NAED Eastern Region Conference, Marco Island, Florida, November 12-15
FOX Business News Anchor
Stuart Varney to Give Keynote Presentation
The National Association of
Electrical Distributors (NAED) announces that registration is open for the 2008
Eastern Region Conference. The conference will take place November 12-15, at
the Marco Island Marriott Resort Golf Club and Spa in Marco Island, Fla. The
theme for this conference is “Expanding Our Horizons.”
This year’s conference features
keynote presenter FOX Business News Anchor, Economist, and Correspondent Stuart Varney. Trained at the London
School of Economics, Varney offers his wide-ranging expertise, evaluating
political administrations and their effects on the economy. During the keynote,
he will discuss his belief that the era of wealth creation has ended, and that
wealth re-distribution is the coming trend. Varney will explain what this shift
in American financial culture means for your organization, and how it can be
used to benefit business and individual wealth. Plus, just one week after the
presidential election, Varney will comment on the impact our new president may
have on the nation.
NAED’s
education sessions will include:
·
New Market Opportunities in Energy
Efficiency by Jerry
Yudelson – Principle, Yudelson Associates
·
Non-traditional Markets for
Renewable Energy Sources by Fred Paris – Independent Contractor
·
How to Limit Your Value-Added
Service Liability Exposure by Bernd Heinze – President and CEO, Sequent
Insurance Group
·
The Evolving Sales Force by Michael Marks –
Partner, Indian River Consulting Group
·
Panel: Reaping the Rewards of NAED’s
Supply Chain Scorecard Moderated by Bethany Sullivan – President,
Profitability Analytics Unlimited
·
How to Improve Your Trading Partner
Relationships Through IDEA by Bob Gaylord –
President, IDEA
To ensure that NAED members are
getting the value they should out of their membership, there will be a special
session entitled Maximize Your NAED Benefits with Proven Implementation Strategies
by John Kiso, educational program manager, NAED. The conference also will
include a Women in Industry luncheon on Converting
Change to Dollars, and numerous opportunities to build your professional
network.
Visit http://www.naed.org/meetings/eastern/index.htm
to register. The early bird registration deadline is September 24. For more
information, contact the NAED Conference Department at (888) 791-2512.
NAED is the trade association for the $70+
billion electrical distribution industry. Through networking, education,
research, and benchmarking, NAED helps electrical distributors increase
profitability and improve the channel. NAED’s membership operates in approximately
4,400 locations internationally.
*********************************
NAED Announces 2008-2009 Research in Action Webinar Series Schedule
The
National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) is offering ongoing
Research in Action Webinars to help NAED member companies remain competitive
and profitable in multiple market sectors. These online seminars offer live
participation dates and the option of launching archives of the presentations
through the NAED Learning Center (NLC). These Webinars share key findings from
the most recent research studies funded by the NAED Education & Research
Foundation's Channel Advantage Partnership (CAP) endowment.
The
Webinars are offered at no additional charge to NAED member businesses. This
year's Webinar schedule includes two series based on current CAP projects and
an ongoing series of TED Magazine articles covering topics on green building
and energy markets.
The
Research in Action series schedule is:
Service
Liability in Electrical Distribution: Risks and Protections
This
Webinar series provides background information to raise awareness as well as
heighten the intellectual capital of NAED members about liability exposures
from the value-added services they provide. Specifically, it makes recommendations
about adequate protections electrical distributors can put into place to manage
and mitigate service liability exposures.
1. Service
Liabilities: the New Frontier of Legal Exposure (October 1, 2008, 2:00 p.m.
EST) – Providing specialty services to customers is part of the core business
of NAED member companies. This Webinar offers an overview of the CAP study,
entitled Service Liability in Electrical Distribution: Risks and Protections.
It examines risk and legal exposures from statutes, court cases, and
contractual liabilities, and helps distributors ensure they have adequate
protections in place to manage risks and exposures.
2. The
Added Services Distributors Provide and the Liability Exposures those Services
Create (November 5, 2008, 2:00 p.m. EST) – In today's increasingly competitive
business world, providing specialty services gives distributors validity in the
marketplace. However, in today's increasingly litigious environment,
distributors could lose more than just their competitive edge if they are not
adequately protected from the liability exposures that come with providing a
service package. This Webinar reviews the various services NAED members offer
in the channel and identifies the risks associated with each. It ends with
specific recommended measures to prevent liability on: training; energy audits;
kitting; engineering services and support; staging products; consigned
inventory; lamp recycling; and panel building.
3. Hybrid
Services: Where the Sale of Products and Services Merge (January 14, 2009, 2:00
p.m. EST) – Distributors assume an expanding scope of liability as they become
a hybrid of both product seller and service provider. Their exposure to both
liability and financial risk is altered in this emerging model. In addition to the
product liability they always assumed, there is a new service liability
exposure with the administration of value-added services. This Webinar
discusses the nature of hybrid services generally, identifies the liabilities
associated with the provision of hybrid services, and recommends protections to
implement when providing hybrid services.
4.
Exposures of Providing Training Services to Customers (March 4, 2009, 2:00 p.m.
EST) – The training services we provide will give you many benefits! Believe it
or not, this type of claim can increase a distributor's liability exposure.
This Webinar explains how by differentiating the liabilities between providing
training on products a distributor sells and those it does not sell, reviewing
the issue of using employees versus third-parties to provide training, and
explaining the duty of requisite and due care. In addition, the Webinar
discusses how distributors can use experts to develop consistent and uniform
templates and training modules, and makes recommendations for addressing
training liability exposures.
5. Risk
Management Tools to Mitigate Service Liability Exposures (April 8, 2009, 2:00
p.m. EST) – For a business, exposure to risk could lead to disaster.
Unfortunately, too many electrical distributors are not well informed about the
liability exposures coming from providing value-added services, even as this
becomes an increasing part of their core business. Luckily, distributors can
safeguard their business and increase its success rate by having an effective
risk management policy in place. This Webinar helps distributors identify risks
before they occur by examining best practices to use when managing service
liability exposures. It discusses how to design a risk management model to
evaluate the risks of providing a service before determining whether or not to
afford the service, and reviews insurance protections available to distributors
in their own insurance portfolio or that of an out-sourced service provider.
Green Goes
Mainstream: How to Profit from the Green
Building Revolution
This
Webinar series examines the state of energy markets and how distributors can
profit from them. It helps NAED members understand the energy efficiency
retrofit market and the technologies that will be most in demand in coming
years. Specifically, it outlines the business opportunities NAED members should
seize; shows how to make the business case for investments in energy efficiency
products and services; identifies technologies used in green building
renovation projects and commercial energy conservation retrofits; and makes
recommendations on how electrical distributors need to position themselves to
take advantage of identified business opportunities.
1. Today's
Energy Efficiency Market: An Overview (October 22, 2008, 2:00 p.m. EST) –
Energy efficiency may be the farthest-reaching, least-polluting, and
fastest-growing U.S.
energy success story of the past few decades. However, it's also the most
invisible, the least understood, and in serious danger of missing out on needed
future investments. To help NAED members seize the energy market's growth
opportunities, this Webinar presents an overview of major findings from the
Channel Advantage Partnership's recent study entitled, Green Goes Mainstream:
How to Profit from the Green Building Revolution. The Webinar focuses on the
energy market's driving and inhibiting forces, its projected growth, and also
looks at new construction vs. renovation/remodels.
2. Trends
in Energy Efficient Investments Through 2012 (October 29, 2008, 2:00 p.m. EST)
– The electrical distribution industry is facing tougher competition, which
increases the demand to implement cost-effective energy efficiency measures.
However, distributors and manufacturers are not undertaking obvious
cost-efficient measures at the rate one would expect. This Webinar explains why
by looking more closely at barriers to energy efficiency, like building codes
and split incentives. In addition, it discusses the energy market's driving
forces—legislative mandates, tax and rebate incentives—and outlines the scope
of potential benefits future investments might yield.
3. Energy
Market Entry Strategies (December 10, 2008, 2:00 p.m. EST) – With accelerated
market transformation and rapid growth in efficiency investments, total investments
in more energy efficiency technologies could increase the energy market by
hundreds of billions of dollars annually in the next two decades. This Webinar
presents tactical strategies NAED companies can implement to take advantage of
the growth opportunities. Specifically, it discusses how to properly educate
and incentivize your salespeople, identifies buildings and facilities managers
should go after, and looks at electrical distributors' potential competitors.
4. Making
the Business Case for Efficiency Upgrades (February 11, 2009, 2:00 p.m. EST) –
With growing demand from customers and increasing legislative mandates for
energy efficient buildings, making investment decisions regarding energy
efficiency improvements has become a matter of vital importance. This Webinar
reviews analysis methods companies should employ when making energy efficiency
investment decisions. It discusses energy cost trends, life-cycle cost
analysis, financial and tax incentives, utility incentives, legislative
mandates, and other driving forces.
Hot Energy Trends
In
partnership with TED Magazine, CAP began sponsoring in July 2008 a 12-month
Green Column on business opportunities in green building and energy efficiency
markets, with a focus on commercial and institutional construction. This
Webinar series features key topics identified by the articles as hot energy
market opportunities for electrical distributors.
1. Greening
Data Centers (January 7, 2009, 2:00 p.m. EST) – Data centers and server farms
are placing an ever increasing demand on our limited energy supplies. In fact,
the average data center is 40 times more energy intensive than an office
building. This Webinar highlights energy efficiency and renewable power
generation innovations in this growing industry. Specifically, it looks at a
company reaping the benefits of saving approximately $3,000 a month in utility
bills by building a highly efficient data center.
2. The
Solar Power Revolution (March 18, 2009, 2:00 p.m. EST) – Is solar power really
the next big thing in the energy world or will it remain just a niche player?
This Webinar examines the market and capital trends around solar power. It
discusses the growth in solar power and the driving forces behind it, as well
as the technology developments and economics of solar power. In addition, it
reviews who in the industry are specifying systems, the role of system
integrators in large commercial projects, and opportunities for electrical
sales (panels, inverters, meters, etc.).
3.
Corporate Sustainability – Walking the Talk (May 13, 2009, 2:00 p.m. EST) –
Today's business world doesn't look like it did 20 years ago. Corporations are
operating in the "Information Age," encountering greener resource
technologies in an increasingly globalized marketplace. They face the challenge
of adapting to these changes and that of public opinion. This Webinar discusses
these timely issues by exploring the pros and cons of "going green."
Specifically, it offers examples of good corporate sustainability programs for
small and medium-sized enterprises, walks you through how to become a
sustainable company from baby steps to giant leaps, suggests ways to publicize
your efforts both internally and externally, and presents the business case for
sustainability planning.
For more
information on the Research in Action Webinars, go to naed.org or contact the
NAED Customer Service at (888) 791-2512 or customerservice@naed.org.
NAED is the
trade association for the $70+ billion electrical distribution industry.
Through networking, education, research, and benchmarking, NAED helps
electrical distributors increase profitability and improve the channel. NAED's
membership represents approximately 4,400 locations internationally.
*********************************
NAED Co-Sponsors University of Industrial Distribution (UID) December 2-5, 2008 in Indianapolis
Premier “Sell-Out” Training Event
Offers 25 Courses Tailored to Industrial Distribution
The
National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED) is joining with over 30
other distribution trade associations to sponsor the 2008 University of Industrial
Distribution (UID), December 2-5 in Indianapolis. This is the second offering of
this popular four-day workshop this year. The UID programs have sold out weeks
prior to the early bird registration deadline the past four years.
