taking place in our C&I end-use markets. As we’ve said in the past, our customers continue to [face] declining capital expenditure budgets, limited access to capital, lengthening sales cycles, accelerated plant closures, downsizing, job losses, and all of the uncertainty that brings with it.

“In our fourth quarter, we experienced a delay involving a significant $5 million series of facility roll-outs with one of our Fortune 500 customers. It’s difficult for our value proposition to overcome the fact that headcount reductions eliminated all of our key engineering and purchasing contacts within this company. But this is just one example.”—Neal Verfuerth, CEO

SMART GRID: Q&A With GE’s Gilligan

Public Power is a pretty darn good magazine. Each issue features “10 questions” with somebody significant and, in the May issue, it was Bob Gilligan of GE Energy (he’s vice president of transmission and distribution there). Elsewhere, the American Public Power Association describes him as “GE’s smart grid guru.”

Gilligan gave 10 answers, of course. Here’s No. 7, about the advantages a smart grid would provide to customers:

“Today, most consumers are somewhat in the dark when it comes to energy consumption and costs. Yet, with electricity rates rising, consumers might be comforted to know that smart energy tools—such as smart meters and home energy panels—provide real-time information to help manage energy usage and save money.

“Empowering consumers with this knowledge can help save them money by encouraging off-peak usage of higher consumption devices, like washers, dryers, air conditioners, and electric vehicles.

“With smart-grid-enabled net metering, consumers will also be able to sell excess power from on-site renewable generation back to the grid, offsetting rising power bills—especially during peak hours.”

RETAIL LIGHTING: Q&A With Chuck Campagna

Chuck Campagna is president/CEO of Amerlux Lighting Solutions (Fairfield, N.J.). His Q&A with Chain Store Age printed in that magazine’s January issue. I’ve been waiting for it to post online, but it remains hidden (to you) behind a password—so here are a few snippets:

On how Amerlux can help retailers, beyond supplying fixtures:

“We generally work with consultants, but we are there to help retailers wherever and whenever we can with cost analysis, code understanding as it relates to the specific environment, and development of light fixtures that solve lighting issues.”

On the role of LED lighting:

“Metal halide in the retail store is still bridging the gap between halogen and LED. But LED is developing very fast. As costs improve, the value of LED to the retailer becomes ever-present.
“It should be noted that quality as it relates to LED is even more crucial, and controlling heat is paramount to the quality of the product.”

Notes:

1. The guy who sold Capital Lighting & Supply of New England to Rexel, and still works there, is Bob Compagna and is NOT related to Chuck. I checked!
   
   
2. Disclaimer: I once worked for Chain Store Age-Supermarkets (a no-longer-extant spin-off of the main CSA). It was so long ago that, in my brief time there, I co-wrote an (award-winning) cover story on…the introduction of scanners to supermarkets!
   
   
3. Campagna’s Q&A filled a full page of the magazine.

 

VIDEOS & MORE: Watch & Listen

Tired of reading? Here’s some stuff to listen to and/or watch:

WESCO’s Sustainability stuff—video highlights from two 2009 events.

GridWeek 2008 Videos—GridWeek 2009 is coming up in September in D.C. I’ve previously written praising Clasma, which sponsors this and other events. To get up to speed quickly on Smart Grid stuff, the videos here (of last year’s event) will help.
Note: Want to understand the “green” take on this stuff? Watch the Jeremy Rifkin video.

ElectricTV segment on Building Automation—a while ago, NAED presented “Smarter, Greener Buildings,” with me as a co-presenter (with the NJATC’s Marty Riesberg). This video includes stuff discussed in that session. Disclaimer: I work for the NECA-IBEW marketing organization that owns this site.

Grainger’s free webinars—including “Green Building 101.”

Siemon’s video library—looking for the old podcasts, I found 34 videos!

	Joe Salimando of EFJ Enterprises is a consultant, web content provider, and wordsmith based in Oakton, Va. To contact him, call 703-255-1428. See also The EleBlog.
Personal Disclaimer: The appearance of the ambling pachyderm is indicative of the writer’s obsession with elephants, not his political leanings.
IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS COLUMN REFLECTS ONLY THE OPINIONS OF ITS AUTHOR AND DOES NOT REFLECT THE OPINIONS OR POLICIES OF NAED, TED MAGAZINE, OR THE ADVERTISERS ON THE TEDMAG WEB SITE.