UID
is a concentrated educational program focused on the unique needs of the
industrial wholesale distribution industry. The 2008 UID offers a catalog of 25
courses taught by 17 faculty members who are recognized leaders in their
fields. Topics covered include sales, marketing, management, inventory, branch
operations, and much more.
UID
is held in cooperation with Indiana University and Purdue University.
Attendees who complete the four-day program will receive three continuing
education units (CEUs), which can be applied toward the Professional
Certificate in Industrial Distribution from Purdue.
Some
of the 2008 UID courses being offered at the December program are:
·
Differentiating Your Distribution Company – A Winning Strategy by William R. McCleave, Jr.,
Ph.D.
·
Leadership and Delegation for Distribution Managers by Peter A. Land
·
Creating Competitive Advantage Through Total Cost Savings by Tim Underhill
·
How to Make Technology Pay Off in the Sales Arena with Steve Epner
Three
instructors familiar to NAED members return for the December program:
·
Al D. Bates, Ph.D., president of the Profit Planning Group and administrator of NAED’s
Performance Analysis Report (PAR). His UID sessions include: Profit Myths In
Wholesale Distribution and Improving the Distributor’s Bottom Line.
·
J. Michael Marks, principal with the Indian River Consulting Group, and author of the
NAED Education & Research Foundation study on the residential construction
market. His UID sessions include: Marketing Strategies, Pricing
Strategies, Creating Channel
Alignment, and New Product Development and Product Introduction
Strategies.
·
Kathryne A. Newton, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Industrial Technology at Purdue University.
Newton helped
author NAED’s “Maximize Your Profit Power” course and is frequently published
in academic and trade journals. Her UID session is: Personnel Productivity
Improvement.
-Since
1993, the UID has trained more than 5,000 distributor and manufacturing
professionals. The program is ideal for a wide range of employees, from branch
managers to purchasing, inventory, sales, and operations personnel.
To
learn more about the December UID go to www.univid.org.
Click
here to register online. The past five UID programs have sold out weeks
prior to the early bird registration deadline. NAED members are encouraged to
register as soon as possible to assure a reservation. The deadline for the
Early Registration Discount fee is November 1, if space is still available. The
December session can accommodate 250 attendees.
Members
should mention their affiliation with NAED to receive a discounted registration
fee. Contact John Kiso, NAED educational program manager, for additional
information at (888) 791-2512 or via e-mail at jkiso@naed.org.
NAED is the trade
association for the $70+ billion electrical distribution industry. Through
networking, education, research, and benchmarking, NAED helps electrical
distributors increase profitability and improve the channel. NAED’s membership
operates in approximately 4,400 locations internationally.
*********************************
TED Launches New Online Products and Services Guide
Dear NAED associate members and suppliers:
Through TED Magazine, NAED has recently partnered with MultiView, Inc.,
an Irving, Texas-based publisher of digital buyer's guides and search engines
specifically for associations, to launch the TedMag.com Products &
Services Guide.
The guide is targeted to the more than 25,000 electrical distributor readers of
TED Magazine, representing more than 1,000 electrical distribution
companies in North America who collectively
sell more than $70 Billion of electrical products annually.
This new business tool is available from the home pages of the entire family of
NAED websites—NAED.org, TedMag.com, NAEDTechnologyInformer.com, and from within
the NAED Learning Center.
It's a unique online resource that enables users to search for
industry-specific products they need from suppliers like you. Which is why, at
an NAED member and/or TED advertiser, your basic information is already
included in the directory.
All industry suppliers can participate in the guide and can also purchase an
enhanced listing that will be online year-round. An enhanced listing features:
- Your company's logo
- Contact information
- Company description
- A direct link to your company
Web site
- And a specified e-mail address
generator
Your
listing can be grouped into categories of your choice to enable efficient
browsing and searching by TedMag readers.
With traditional online search engine results, you're one in a million. But
searching through the TedMag Products & Services Guide presents
relevant search results for pre-qualified, committed buyers. It has been
created specifically for the purchasers of your product or service. So if
you're not represented prominently, you're missing out on an excellent
revenue-generating opportunity.
Here is a direct link to the directory search page: http://guide.tedmag.com.
Starting this week, representatives from MultiView will begin calling NAED
industry partners to confirm your company's listing information and discuss
listing opportunities in the directory.
If you have any questions regarding the directory, please contact the customer
service staff at MultiView, 972-402-7070. And, as always, if you have any
questions about a TED Magazine product, please call me directly at
314-991-9000.
As always, we appreciate your support,
Michael Martin
Associate Publisher
TED Magazine
www.TedMag.com
*********************************
TED Magazine Names 2008 “Best of the Best” Marketing Awards
Dakota Supply Group & Federal Signal Industrial Systems
Achieve Highest Distinction as Overall Winners
TED Magazine, the official publication of the National Association of
Electrical Distributors (NAED), announces the 2008 winners of its Best of the Best Marketing Awards Competition.
Each year, TED Magazine recognizes the industry’s
top marketing initiatives with the Best of the Best Award competition. TED presents these honors to
distributors and manufacturers in 12 categories including direct promotion,
print advertising, and Web site development. Companies compete with those of
similar sales volume in each category. This year’s awards represent the finest
marketing efforts in the electrical industry for campaigns occurring in 2007.
The 2008 competition acknowledged
the achievements of the electrical industry with 45 awards and 14 honorable
mentions selected from a record 448 total entries submitted. The awards were
presented on August 12, 2008 at the Wyndham Hotel, Chicago, Ill.,
during NAED’s 2008 AdVenture Sales & Marketing Conference.
Of the awards presented, one
distributor and one supplier were selected to represent the overall best
marketing practices of the electrical industry.
Best of the Best Overall Winners:
·
Distributor: Dakota Supply Group, Fargo, N.D. The company earned a Best of the
Best individual award in Brand Awareness for its DSG Kids Club – a club
designed to educate kids about trade professions. Dakota Supply Group also
received an honorable mention in the Integrated Marketing Promotion category.
Supplier: Federal Signal Industrial Systems, University
Park, Ill. The company received individual Best of the Best awards in the Integrated Marketing
Campaign and Product Launch categories. Federal Signal’s contest entries
focused on its new LED Hazardous Location product line and marketing through
its “Bright” campaign.
The 2008 Best of the Best Award
winners are:
BRAND AWARENESS:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – Dakota Supply Group, “DSG Kids Club”
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Gexpro, “New Gexpro Brand Awareness”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Columbia Lighting, “CreateChange Initiative”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Philips Lighting, “Simplicity Is Changing a Lamp to Make a Difference in the World”
DIGITAL CAMPAIGN:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – Springfield Electric Supply, “Connections”
Monthly Newsletter
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Southwire, “Touch & Show Marketing”
DIRECT PROMOTION:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – Western Extralite, “Sample Mailings”
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Summit Electric Supply, “Get Revved Up”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Service Wire, “2008 Find the Logo Direct Mail Campaign”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Southwire, “Immediate & Feeder MC ‘Dinner on US’”
EVENTS:
·
Distributor
under $25 million – Laconia Electric Supply, “Octobertech 2007”
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – K/E Electric Supply, “May First Order of the Day Promotion”
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Alexander Lighting, (A division of North Coast Electric), “Alexander Lighting,
Bellevue-Grand Opening Celebration”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Columbia Lighting, “2007 CreateChange Roadshow”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Hubbell Lighting, “Hubbell Lighting Grand Opening Press Event”
INTEGRATED PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN:
·
Distributor
under $25 million – Gross Electric, “Lifestyle
Center Promotional
Campaign”
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – United Electric Supply, “Come for the Job…Stay for YOUR Future!”
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Graybar, “Graybar’s ‘Got It’ Program”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Federal Signal Industrial Systems, “Hazardous Location LED Signals
w/XLT”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Advance, “Advance to Adventure”
LITERATURE/SELLING TOOLS:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – Granite City Electric Supply, “GCE Sales Delivers More than Donuts”
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Stuart C. Irby Company, “Irby Utility Services”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Wiremold/Legrand, “Open House”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Hubbell Wiring Device-Kellems, “SystemOne Selector Wheel”
MERCHANDISING:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – Springfield Electric Supply, “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Counter Makeover”
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Rexel,
“Merchandising Guide”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Universal Lighting Technologies, “Paint the Town Blue”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Thomas & Betts, “Innovative Floor Box”
PRINT CAMPAIGN:
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Graybar, “Comm/Data Marketing Campaign”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – EiKO,
“EiKO Certified Green”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – GE Consumer & Industrial, “ecomagination”
PRODUCT LAUNCH:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – BJ Electric Supply, “Made for the Trade”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Federal Signal Industrial Systems, “Hazardous Location LED Signals
w/XLT”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – OSRAM SYLVANIA, “Consumer Luminaires”
PUBLICATIONS:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – Wiedenbach-Brown, “ENLIGHTEN – The
Journal for Lighting
Decision Makers”
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Capital Lighting & Supply, “Capital Now”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Progress Lighting, “LIGHT!”
PUBLIC RELATIONS:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – Cape Electrical Supply, “Currents”
In-House Coffee Shop and Meeting Facility
·
Distributor
over $200 million – Summit Electric Supply, “Summit Supports National
Guard Unit in Baghdad”
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Philips Lighting, “Simplicity Is Opening Doors to New Possibilities While
Saving Energy”
WEB SITES:
·
Distributor
$25-200 million – United Electric Supply, “www.unitedelectricjobs.com”
·
Supplier
under $250 million – Watt Stopper/Legrand, “Energy-Efficient
Lighting Controls Stop Energy Waste” Web site redesign
·
Supplier
over $250 million – Lutron Electronics, “Light Greener,
Light Better” Energy Savings Web site
TED Magazine is providing extended coverage of
the 2008 competition both online at www.tedmag.com and in a special
supplement with its August print issue. Print resolution photos of award
winners can be obtained by calling Editor Michael Martin at (888) 791-2512.
Details on next year’s “Best of the Best” contest will be released in October.
For additional contest information, contact Sheila Logan at slogan@naed.org
or (888) 791-2512.
NAED
is the trade association for the $70+ billion electrical distribution industry.
Through networking, education, research, and benchmarking, NAED helps
electrical distributors increase profitability and improve the channel. NAED’s
membership operates in approximately 4,400 locations internationally.
###
Photo Caption: Overall Best of the Best award
winners (from left): Arne Breikjern, Marketing Manager, Dakota Supply
Group, Fargo, N.D.
and Robert Patnaude, Director of Marketing, Federal Signal Industrial Systems, University Park, Ill.
NEMA
NEMA Publishes SB 50-2008 Emergency Communications Audio Intelligibility Applications Guide
The
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has published SB 50-2008 Emergency Communications Audio
Intelligibility Applications Guide.
According
to Jeff Brooks, a member of the Signaling Protection and Communication Section
that prepared this guide, it provides an overview of issues and general
recommendations.
“This
publication assists specifiers, emergency voice system designers, and
authorities having jurisdiction who are not experts in acoustics with the
concepts used to enhance intelligibility and it provides a better understanding
of the factors affecting the intelligibility of these systems," Brooks
said.
"In
the past, the fire alarm industry primarily focused concern on audibility
requirements, assuming that if the sound was loud enough it would be
sufficiently intelligible. Today,
emergency voice communications systems are extensively used to provide building
occupants information and instructions during all types of building
emergencies. Consequently, intelligibility of these paging systems has become a
vital concern. These messages contain essential safety information that must be
clearly understood by the building occupants.”
This is a
new NEMA publication that draws on Tyco’s Fire
Alarm Audio Applications Guide as its primary source material.
The
contents and scope of may be viewed, and a hard copy or electronic copy
purchased for $66, by visiting NEMA’s Web site at http://www.nema.org/stds/sb50.cfm,
or by contacting IHS at 800-854-7179 (within the U.S.), 303-397-7956
(international), 303-397-2740 (fax), or on the Web at global.ihs.com.
NEMA is the
trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded
in 1926 and headquartered near Washington,
D.C., its approximately 450
member companies manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and
distribution, control, and end-use of electricity. These products are used in
utility, medical imaging, industrial, commercial, institutional, and
residential applications. Domestic production of electrical products sold
worldwide exceeds $120 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia, NEMA
also has offices in Beijing, Săo
Paulo, and Mexico City.
www.nema.org
*********************************
DOE Secretary Bodman Endorses NEMA Initiative to Make Buildings Energy Efficient Through Lighting Renovation
Secretary
of Energy Samuel W. Bodman has invited
industry leaders to become full participants in a national effort to make our
buildings more energy efficient, the National Electrical Manufacturers
Association announced today. American owners and operators of commercial,
industrial, and institutional structures can reduce energy consumption by 30
percent by renovating lighting and other building systems. In an open letter to industry, Secretary
Bodman noted that current tax deductions “provide financial incentives up to
$0.60 per square foot for reducing new and existing building lighting energy
use by 25 percent to 50 percent.” He added that he was pleased to support the
efforts announced by NEMA and its members to dramatically alter the energy
footprint related to lighting in the 70 billion square feet of existing
buildings, as well as new construction.
Responding
to Secretary Bodman’s previous challenge to NEMA to commit to a national
building energy efficiency campaign, NEMA recently announced the “enLIGHTen AMERICA”
initiative, a campaign which will promote the advantages of lighting system
renovation. According to NEMA, building owners and operators can realize a 50
percent return on investment, reduced operating expenses, improved
productivity, and increased asset value. Some building owners could save as
much as $600,000 per year on electric bills.
To assist
building owners and operators in establishing a lighting renovation project,
NEMA has established a website with information and savings-calculation tools:
www.nemasavesenergy.org. A copy of the
“enLIGHTen AMERICA”
brochure, Your Buildings Are Wasting Bushels of Money, and a copy of Secretary
Bodman’s letter, are also available at the site.
NEMA is the trade association of choice for
the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded in 1926 and headquartered near Washington, D.C.,
its approximately 450 member companies manufacture products used in the
generation, transmission and distribution, control, and end-use of electricity.
These products are used in utility, medical imaging, industrial, commercial,
institutional, and residential applications. Domestic production of electrical
products sold worldwide exceeds $120 billion. In addition to its headquarters
in Rosslyn, Virginia,
NEMA also has offices in Beijing, Săo Paulo, and Mexico
City.
www.nema.org
*********************************
NEMA Calls on Congress to Pass Energy Tax Legislation
Today, the
National Electrical Manufacturers Association’s (NEMA) President and CEO, Evan
Gaddis, sent a letter to U.S. House and Senate leadership voicing NEMA’s
support for comprehensive energy tax extension legislation. This year, Congress has been unable to agree
on any energy tax legislation that can be sent to the President for his
statutory signature.
On December
31, 2008, many current tax provisions, which are being used by millions of
individuals and companies, will expire.
In the letter sent to Congressional leadership, Mr. Gaddis outlines the
need to extend these provisions and emphasized several incentives that should
be included in legislation. These provisions are the need to extend the energy
efficient commercial building tax deduction, a transitional tax credit to
encourage investment in energy-efficient electric motors, and a decrease in the
depreciable life to 15 years of qualifying Smart Meters and Smart Grid technologies
installed by a utility.
“For
Congress to pass truly comprehensive and effective legislation, these
provisions need to be included. These
incentives aid NEMA’s members, which is especially critical in lagging U.S. economy.”
Mr. Gaddis states. “Congress needs to come together, put partisanship aside,
and pass meaningful legislation now.”
NEMA is the
trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded
in 1926 and headquartered near Washington,
D.C., its approximately 450
member companies manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and
distribution, control, and end-use of electricity. These products are used in
utility, medical imaging, industrial, commercial, institutional, and
residential applications. Domestic production of electrical products sold
worldwide exceeds $120 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia, NEMA
also has offices in Beijing, Săo
Paulo, and Mexico City.
www.nema.org
*********************************
NEMA Publishes ANSI C18.3M, Part 1-2008 for Portable Lithium Primary Cells and Batteries—General and Specifications
The
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has published ANSI C18.3M,
Part 1-2008 for Portable Lithium Primary Cells and Batteries—General and
Specifications. This standard applies to portable lithium primary cells and
batteries, including lithium/carbon monofluoride, lithium/manganese dioxide,
and lithium/iron disulfide.
ANSI C18.3M
Part 1 contains general requirements and information, such as scope, applicable
definitions, general descriptions of battery dimensions, terminal requirements,
marking requirements, general design conditions, and test conditions. Section 2 features specification sheets for
various types of cells and batteries.
Safety requirements are covered in ANSI C18.3M, Part 2 for Portable
Lithium Primary Cells and Batteries—Safety Standard, a separate document.
This
updated version includes new standardized battery types 24LF (AAA 1.5V
lithium), 5047 (CRV3 3.0V lithium), and 5048 (Prismatic 3.0V lithium) as well
as a reformat of the lithium coin specification sheets.
According
to Marc Boolish, a member of the American National Standards Committee C18 on
Portable Cells and Batteries that processed and approved the submittal, this
publication ensures the electrical and physical interchangeability of products
from different manufacturers; minimizes proliferation of cell and battery
types; defines a standard of performance and provides guidance for its
assessment; and provides guidance to consumers, manufacturers, and designers.
“This is
achieved by specifying nomenclature, dimensions, polarity, terminals, marking,
test conditions, and procedures,” Boolish said. “It also recognizes the work of
the International Electrotechnical Commission in establishing worldwide
standard requirements for portable lithium primary batteries.
The
contents and scope of ANSI C18.3M, Part 1-2007 may be viewed, or a hardcopy or
electronic copy purchased for $75 by visiting NEMA’s website at http://www.nema.org/stds/c18-3m1.cfm
, or by contacting IHS at (800) 854-7179 (within the U.S.), (303) 397-7956
(international), (303) 397-2740 (fax).
NEMA is the
trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded
in 1926 and headquartered near Washington,
D.C., its approximately
450 member companies
manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and distribution,
control, and end-use of electricity. These products are used in utility,
medical imaging, industrial, commercial, institutional, and residential
applications. Domestic production of electrical products sold worldwide exceeds
$120 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Rosslyn,
Virginia, NEMA also has offices in Beijing, Săo Paulo, and Mexico City.
###
NEMA.
Setting Standards for Excellence
Visit our
website at www.nema.org
*********************************
NEMA Publishes Guide for Proper Use of Smoke Detectors in Duct Applications
The
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has published Guide for
Proper Use of Smoke Detectors in Duct Applications. It was produced by the
Signaling Protection and Communication Section.
This
edition reflects improved detector technology and associated sensor placement
in ducts resulting in improved detector performance and resultant fire/smoke
capabilities in buildings. Duct-mounted sensors are designed to provide a
specific type of fire protection that cannot be duplicated by any other type of
system. This technical guide addresses this fact as well as new methods of
detecting smoke in ducts.
The
contents and forward of Guide for Proper Use of Smoke Detectors in Duct
Applications may be viewed, and a hard copy or electronic copy purchased for
$40, by visiting NEMA’s Web site at
http://www.nema.org/stds/ductapplications.cfm, or by contacting IHS at
800-854-7179 (within the U.S.), 303-397-7956 (international), 303-397-2740
(fax), or on the Web at global.ihs.com.
NEMA is the
trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded
in 1926 and headquartered near Washington,
D.C., its approximately 450
member companies manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and
distribution, control, and end-use of electricity. These products are used in
utility, medical imaging, industrial, commercial, institutional, and
residential applications. Domestic production of electrical products sold
worldwide exceeds $120 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia, NEMA
also has offices in Beijing, Săo
Paulo, and Mexico City.
www.nema.org
*********************************
NEMA Publishes LE 6-2008 Procedure for Determining Target Efficacy Ratings for Commercial, Industrial, and Residential Luminaires
The
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has published LE 6-2008 Procedure
for Determining Target Efficacy Ratings for Commercial, Industrial, and
Residential Luminaires, which was developed by the Luminaire Section, in
close cooperation with the Lamp and Ballast Sections of the NEMA Lighting
Systems Division.
According
to Cheryl English, a member of the Luminaire Section, this standards
publication provides a procedure for the determination of the target efficacy
rating (TER) for luminaires under laboratory test conditions and describes
categories or types of products used in common indoor and outdoor lighting
applications. It does not apply to luminaires for specialized applications,
such as products intended to be aimed, accent luminaires, rough or
hazardous-use luminaires, or emergency lighting. It is recommended to be used
only as a guide to help in the selection of luminaires since TER does not
address application characteristics such as color, uniformity, glare, or other
important considerations.
“This
standard addresses the concern of balance between energy efficiency and
lighting effectiveness in measurable terms,” English said. “Because the most
efficient luminaire may not distribute the light in the most useful direction
for the task, the new TER metric defined in NEMA LE-6 includes criteria related
to the optical control.”
By
establishing a rating for lumens delivered to a task (or target), TER allows
planners and designers to compare solutions in terms of their overall energy
and lighting effectiveness. TER is intended to be a metric, among many other
considerations, to evaluate the energy effectiveness of a lighting
installation. TER and LE-6 allow for the first time a method to evaluate the
effectiveness of light delivered to common visual task locations.
“Using TER
provides more useful information about the lumens delivered to a visual task
for each watt consumed. The inclusion of optical control is a significant step
forward in terms of evaluating the energy effectiveness of lighting equipment,”
English said.
NEMA LE
6-2008 supersedes the NEMA LE5, LE5A and LE5B standards for Luminaire Efficacy
Ratings (LER).
An
electronic copy of LE6-2008 may be downloaded at no charge or a hard copy may
be purchased for $53 by visiting NEMA’s Web site at www.nema.org/stds/le6.cfm
, or by contacting IHS at 800-854-7179 (within the U.S.), 303-397-7956
(international), 303-397-2740 (fax), or on the Web at global.ihs.com.
NEMA is the
trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded
in 1926 and headquartered near Washington,
D.C., its approximately 450
member companies manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and
distribution, control, and end-use of electricity. These products are used in
utility, medical imaging, industrial, commercial, institutional, and
residential applications. Domestic production of electrical products sold
worldwide exceeds $120 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia, NEMA
also has offices in Beijing, Săo
Paulo, and Mexico City.
www.nema.
*********************************
NEMA Publishes SB 40-2008 Communications Systems for Life Safety in Schools
The
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has published SB 40-2008 Communications Systems for Life Safety in Schools. This new
standard covers the application, installation, location, performance, and
maintenance of school communications systems and their components. It
establishes minimum required levels of performance, extent of redundancy, and
quality of installation, but does not limit the methods by which these
requirements are to be achieved.
According
to Bob Boyer, a member of the 3SB Committee that prepared the publication,
educational facilities from elementary schools to university campuses present
unique design challenges for life-safety communications systems.
“Communications Systems for Life Safety in
Schools identifies minimum levels of performance, redundancy and
installation requirements designed to assist designers, specifiers, and school
administrators plan and maintain life-safety communication systems,” Boyer
said. “The standard applies to single-building schools, multi-building
campuses, and multi-school districts.”
The
contents and scope of may be viewed, and a hard copy or electronic copy
purchased for $66, by visiting NEMA’s Web site at http://www.nema.org/stds/sb40.cfm,
or by contacting IHS at 800-854-7179 (within the U.S.), 303-397-7956
(international), 303-397-2740 (fax), or on the Web at global.ihs.com.
NEMA is the
trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded
in 1926 and headquartered near Washington,
D.C., its approximately 450
member companies manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and
distribution, control, and end-use of electricity. These products are used in
utility, medical imaging, industrial, commercial, institutional, and
residential applications. Domestic production of electrical products sold
worldwide exceeds $120 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Rosslyn, Virginia, NEMA
also has offices in Beijing, Săo
Paulo, and Mexico City.
www.nema.org
*********************************
NEMA to Participate in GridWeek 2008
NEMA
endorses and is a Silver Sponsor of GridWeek, a major conference highlighting
advanced technologies for the electric grid. GridWeek will be held in Washington D.C.
during the week of September 22-25, 2008.
NEMA staff
members will participate in NIST Domain Expert Working Group Meetings on
Friday, which will discuss the Institute’s implementation of its Smart Grid
Interoperability Framework. NEMA staff member John Caskey will speak on
Wednesday afternoon about Smart Grid standards and NEMA’s participation in
Smart Grid development. NEMA will also hold a meeting of its Smart Grid
Advisory Panel on Monday afternoon.
“NEMA is
leading the drive to modernize the nation’s electricity infrastructure,” said
NEMA President Evan Gaddis. “Carbon reduction and energy security are critical
policy goals that require a robust and advanced transmission grid. Our
companies have the technologies to make it happen.”
The NEMA
Smart Grid Advisory Panel was established to provide technical and policy
guidance for transmission and smart grid legislation, regulation, and standards
activities. NEMA has played an active role in shaping energy efficiency and
transmission grid legislation in both Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007 and continues to work with agencies and
other stakeholders in the implementation of measures from both acts.
NEMA is the
trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded
in 1926 and headquartered near Washington,
D.C., its approximately 450
member companies manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and
distribution, control, and end-use of electricity. These products are used in
utility, medical imaging, industrial, commercial, institutional, and residential
applications. Domestic production of electrical products sold worldwide exceeds
$120 billion. In addition to its headquarters in Rosslyn,
Virginia, NEMA also has offices in Beijing, Săo Paulo, and Mexico City.
www.nema.org
SCTE
SCTE FOUNDATION SET TO LAUNCH 2008 GIVING CAMPAIGN
The SCTE Foundation, which helps members of the
Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) achieve their professional
development goals and dreams through grants and scholarships, announces today
that it will conduct the inaugural SCTE Foundation Giving Campaign October 1
through December 31, 2008.
The 2008 Giving Campaign is chaired by Marwan
Fawaz, chief technology officer and executive vice president of Charter
Communications, and carries the theme, “Fueling Cable’s Future.” The SCTE
Foundation seeks to raise $15,000 with this three-month effort.
The SCTE Foundation was established by the SCTE
Board of Directors in 2005 and began issuing grants in 2006. The Foundation has
helped numerous SCTE members by distributing grants totaling more than $80,000.
The Foundation’s primary purpose is to provide expanded educational
opportunities for SCTE members to assist them in advancing their careers.
Recipients have applied their grants toward a
variety of educational purposes related to cable telecommunications technology,
including online courses, master’s degrees, and attendance at industry events,
such as SCTE Cable-Tec Expo®.
Further information about the 2008 Giving
Campaign will be available in October on the Foundation’s website, where
individuals also will be able to transact their donations electronically.
www.scte.com
*********************************
TIMEFRAME CHANGES FOR SCTE BOARD ELECTION PROCESS
The Society of Cable Telecommunications
Engineers (SCTE) announces today that the timing of the SCTE Board of Directors
Election process is shifting with the 2009 election.
The annual election process traditionally has
run from August through June. Accustomed to voting starting in January each
year, the voters, who are SCTE members, won’t begin casting ballots until next
May for the 2009 election.
The SCTE Board of Directors includes 12 Regional
Directors, four Directors-At-Large, and one Director-At-Large Canada. Board
members are elected to two-year terms. Each year approximately half of the
board’s terms expire.
For Election 2009, the call for nominations will
begin in mid-December of this year and conclude in early February of next year.
The candidate slate will be posted to the SCTE website, www.scte.org, in early April. Voting
will begin in mid-May and conclude toward the end of June. Election results
will be announced no later than mid-August. The newly elected board members
will take office in October at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo® 2009.
This shift was necessary due to the
industry-wide consolidation of trade shows that takes effect in 2009, which has
moved Expo—where newly elected board members take office each year—from its
traditional June timeframe to the fall as part of Cable Connection-Fall. Expo
’09 is set for Wednesday through Friday, Oct. 28–30 in Denver. Expo is SCTE’s flagship event.
The 2008–’09 SCTE Board of Directors is
displayed at www.scte.org in the About Us section
of the website.
*********************************
INAUGURAL SCTE CANADIAN SUMMIT SLATED FOR FEBRUARY
The Society of Cable Telecommunications
Engineers (SCTE) is pleased to announce today a brand-new annual professional
development opportunity—the SCTE Canadian Summit. The event is set to debut
Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 3–4, 2009, in Toronto.
SCTE Canadian Summit 2009 is designed to facilitate
an exchange of technical information for Canadian engineering professionals to
help them maximize opportunities and overcome challenges specific to the cable
telecommunications industry in Canada
both now and in the near future.
The first year of the Summit will feature technical exhibits and
workshops, general sessions, and networking opportunities—all designed toward
the effective integration of new technologies into existing cable
infrastructures to streamline operations and improve customer satisfaction.
SCTE Board of Directors member Dermot J.
O’Carroll, who is the SCTE Director-at-Large Canada, will serve as the chair of
the 2009 Summit.
O’Carroll, who, as an SCTE Board member, represents SCTE’s Canadian members, is
senior vice president, network engineering and operations with Rogers Cable
Communications in Toronto.
www.scte.org.
*********************************
SCTE FOUNDATION PROVIDES MAJOR GRANT TO DANA KRING
The SCTE Foundation is pleased to announce today
that it recently awarded a major grant to Society of Cable Telecommunications
Engineers (SCTE) member Dana Kring of Comcast Cable Communications.
Kring, of Strasburg,
Colo., is a business operations
analyst II. He will apply the major grant toward earning his MBA in global
enterprise management from Jones
International University
in Centennial, Colo. Kring has been an SCTE member since 1996.
The SCTE Foundation was established by the SCTE
Board of Directors in 2005 and began issuing grants in 2006. The Foundation has
helped numerous SCTE members by distributing grants totaling more than $80,000.
The SCTE Foundation’s primary purpose is to provide expanded educational
opportunities for SCTE members to assist them in accomplishing their
professional development goals and dreams.
The SCTE Foundation Board of Directors recently
approved Kring’s application for a major grant following preliminary approvals
by the Foundation’s Major Grants Subcommittee and the Foundation’s Awards Committee.
Complete details about the SCTE Foundation,
including the grant and scholarship application, are available at www.scte.org
TIA
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Urges EPA to Exempt Telephony Products From Inapplicable Rules
ENERGY STAR® Standby
Usage Requirements Should Not Apply to Devices That Are Never in Standby Mode,
Says TIA
The
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), the leader in advocacy,
standards development, business development and intelligence for the
information and communications technology (ICT) industry, today urged the EPA
to clarify that new ENERGY STAR® Telephony “No-Load” rules are
inapplicable and irrelevant to telephony products such as cordless telephones,
answering machines, and combination cordless phones and answering machines.
TIA called
upon the EPA to adopt its own proposal to ensure that external power supply
(EPS) units used with ENERGY STAR®-qualified telephony products
would not be required to meet ENERGY STAR® energy consumption
requirements of 0.3 or 0.5 watts when in standby or “No-Load” mode (No-Load
requirements). Most telephony products
use EPS converting AC to DC electrical voltage with a nameplate power that is
typically rated between 4 to 7 watts.
Thus, the EPS used with many telephony products will not meet the
No-Load requirements.
However,
TIA noted, the new EPA requirements do not take into account the fact that
cordless telephones, answering systems, and combination units are never in
standby/No-Load mode. Such products
continuously monitor telephone networks for incoming telephone calls and/or
monitor radio links to cordless handsets.
Thus, TIA argued, the EPS No-Load requirements currently imposed are
inapplicable to cordless phones, answering machines, and combination cordless
phones and answering machines. TIA
stated that the EPA must and will clarify, through its proposal, that the
No-Load requirements cannot be applied to cordless phones, answering machines,
and combination cordless phones and answering machines.
“TIA
applauds the EPA for proposing a policy that will appropriately eliminate the
ENERGY STAR® No-Load requirements for cordless phones, answering
machines, and combination cordless phones and answering machines,” said
Danielle Coffey, TIA Vice President of Government Affairs. “Our members, many of whom manufacture these
products, should not be burdened by EPA regulations which, when applicable, are
of great benefit, but are inapplicable to many of our members’ products and are
therefore of no benefit. The EPA’s
proposal strikes the important balance of protecting resources and applying
regulations only when appropriate from a technology standpoint,” Coffey added.
For more
information, please contact Patrick Sullivan at psullivan@tiaonline.org.
About TIA
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) represents the global information
and communications technology (ICT) industry through standards development,
advocacy, tradeshows, business opportunities, market intelligence and
world-wide environmental regulatory analysis. With roots dating back to 1924,
TIA enhances the business environment for broadband, mobile wireless,
information technology, networks, cable, satellite and unified communications.
Members’ products and services empower voice, video and data communications in
every industry and market, including healthcare, education, security, public
safety, transportation, government, the military, the environment and
entertainment.
TIA co-owns
SUPERCOMM
(formerly NXTcomm), the ICT industry tradeshow that showcases the
business and technology solutions enabled by advanced broadband services and
applications; is
accredited by the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI); serves as the secretariat for the
Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2); holds Board of Director
positions on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) TELECOM and USITO
Boards; and hosts the USA pavilions in ITU trade fairs worldwide.
More than
1,100 subject matter experts and other industry leaders participate in TIA’s
70+ standards committees and TIA has produced more than 3,000 standards
documents. From mobile and personal communications systems to fiber optics and
cabling infrastructure, from vehicular telematics and terrestrial mobile
multimedia to healthcare ICT, TIA’s engineering committees work to formulate
positions and prepare international standards and reports for use by industry
and government.
In
government affairs and international trade, hundreds of experts are at the
table helping to foster and promote initiatives on behalf of the industry –
projects such as advancing global broadband deployment across wireline,
wireless and cable platforms; advocating advanced spectrum management;
encouraging policies to enable information access for persons with
disabilities; seeking allocation of additional spectrum to advance wireless
services and public safety; facilitating market opportunities by promoting
full, fair and open trade and competition in international markets; and
ensuring that the U.S. communications sector continues to be a leader in
advanced research.
On the
environmental front, TIA’s EIATRACK subscription-based web service, on the Web
at eiatrack.com,
enables companies to track up-to-date information on environmental regulations
around the world. TIA’s e-cyclingcentral.com service lists
recycling centers for electronics in every state of the U.S. Finally,
TIA standards have fostered green practices and TIA is continuing to work on
ways to reduce carbon footprint and increase energy efficiency within the ICT
industry.
TIA’s Board of Directors includes senior-level executives from ACS, ADC, ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent,
ANDA Networks, ArrayComm, AttivaCorp, Avaya, Bechtel Communications, Inc., Cam
Communications, Cisco Systems, Corning Incorporated, Ericsson, Inc., Graybar,
Henkels & McCoy, ILS Technology, Intel Corporation, LGE, Microsoft,
Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, OneChip Photonics Inc., Panasonic
Computer Solutions Co., Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Sumitomo Electric
Lightwave Corporation, Tellabs, Tyco Electronics, Ulticom, Inc., Verari Systems,
Westell Technologies, Inc. and Zebra Technologies Corporation. Advisors to the
Board include FAL Associates, Orca Systems and Telcordia Technologies.
TIA
membership enhances the ability of companies to prepare for the future of
communications. TIA brings people and businesses together by helping the
industry overcome technical and political barriers to communications. Visit tiaonline.org for details.
*********************************
Nokia Siemens Networks, ILS Technology Join Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Board
ILS Technology’s Fred Yentz and
Nokia Siemens’ Susan Schramm Confirmed at August Meeting
At its
August meeting, the Board of Directors for the Telecommunications Industry
Association (TIA), the leader in advocacy, standards development, business
development and intelligence for the information and communications technology
(ICT) industry, unanimously confirmed two new Board members:
·
Fred Yentz, CEO of ILS Technology
·
Susan Schramm, Head of Marketing, North
America, Nokia Siemens Networks
“It’s no
secret that the industry we represent is hypercompetitive,” said TIA President
Grant Seiffert. “TIA is an association that understands business, and operates
with a business philosophy. As we focus on the challenges ahead – meeting the
demands for services in expanding markets – the insight and experience of
industry leaders like Fred and Susan will help TIA lead the ICT industry as it
grows in new directions. We’re grateful for their service.”
At the
meeting, the Board also heard two keynote addresses:
·
Andrew Fanara,
Manager of the Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR® Product
Specifications Development Team, discussed the EPA’s current activities
relating to energy efficiency as well as future directions
·
Catherine Avgiris, Comcast Cable’s Senior Vice President and General Manager for Voice
Services, spoke about ComCast’s unique competitive challenges in increasing
market share for its cable, entertainment and communications products
and services.
The TIA
Board renewed its commitment to pursuing environmental initiatives, through EIATRACK,
TIA’s global environmental regulatory compliance tracking service, and through e-cyclingcentral.org,
TIA’s free Web database of environmental recycling locations in the United States.
The Board reconfirmed its support for TIA to take a leading role on
environmental issues as a standards development organization.
About TIA
Currently in its 84th year, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)
represents the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry
through standards development, advocacy, business opportunities, market
intelligence and world-wide environmental regulatory analysis. TIA enhances the
business environment for thousands of companies and individuals whose focus is
broadband development and deployment (including wireless and landline
infrastructure and services), information technology (IT) for commercial or
residential application, Internet Protocol (IP) hardware, software and content solutions,
and the convergence of voice, video and data (“triple play”) applications and
evolution.
TIA co-owns
NXTcomm,
the tradeshow serving the ICT industry; is accredited by the American National
Standards Institute (ANSI); serves as the secretariat for the Third
Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2); holds Board of Director positions on
the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) TELECOM and USITO Boards; and
hosts the USA pavilions in ITU trade fairs worldwide.
More than
1,100 subject matter experts and other industry leaders participate in TIA’s
70+ standards committees and TIA has produced more than 1,150 standards
documents. From mobile and personal communications systems to fiber optics and
cabling infrastructure, from vehicular telematics and terrestrial mobile
multimedia to healthcare ICT, TIA’s engineering committees work to formulate
positions and prepare international standards and reports for use by industry
and government.
In
government affairs and international trade, hundreds of experts are at the
table helping to advance and advocate initiatives on behalf of the industry –
projects such as advancing global broadband deployment across wireline,
wireless and cable platforms; advocating advanced spectrum management;
encouraging policies to enable information access for persons with
disabilities; seeking allocation of additional spectrum to advance wireless
services and public safety; facilitating market opportunities by promoting
full, fair and open trade and competition in international markets; and
ensuring that the U.S. communications sector continues to be a leader in
advanced research.
On the
environmental front, TIA’s EIATRACK subscription-based web service, on the Web
at www.eiatrack.com,
enables companies to determine up-to-date information on environmental
compliance of their products in various regions around the world.
TIA’s
Board of Directors
includes senior-level executives from ACS, ADC, ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, ANDA
Networks, ArrayComm, AttivaCorp, Avaya, Bechtel Communications, Inc., Cam
Communications, Cisco Systems, Corning Incorporated, Ericsson, Inc., Graybar,
Henkels & McCoy, Intel Corporation, ILS Technology, LGE, Microsoft,
Motorola, Nokia Siemens Networks, Nortel, OneChip Photonics Inc., Panasonic
Computer Solutions Co., Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Sumitomo Electric
Lightwave Corporation, Tellabs, Tyco Electronics, Ulticom, Inc., Verari
Systems, Westell Technologies, Inc. and Zebra Technologies Corporation.
Advisors to the Board include FAL Associates, Orca Systems and Telcordia
Technologies.
TIA membership enhances the ability of
companies to prepare for the future of communications. TIA brings people
and businesses together by helping the industry overcome technical and
political barriers to communications. Visit www.tiaonline.org
for details.
USBGC
U.S. Green Building Council Announces Recipients of $2 Million
Green Building Research Grants Selected Proposals Represent Diverse
Academic, Non-profit and Private Entities
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) today announced the recipients of its
2008 Green Building Research Fund grants. The Green Building Research
Fund was created to spur research that will advance sustainable building practices
and encourage market transformation. The USGBC committed $2 million to the
program, while the Research Fund is generating $1,150,825 in matching funds and
leveraging additional activities and partnerships. A quarter of the fund
is dedicated to research on occupant impacts in K-12 schools.
“We’ve identified an enormous need for green building research,” said Rick
Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chair of USGBC. “The research
grants are part of USGBC’s commitment to better understand what is working and
what more can be done, which will inform USGBC’s programs and the entire
building industry.”
Continued Fedrizzi,” The selected proposals drive knowledge, policies, tools
and technologies and inspire corresponding industry and government-wide action.”
USGBC’s Research Committee, in its role as the grant selection panel, reviewed
216 pre-proposals and 38 full proposals, spanning a broad range of topics,
including K-12 school facility research. The highly competitive field was
narrowed down to 13 final selections.
“The portfolio of research projects address a range of critical environmental
needs in the building industry, encompass diverse approaches and proposed
outcomes, and are well distributed geographically across the U.S.,” said Gail
Brager, Chair of USGBC’s Research Committee.
The selected proposals excelled due to the quality of topic, methodology and
expected impact. Research topics covered each of the five categories of
environmental performance that are addressed within the LEED green building
certification system. Grants ranging from $90,000 to $250,000 were
awarded to the 13 research teams.
The research projects selected for
funding include:
• A Green Roof Energy Calculator
• An Open Source Searchable Database to Assess the Impact of
Environmental Strategies on Outcomes in Healthcare Facilities
• Design for Reuse Primer
• Development and Implementation of a New Protocol for
Testing the Ability of Building Materials to Passively Reduce Indoor Ozone and
Its Reaction Products
• HVAC Control Algorithms for Mixed-Mode Buildings
• Improvement of Porous Pavement System for on-site
Stormwater Management
• Integrated Building Water Management (IBWM) Modeling - A
Proposed Tool for LEED Assessment & Education
• Investigating Opportunities for Improving Building
Performance Through Simulation of Occupant and Operator Behavior
• Multi-Variate Study of Stormwater BMPs
• Quantifying the Impact of Daylight and Electric Lighting on
Student Alertness, Performance, and Well-being in K-12 Schools
• The Evaluation of Green School Building Attributes and
Their Effect On the Health and Performance of Students and Teachers in NY State
• Transportation Energy Intensity Index
• Using a New Application of Existing Monitoring Technology
to Quantify the Relationship between Classroom Ventilation and Student
Performance
To see the list of grant recipients and research abstracts, download the
recipient list (http://www.usgbc.org/ShowFile.aspx?DocumentID=4698).
Visit the GBRF Web page (http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1875)
for additional information and periodic updates.
The grant program was announced in February 2008 in response to the USGBC’s
Research Committee’s findings published in Green Building Research Funding: An
Assessment of Current Activity in the United States
(http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=77#usgbc_publications) that
indicate that applied research and development fall alarmingly short of what is
needed to meet the challenges of a building sector that has a profound impact
on people and the environment.
About USGBC
The U.S. Green Building Council is a nonprofit membership organization whose
vision is a sustainable built environment within a generation. Its membership includes
corporations, builders, universities, government agencies, and other nonprofit
organizations. Since USGBC’s founding in 1993, the Council has grown to more
than 17,000 member companies and organizations, a comprehensive family of LEED®
green building certification systems, an expansive educational offering, the
industry’s popular Greenbuild International Conference and Expo
(www.greenbuildexpo.org), and a network of 78 local chapters, affiliates, and
organizing groups. For more information, visit www.usgbc.org.
*********************************
USGB in the NEWS
Serving
Architects, Consultants in Everything Green Become Mainstays
New York
Times, August 27, 2008
On a recent
Friday, when the rest of the staff of the architecture firm Beyer Blinder Belle
was out of the office enjoying a beautiful August day, about 25 people sat in a
windowless room learning about the Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) certification process.
Conducting
the seminar was Lauren Yarmuth of YRG Sustainable Consultants, one of a growing
cadre of consultants who specialize in helping developers, architects and
sometimes tenants gain an official stamp of approval from the United States
Green Building Council through its LEED certification program - the undisputed
calling card of environmental bragging rights.
That some two dozen
architecture professionals - including a partner in the firm - were getting
daylong instruction is indicative of the growing importance of sustainable
design, especially as local and state governments are increasingly requiring
LEED certification of public projects. Read more.
New Yorkers
Go Green To Save Green In Tough Times
amNew York, August 29, 2008
You won't
need a windmill, an array of solar panels, or a roof shaped like a biodome.
In fact, it
can be difficult to distinguish between a green home and a conventional one,
but there's one key difference you will notice: More money in the bank.
With fuel
costs rising and the city's economy in meltdown, more New Yorkers are taking
simple steps to make their homes environmentally friendly.
"The
idea of green is probably something you can't see from the outside," said
Nate Kredich, vice president of residential market development for the Green
Building Council.
Kredich
says what distinguishes a green home is it's high quality, with better windows,
insulation and energy efficient appliances.
Read more.
The
Thinkers: PNC's Saulson Finds It's Easy Being Green
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 25, 2008
Ten years
ago, Gary Saulson's life was transformed by a telephone conversation and a leap
of faith.
Mr.
Saulson, PNC's director of corporate real estate, had already started to watch
the banking company's new Downtown operations hub, Firstside Center,
rise from the ground when he got a call from Rebecca Flora of the Green
Building Alliance.
The
alliance's mission is to promote energy-efficient, environmentally friendly
buildings, and Ms. Flora wanted Firstside to become such a structure.
Mr. Saulson
was skeptical. "My vision of a green building at that point was dirt
floors and straw walls and people walking around in Birkenstocks, and I don't
know if they were singing Kumbaya but they might have been."
Still, he
agreed to set up a meeting with Ms. Flora, and before that session was done,
"I had committed to making Firstside a green building, even though it was
well under construction.
"I had
absolutely no idea what I'd committed to. I knew I had committed to doing the
right thing, but that's as far as it went." Read more.
Toyota Dealerships Reaping Benefits of
Going Green
The Dallas Morning News,
August 23, 2008
Pat Lobb
knows exactly what it means to be green - $8,000 a month.
That's what
he says he saves monthly on his electric bill at Pat Lobb Toyota and Scion in McKinney, the first new-car dealership in the U.S. to be
certified as a green building.
And while
the car business might seem an odd advocate of environmentalism, North Texas
has more green car dealerships - three Toyota
stores - than any region in the U.S.
Moreover, the number of eco-dealers is growing nationally, many of them
motivated by what they see here.
"As
other dealers saw what Pat had done, it just made sense for them to
follow," said George Irving, retail development manager for Toyota Motor
Sales.
Mr. Lobb's
dealership was certified by the U.S. Green Building Council two years ago. One
of the newest Toyota
facilities in the area, Toyota of Rockwall, is the first dealership in the
country to be certified "gold" by the building council. Mr. Lobb's
was built to a slightly lower "silver" standard.
"Now
that I've done the gold, got the green, I look back and say I would have beat
myself senseless if I hadn't done this," said Steve Jackson, owner-general
manager of the Rockwall dealership. Read more.
*********************************
Registration Now Open for U.S. Green Building Council’s Annual Greenbuild Conference
This year’s show commences on Boston
for the world’s largest green building conference and expo
If you are a reporter covering green building, residential construction, real
estate, energy or human health, chances are you’ve encountered LEED along the
way. Itching to learn more? Join over 25,000 attendees at the U.S.
Green Building Council’s (USGBC) annual conference and exhibition, which will
be held from November 19-21, 2008 in Boston.
Greenbuild is the world's largest conference and expo dedicated to green
building, and is the recent recipient of Tradeshow Week’s “Fastest 50,”
honoring the fifty-fastest growing shows in North America.
This year, over 25,000 attendees will attend, eager to learn more about the
LEED® green building certification, the nationally accepted system for green
buildings, developed by the USGBC as a tool to build healthy, energy efficient,
resource-friendly structures.
This year’s show will explore "Revolutionary Green: Innovations for Global
Sustainability,” with Boston
serving as the ideal backdrop. The city, home to innovations that have
far-reaching impact, will be the location for a variety of educational
sessions, full- and half-day LEED workshops, exciting speakers, special events
and building tours.
Each year at Greenbuild, one of the highlights is the assortment of master and
keynote speakers, comprised of internationally renowned industry experts and
influential leaders. This year, world-renowned leader Archbishop Desmond
Tutu takes to the stage as the opening Keynote speaker. A Nobel Peace Laureate,
Bishop Tutu is led a crusade for social justice and racial conciliation in South Africa as
then-General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches. Today, he is
revered worldwide as a “moral voice” seeking to end poverty and human rights
abuses. Tutu’s opening keynote address will take place Wednesday, November 19,
8:00-10:00 am.
Closing Keynote Speakers include:
• E.O. Wilson, University Research Professor Emeritus and
Honorary Curator of Entomology at the Museum
of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
• Janine Benyus, Co-founder and Principal, Biomimicry Guild
Master Speakers:
• Paul Anastas, Director, Center for Green Chemistry and
Green Engineering, Yale University
• Stefan Behnisch, Principal, Behnisch, Behnisch &
Partners
• Carol Browner, Principal, The Albright Group, and former
EPA Administrator
• Majora Carter, Executive Director, Sustainable South Bronx
• Howard Frumkin, Director, The National Center for
Environmental Health, CDC
• Van Jones, President and Founder, Green For All
• Bill McKibben, Environmentalist and Author
• Leith Sharp, Director, Harvard Green Campus Initiative
(HGCI)
A variety of workshops and educational sessions will be offered throughout the
show related to green building, and for the first time, this year’s selection
of over 100 educational sessions will also include programs that have been
approved through the USGBC Education Provider Program.
Workshops
LEED 2009: Implementation for Building Design and Construction
• Designed for contractors, building owners, design team
members, , and other stakeholders involved in the design and construction of
commercial buildings.
Solving the Green Cleaning Puzzle
• Geared towards cleaning industry professionals who want to
learn how to design and implement a green cleaning program.
Commissioning for LEED Projects
• For those who want to learn the building commissioning
process required by LEED, including cost / benefit and the commission¬ing
agent’s role in LEED design and documentation.
Understanding LEED Project Costs and Returns
• Geared towards all audiences interested in learning more
about building environmentally sound projects at a reason¬able cost, building
life-cycle and construction costs, and LEED project case studies.
Educational Sessions
A Policy Perspective - Green Legislation and Its Influence in the Public,
Private, and Non-Profit Sectors
Greening the Trades of Tomorrow
Measuring Green Building Performance through Research and Innovative Tools
Fostering a Community of Environmental Stewards by Using Real-Time Display of
Building Performance Data
Green Schools: Two programs Create Sustainable Standards
Greening our Historic Legacy: Sustainability and Preservation Standards
LEEDing Internationally: Sustainability in the World Market
Navigating Green Labels and Certifications
Visit the Greenbuild Web site for an interactive and comprehensive listing of
all on and off site educational sessions and master speakers:
https://register.greenbuildexpo.org/scheduler/eventguide/publicScheduleByType.jsp
This year the Greenbuild exhibit hall will be held in the Boston Convention and
Exhibition Center, which will house over 1,300
booths featuring the newest and best products, technologies and services.
New to this year’s show is Green Homebuilder's Day, a day of programming and
panels of industry experts dedicated to various residential green building
topics. Green Homebuilder’s Day will take place on Thursday, November 20 and
will feature a variety of educational tracks and speakers, including Kevin
O'Connor, host of This Old House. For more information about this event, visit:
http://www.greenbuildexpo.org/Program/green_homebuilders.html
Known as “America’s Walking City,”
the Boston
cityscape is dotted with vibrant neighborhoods, historical sites and LEED
certified buildings. Currently, there are 19 LEED certified and 118
registered buildings in the city. Full and half-day tours of many of Boston’s most celebrated
buildings, including many LEED certified projects, will take place throughout
the event, and will be complimentary to press. http://www.greenbuildexpo.org/Events/GreenBuildingTours.html
Greenbuild is presented annually by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a
nonprofit organization composed of more than 16,700 member organizations
ranging from private companies to nonprofits, educational institutions, and
government agencies, all working to transform the building industry. Since its
founding in 1993, USGBC has been at the forefront of green building,
introducing the nationally used LEED® green building certification system in
2000 and launching the Greenbuild Conference in 2002. Visit the
Greenbuild Web site: www.greenbuildexpo.org
.
Registration
Greenbuild has undergone some changes in preparation for this year’s show. In
order to make the Greenbuild experience as enjoyable and seamless as possible,
we’ve undergone a transformation. Some of the changes you’ll find at this
year’s show include:
• Self-service kiosks for session and conference registration
(located in the press room)
• Ticketless entry to events – your name badge is all you
need
• More room! 50% more exhibit space (over 300,000 square
feet), additional educational session space, and more registration counters
Registration for members of the press is complimentary, and includes access to
all 100+ educational and break-out sessions; Keynote presentations; the master
speaker series’ and green building tours.
To learn more about press registration at Greenbuild 2007, visit
www.greenbuildexpo.org/Press
To register as a working press member, visit http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/survey.zgi?p=WEB2275S9LQCWJ
About USGBC
The U.S. Green Building Council is a nonprofit membership organization whose
vision is a sustainable built environment within a generation. Its membership
includes corporations, builders, universities, government agencies, and other
nonprofit organizations. Since USGBC’s founding in 1993, the Council has grown
to more than 16,500 member companies and organizations, a comprehensive family
of LEED® green building certification systems, an expansive educational
offering, the industry’s popular Greenbuild International Conference and Expo
(www.greenbuildexpo.org), and a network of 78 local chapters, affiliates, and organizing
groups. www.usgbc.org
Article Contributions
BICSI NEWS
Take Control of Your Future
Edward J.
Donelan,
RCDD, NTS,
TLT
edonelan@bicsi.org
As an
information transport systems (ITS) professional, you face difficult challenges
every day. You work hard to please your clients and help them solve their
business needs. This requires access to cutting-edge ideas, current
information, and high-quality resources to be familiar with all of the
available resources for your clients. Your BICSI membership entitles you to a
wide variety of benefits and special offers that range from business services
that save you time and money to publications and programs that can help advance
your career.
Customer Service
Member
benefits in any association are great tools to help you get ahead and save
money. However, the one piece that is just as important as the actual benefits
is the level of customer service you receive. Great experiences start with
great customer service. No one understands that better than I do. As President
of BICSI I believe your first member benefit is the outstanding level of
customer service that you receive. Our customer service team goes through
weekly training sessions to ensure that everyone they come in contact with,
whether it’s over the telephone or face-to-face, receives the utmost attention
and care, thus making your BICSI experience a great one. It doesn’t end with
the customer service team—everyone at BICSI is driven by this same success formula.
Great benefits plus great customer service equals a great BICSI experience.
Education
Whether
through open enrollment courses or technical reference manuals, BICSI is
constantly expanding access to educational resources. Open enrollment courses,
suitcase courses, BICSI CONNECT, authorized training facilities (ATFs) and
authorized design training providers (ADTPs) offer members the opportunity to
advance their knowledge and gain new skills. With the BICSI Book with
Confidence Guarantee, members attending open enrollment courses will be covered
for any added expenses if a course cancels less than 30 days from the start
date.
BICSI
reference manuals serve as a detailed reference and study guide for the BICSI
credentialing exams. In addition, BICSI is an ANSI-approved standards-making
body and, through ITS industry subject matter experts, can produce its own
standards. BICSI also offers members access to sample request for proposals
(RFPs).
Knowledge Sharing and Networking
Not only
does BICSI produce a complete library of reference manuals, BICSI also gives
its members access to industry news and association updates through several
routes including the award-winning magazine, BICSI News. Community UPLINK, a
monthly e-newsletter, provides members with the need-to-know information
directly to
their
inbox.
The Forums
Community, BICSI’s newest addition to its services, facilitates knowledge
sharing between BICSI members, staff and end users. Furthermore, BICSI members
can rest assured that their opinions are being heard by the Board of Directors.
Local representation, including Region Directors and Country Chairs help bring
not only local, but also global needs to BICSI. Through this process, BICSI
Best Practices are also global best practices and can be used by all members
alike.
Events
Stay
updated on local BICSI news while meeting other ITS professionals and learning
about the latest trends, products and solutions. BICSI conferences, region
meetings, breakfast clubs and the European pub clubs offer members the
opportunity to meet and network with other local professionals. With innovative
and forward-looking speakers and vendors, these events are not only a member
advantage, but also a benefit to the entire ITS industry.
Professional Services
In addition
to the array of educational services, BICSI works hard to provide its members
with numerous professional services such as continuing education transcript
tracking, health insurance discounts and member and credential holder search
engines.
In the
recent months, BICSI has also created several new relation-ships with other
companies to provide its members with an Affinity Discount Program that can be
accessed through BICSI Main Street.
ITS-Jobs.com,
a service provided by BICSI, is your source for industry career postings.
Whether searching for a new job to advance in your career, or recruiting talent
to your company, ITS-Jobs.com is the place to explore.
BICSI also
has an outstanding charitable outreach program called BICSI Cares. With the
generosity of BICSI members, BICSI Cares has donated well over $1 million to
children’s charities. With the help of conference attendee donations, BICSI
Cares Bears and annual golf outings, BICSI members have proven their dedication
to helping these noteworthy causes.
Industry Affiliations
BICSI has
worked hard to create a working relationship with both InfoComm and the
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA). As part of the InfoComm and
BICSI relationship, BICSI members can now participate in InfoComm International
curriculum program at member pricing. In early 2008, BICSI announced the launch
of a renewed collaboration agreement with TIA in an ongoing effort to reach out
and deploy new business systems that will benefit ITS industry professionals.
BICSI is also an authorized General Services Administration (GSA) contract
holder, and holds representation in both the National Electrical Code® (NEC ®)
and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).
Above, I
have described to you some of the most important benefits your membership
entitles you to. I believe that you would agree with me, that when you compare
the value of the investment you have made by joining BICSI, and measure the
return on investment, you have made a very good decision. When you join BICSI
you gain access to a collection of professional resources that enhance your
knowledge and increase your skills. Take control of your future by becoming and
staying a current and active BICSI member—a decision that very well could
determine your destiny! Thank you for your membership and thank you for
allowing us the opportunity to be of service to you.
BICSI News September/October 2008. Reprinted with permission.
*********************************
The Evolution of Structured Cabling Standards
Standards
remain important for meeting user needs and the changing market for structured
cabling. By Herb Congdon
In the
early 1990s, when the data communications market really started taking off, the
lack of a unifying standard proved problematic. There were a proliferation of
proprietary solutions from companies with no way to ensure performance and no
guarantee of interoperability. The lack of standardization hindered the ability
of this industry to both meet the needs of users and to grow as a market.
ANSI/TIA/EIA-568-A,
Commercial Building Telecommunications Standard was first ratified in 1991, and
its publication revolutionized the industry. Its purpose was to specify a
structured cabling system that would provide a minimum level of performance,
support a multi-vendor environment, provide direction for the design of
telecommunications equipment and cabling products, and establish performance
and technical criteria for various types of cable and connecting hardware. The
goal was to specify a structured cabling system with a projected usable life of
at least 10 years.
The
Commercial Building Telecommunications Standard is, like all standards,
voluntary. However, end users and network designers like to have a
standards-compliant structured cabling system; it provides a known quantity
that they can count on and it helps to ensure that they have a system that is
robust and reliable. That is why changes to this document and other related
documents generate so much interest.
Currently
TIA-TR-42 is on the verge of releasing TIA-568-C, the third generation of this
standard. The evolution of this standard provides an interesting perspective
into the development and implementation of solutions that network designers
employ to meet the ever-increasing demands on their local area networks (LANs).
Who Develops Standards?
Most
standards in the telecommunications industry are voluntary and consensus based.
The two primary organizations that develop standards for this industry are the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,
Inc.® (IEEE®), which focuses on the Ethernet applications, and the
Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), which focuses on the passive
network to support applications like Ethernet.
TIA is
accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop
voluntary industry standards for a wide variety of telecommunications products.
The TIA-568 standard is developed by the User Premises Equipment Division under
the auspices of the TR-42 Engineering Committee. This committee comprises representatives
from manufacturers, service providers, consultants and end users, including the
government. Participation in the Engineering Committee can be as a TIA member
company or as an individual. Participation is open to all companies who wish to
contribute to the development of industry standards.
Standards
projects and technical documents at TIA are formulated according to the
guidelines established by ANSI and the association’s engineering manual. Any
potential project is initiated by a technical contribution to one of the
engineering committees or subcommittees from an individual or company
requesting the creation of a new standard or technical document in a particular
area of technology.
What is the Process for Developing a
Standard?
The time to
develop a new standard depends on many factors and can take a few months to
many years (the TR-42.9 subcommittee, for example, has been working in excess
of 10 years on an industrial cabling standard). Once a project has been
approved, contributions are reviewed in subcommittee, draft documents are
created, then balloted to remove or resolve contentious issues. When there is
consensus that the document is ready for publication, the subcommittee can
release the document.
How Long are Standards Valid?
Standards
are living documents, and must constantly be revised to reflect emerging market
needs. ANSI mandates a maximum five-year lifespan for standards, after which
they must be revised, re-affirmed or withdrawn. During that lifespan, many
addenda may be added to keep the document growing with advances in technology.
These addenda may then be incorporated into the new revision of the standard.
For example, since
the
ratification of TIA-568-B in 2001, there have been six addenda to 568-B.1, ten
addenda to 568-B.2 and one addendum to 568-B.3. A standard may be withdrawn at
any time by the responsible engineering committee.
How has TIA-568 Changed Since its
Inception?
When
TIA-568-A was ratified, copper cabling—mostly category 3 and category 5
unshielded twisted-pair (UTP)—was used almost exclusively throughout building
LANs in North America. This meant that the
standard was based on the characteristics of these media in hierarchical star
architectures. It was at this time that specific distance limitations, such as
100 meters in the horizontal, came into being as benchmarks for media
performance and structured cabling design. Since then, several new applications
and grades of media have been introduced into the market and users have started
to deploy them. Multimode optical fiber, for example, evolved as an accepted
media through addenda and revisions to TIA-568.
o
1995:
TSB-72 introduced “Centralized Fiber Optic Guidelines.”
o
2001:
TIA-568-B.1 incorporated centralized cabling
into the standard.
o
2005:
TIA 569-B and 568-B.1, Addendum 5 were added to support the use of
telecommunications enclosures (TEs) that enable optical fiber to be used for
zone cabling.
Similar
addenda were added and revisions were completed as new applications (such as
Gigabit Ethernet) and new grades of cabling (such as category 6 and 850
nanometer [nm] laser-optimized 50-micron fiber) became available.
Also, over
the years, specialized cabling standards documents were published to address
the specific needs of networks that were not office-oriented. The data center
standard (TIA-942) is a good example.
What’s New in TIA-568-C?
The new
Commercial Building Telecommunications Standard gives users and network
designers more standards compliant solutions—new media choices are included
along with their appropriate installation and testing procedures. However, in
addition to the technical updates, 568-C reflects a new organizational
structure that is designed to simplify and streamline future standards
processes by reducing duplicated information, and establishing a common
foundation for future documents.
The
standard is comprised of four documents:
1. TIA-568-C.0 Generic Telecommunications
Cabling (targeted to users/designers/installers). This document houses most
information common to structured cabling in one place and becomes the
foundation for future standards. This is where minimum requirements for generic
telecommunications cabling are specified such as cabling architecture, what
applications the cabling is intended to support and over what distances, and
other general requirements. The document thus serves two purposes—as a
“default” standard for structured
cabling in locations that are not office-oriented or covered by another
standard, and as a foundation for future standards that can now focus on
exceptions and allowances for that location rather than having to reconstruct
all the generic information.
Status: The
1st default ballot closed in May 2008. Comments were resolved during a June
meeting. A second default ballot has been issued and may allow for publication
in the August/September time frame.
2. TIA-586-C.1 Commercial Building
(targeted to users/designers/installers).This document specifies the
requirements for telecommunications cabling within and between commercial
(office-oriented) buildings. This document builds on 568-C.0 and focuses on the
requirements and guidance for office-oriented buildings. There are some
technical changes to the information in 568-B.1 that are reflected in this
document. These include the addition of:
o
Category
6 balanced twisted-pair cabling.
o
Augmented
category 6 twisted-pair cabling.
o
850
nm laser-optimized 50/125 µm mm optical fiber.
o
Telecommunications
enclosures (TEs).
o
Centralized
cabling.
o
A
recommendation to select 850 nm laser-optimized 50/125 µm as the multimode optical fiber for commercial
buildings.
Some
information was also removed:
o
150-ohm
shielded twisted-pair (STP) cabling.
o
Category
5 cabling.
o
50-ohm
and 75-ohm coaxial cabling.
o
Balanced
twisted-pair cabling performance and test requirements (these will be in the
ANSI/TIA-568-C.2 document).
Status: The
1st default ballot closed in May 2008. Comment resolution was completed in
June. The standard is out for its 2nd default ballot, and a third default
ballot in the August timeframe is possible. This may allow publication as early
as September, or maybe in October.
3. TIA-568-C.2 Copper Cabling Components
(targeted to manufacturers). This standard includes component and cabling
specifications for copper cabling,
including testing requirements. The document incorporates category 3, category
5e, category 6 and category 6A.
Status: The
first committee ballot closed in March. A second committee (30-day) ballot was
issued and plans to review comments at an interim August meeting are in place.
The timeline for this document shows publication in mid-2009.
4. TIA-568-C.3 Optical Cabling Components
(targeted to manufacturers). This document addresses component and cabling
specifications for optical fiber cabling. The standard now includes all three
types of multimode fiber (82.5 µm, 50 µm and 850 nm laser-optimized 50 µm). The
addition of array connectors is particularly noteworthy.
Status:
This document has been released for publication.
That’s Not All, Folks
In addition
to the changes to TIA-568, there is continued effort to refine other documents
to address the installation needs of specific types of end use applications.
ANSI/TIA/EIA-942
Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers, which was released
in 2005, recognizes that the needs of the data center and storage area network
require different guidelines than commercial building LANs. A recent addendum
on coaxial cabling was released for specific data center applications. A new
project to address subjects such as temperature and humidity guidelines was
started in June.
The TR-42.9
Industrial Cabling subcommittee continues to work on an Industrial Cabling
Standard (to be TIA-1005). This standard, which will have been 11 years in the
making, looks specifically at industrial applications and their unique
challenges—very long cabling runs, excessive radio frequency
interference/electromagnetic interference (RFI/EMI), and exposure to extreme
temperature variations, vibrations, dirt, gases and liquids. The standard is
currently out for default ballot and may be published in October 2008.
Another
vertical market that is attracting interest is multi-tenant/multi-dwelling
units (MTU/MDU). TR-42.2, TR-42.12 and TR-42.13 are looking at the challenges
facing this emerging application with an eye toward defining the optical
infrastructure for both MDU residential (apartments, townhouses and
condominiums) and MTU commercial properties included mixed-use builds and
extending the reach of singlemode optical fiber services. This may become a standards
development project in October.
Thinking Healthy and Green
TIA has
established the TR-49 Engineering Committee for Healthcare Communications
Technology. TR-42 had already been
working on a project to develop
a Technical
Services Bulletin (TSB) for a Healthcare Facility Cabling. The task group is
creating a draft now that the new TIA-568-C.0 document is nearly complete.
To
successfully complete such a project, TR-42 is soliciting contributions from
experienced experts on what makes health care facility cabling different from
commercial building cabling.
TIA,
recognizing the widespread and widely defined “green initiative,” has taken
steps to establish a knowledge and document base to address this subject.
Another new engineering committee will be established for this effort. In the
meantime, engineering committees such as TR-42 are collecting ideas and
submitting contributions to TIA for consideration.
Fine Tuning the Structure of the
Structured Cabling System Committees
In addition
to re-issuing the major standard for commercial building structured cabling,
the engineering committee that produces the work has also undergone some
restructuring. In February 2008, the TIA FO-4, Committee on Fiber Optics,
Engineering Committee merged into the TIA TR-42, User Premises
Telecommunications Cabling Infrastructure, Engineering Committee. While there will be little short-term impact
on the responsibilities and activities of these committees and their
subcommittees, there are some longer-term benefits expected.
From an
administrative perspective, the TIA’s Technical Committee saw an opportunity to
bolster the FO-4 Engineering Committee, which was addressing standards
development in new areas such as the MDU market.
The growth
of optical fiber in customer-owned networks, such as commercial buildings and
data centers, and the recognized absence of optical fiber component and testing
expertise meant that the TIA-TR-42 Engineering Committee was a likely partner
for FO-4. In February 2007, the two engineering committees started co-locating
their meetings and hosting joint leadership meetings. During the year it became
apparent that there were multiple synergistic benefits to be realized from the
merger, such as:
o
Balancing
the component and testing expertise for balanced twisted-pair cabling in
TR-42.7 with component and testing expertise for optical fiber cabling in
TR-42.8.
o
Incorporating
optical fiber into new and existing common and premise standards.
o
Capitalizing
on new applications that are based on optical fiber.
o
Halfway
through 2008, the effects of the merger of these committees are very positive.
With more resources and expertise, TR-42 is well positioned making sure that
the standards that the industry depends upon can keep up with emerging markets
and technologies.
It Takes an Industry
Standards
development works best with balanced input from all segments of the industry
and the TR-42 Engineering Committee counts on contributions, comments and
constructive criticism to produce effective, useful and competent documents.
Working closely with members of BICSI, end-users and manufacturers has been an
effective way to achieve those goals. Your participation and input are welcome
and often necessary. Feel free to speak up and be part of the success.
BICSI News September/October 2008. Reprinted with permission.
*********************************
Optical Fiber in the Data Center
Specification
of lower loss cables and connectors and optical fiber rated for longer
distances offer design flexibility. By David Mazzarese
For network
managers, installers and consultants, all eyes are on the data center. In
businesses, educational and health facilities, and government organizations,
this critical facility is at the hub of an explosion in bandwidth demand. The
drivers behind this growth include the tremendous popularity of video and other
high-bandwidth content on the Internet, the growing interest in
videoconferencing, greater demand for data storage and recordkeeping, and the
rise in supercomputing applications.
This trend
is expected to continue, in part because of government data warehousing
legislation and recommendations for the medical and financial industries, along
with the need for redundancy to protect against catastrophic loss. As a result,
data centers and storage area networks (SANs) are expected to see further
upgrades to higher networking speeds of 40 and 100 Gigabits per second (Gb/s),
depending on the application.
Optical
fiber is the transmission medium of choice for these networks, due to its low
loss and high bandwidth, small size, and low power consumption and generation
of heat. In this article, optical fiber choices available to the data center
user will be reviewed and the evolution of standards that will determine which
solutions are being defined by the industry as the most effective and
cost-efficient will be discussed.
Network Architectures and Protocols
Today’s
enterprise networks are increasingly taking advantage of 10 Gb/s-capable
multimode optical fiber for backbone cabling in order to support 1 Gb/s-capable
copper or optical fiber horizontal links. Traditional hierarchal star
architecture is still used predominantly, but there are increased deployments
of fiber-to-the-enclosure (FTTE) architecture that extend the high-performance
capability of optical fiber much closer to the workstation.
In the data
center, where much of the information traveling over the local area network
(LAN) is processed and stored, systems are becoming predominately optical fiber
in order to keep up with the amount of information that needs to be managed.
Data
centers typically consist of a SAN and a bank of servers that control the
information traveling over the network. Data centers are connected to the LAN
through an intranet and to the World Wide Web through the Internet. With more
data being processed both internally and externally, the data center needs to
be able to handle ever-increasing data rates.
Switches
and servers in the data center typically use Ethernet as their communications
protocol. Currently, 10 Gb/s (or “10G”) is the fastest Ethernet speed that has
been standardized (IEEE 802.3ae for optical fiber, published in 2002, and IEEE
802.3an for copper, published in 2006). However, the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers Inc.® (IEEE®) is already working on standards for the
next Ethernet speeds, 40G and 100G. These IEEE standards identify transceiver
port types, and the requirements and characteristics of the physical layer.
In the SAN
portion of the data center, Fibre Channel is the predominant protocol
used. Heavily focused on optical fiber,
Fibre Channel uses “Base2” speeds, doubling with each new generation (2GFC,
4GFC, 8GFC, etc.). Current efforts are focusing on 16GFC for the next Base2 speed.
Fibre
Channel also uses a “Base10” protocol for inter-switch links and core
connections. 10GFC was published on the heels of 10G and includes virtually the
same 850-nm serial vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) solution for
10 Gb/s up to 300 meters (m [984 feet (ft)]) on 50 µm laser-optimized multimode
optical fiber (also called OM3 optical fiber). Looking ahead, Fibre Channel is
working on 20GFC and already has sights set on 40GFC as the next Base10 speed.
Multimode Optical Fiber Offers
Better Performance, Lower Costs
Several
transmission media are available for use in the data center. These include
various performance grades, or “categories,” of copper cabling, and different
types and performance grades of optical fiber.
Copper
cabling has long been considered the least expensive option for data center
applications, but its performance is limited in terms of transmission capacity
and reach. For example, looking ahead at 40G and 100G transmission speeds, it
is expected that copper will only be able to handle these speeds for very short
distances, on the order of 10 m (33 ft) or so. It is too early to tell what
makeup or type of copper cable will be necessary for these speeds.
Historically, as transmission speeds increase, copper-based systems become more
complex and costly.
On the
optical fiber side, users have a choice between singlemode and multimode
optical fiber. Singlemode optical fiber
has very high bandwidth that can be transmitted long distances, but the
optoelectronics required to do so are quite a bit more expensive than multimode
(on the order of 25–30 percent higher).
Even if you only need to go a few hundred meters, as with data centers,
you still need the more expensive optical fibers if you were to use singlemode.
There are
two types of multi-mode optical fiber—62.5 µm and 50 µm, named because of their
core sizes and various performance grades—listed here in increasing order of
reach and performance capability: OM1 62.5 µm, and OM2, OM3, and soon to be OM4
50 µm.
Again using
the 40 and 100G example, optical fiber is needed to transmit greater than 10 m
(33 ft). Fortunately, distances of 100–200 m (328-656 ft) or more are expected
to be achievable using existing, standards-based OM3 multimode optical fiber
(also known as laser-optimized 50 µm) and soon-to-be-standardized OM4 multimode
optical fiber (extended-length laser-optimized 50 µm).
Why is
optical fiber more expensive for singlemode than multimode? Two factors come
into play–the wavelength of operation and, more significantly, the size of the
optical fiber cores where the light is carried. The material used for the laser
to achieve long wavelength (1310 nm, 1550 nm) transmission is more expensive
than that for 850 nm short wavelength lasers. But more importantly, the
transceivers used with singlemode optical fibers require significantly tighter
alignment tolerances in order to couple, or capture, the light into its tiny (9
micron) core. Not only is high-precision transceiver packaging required, but
also tighter tolerance connectors and careful cable installation and
termination practices are necessary. All this adds considerable cost as
compared with multimode optical fiber for data center applications.
So for
shorter reach premises applications like a data center, multimode optical fiber
can easily provide the needed bandwidth (supporting up to 10 Gb/s or more
serially and 40 and 100 Gb/s in parallel arrays) well into the future at much
lower expense than singlemode optical fiber.
Differential Mode Delay
(DMD)-Controlled Optical Fiber Helps Ensure Performance
Today,
approximately 70 percent of the multimode optical fiber installed in the data
center is OM3 or OM4 optical fiber. These laser optimized optical fibers,
designed for 850 nm transmission using VCSELs as a light source, all feature a
differential mode delay (DMD)-controlled core that helps ensure 10 Gb/s support
with low-cost 850 nm serial applications up to their rated distances. Even
though these optical fibers are intended for high performance applications,
they can still support 1 Gb/s operation, and
their
50-micron core size couples sufficient power from light emitting diode (LED)
sources to support legacy protocols like Token Ring, fiber distributed data
interface (FDDI), Ethernet and Fast Ethernet, and slower Fibre Channel speeds
for virtually all in-building networks.
OM3 is the
most widely deployed laser-optimized multimode optical fiber, providing 10 Gb/s
trans-mission with low cost 850 nm serial applications for distances up to 300
m (984 ft). For longer distances (e.g., large building backbones, medium-length
campus backbones) and more sensitive power budget applications (e.g., data
center equipment inter-connects), OM4 optical fiber with specifications that
are significantly tighter than the current standards for OM3 are often deployed.
OM4 optical
fiber, which can support 10 Gb/s Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and OIF applications
to 550 m (1804 ft) using the same low-cost 850 nm VCSELs, is expected to become
standardized in the industry through work currently being conducted in several
international bodies including the TIA TR42.12 and IEC SC86A WG1. The key to
the performance of these optical fibers is a manufacturing process that
produces an optical fiber with almost no DMD and 4700 MHz-km of effective modal
bandwidth (EMB), more than double the IEEE® requirement for 10 Gb/s 300 m (984
ft) support.
Cassette-Based Solutions
To better
manage the growth and increasing number of ports in a data center,
pre-terminated multi-fiber trunk cables and multi-point optical (MPO)
connectors are being used. For example, this will allow 12 optical fibers to be
terminated with one mated pair of connectors. These pre-term assemblies provide
ease of installation, space savings, and greatly simplify the connectivity
portion of the network.
In one
commonly used architecture, 12 optical fiber cables with MPO connectors are run
between cassettes that then fan out to individual optical fiber ports. This
architecture simplifies installation but could result in more connections than
usual in a given optical link between the transmitter and receiver.
Furthermore, multi-fiber MPO connectors typically exhibit higher connection or
insertion loss than single-fiber connectors.
In these
cases, multimode optical fiber again is the better choice for transmission
media compared to singlemode. First, the larger core of a multimode optical
fiber makes it easier to align their cores at a connection point, making them
less sensitive to connection loss. Second, using a higher bandwidth optical
fiber such as OM4 over a distance less than what it is rated for (typically 550
m [1804 ft] at 10G) provides additional channel insertion loss (ChIL) margin,
or “headroom,” to accommodate the additional, higher loss connectors. Finally,
the additional headroom can translate to more safety margin, providing
additional immunity from installation challenges (e.g., cable routing,
termination), link degradation from moves, adds, or changes (MACs), or from
aging of electronics.
Power Consumption and Cooling
Considerations
One of the
greatest challenges with today’s data centers is minimizing costs associated
with power consumption and cooling. The more power that is consumed, the higher
the cost and more heat generated. This requires more cooling, which adds even
more cost. The comparatively low power requirements of optical networks give
them a big advantage over copper.
For
example, a 10G BASE-T transceiver in a copper system uses about 6 watts (W) of power. The comparable 10G BASE-SR
optical transceiver uses less than 1 W to transmit the same signal. Thus, each
optical connection saves about 5 W of power. Data centers vary in size, but if
10,000 connections at 5 W each were considered, that is 50 kW less
power—significant savings from using less power-hungry optical technology.
Furthermore,
the power used by these transmitters is dissipated as heat, which must then be
removed from the room in order to keep the electronics cool. Typical air
conditioning has an energy efficiency rating of around 10, meaning that it
takes 10 W of power to remove one W of heat. Removing the 50 kW of power
described above would require about 500 kW of energy! The energy costs of
cooling are 10 times the energy of operating the transceivers themselves. That
is a total of 550 extra kW of power needed to operate a 10,000 port,
copper-based data center.
Looking Ahead to Higher Speeds
As
mentioned previously, IEEE® is currently developing new standards for higher
speed transmission, 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s, in data centers and other high
performance computing (HPC) applications. The IEEE 802.3ba task force is
working to develop these 40G and 100G standards simultaneously (40 Gb/s will
support the server market, while100 Gb/s is needed for core switching and
routing applications, network aggregation, and high performance computing).
For shorter
reach data center and equipment interconnects, IEEE 802.3ba is focusing on a
physical medium dependent (PMD) solution that takes advantage of parallel
optical fiber technology (which is already being used in current platforms such
as InfiniBand), thereby helping to keep costs as low as possible. Parallel
optical fibers entails simultaneous transmission of one 10 Gb/s signal on each
of 4 or 10 optical fibers (for 40G and 100G, respectively). Arrayed
transceivers using 4 or 10 VCSELs and detectors, as appropriate, will aggregate
each
10 Gb/s
signal.
To further
balance cost with performance, the task force is working to leverage proven
technology, media and network management practices. In fact, they will likely
relax component performance specifications in some cases in order to help
reduce overall cost. An example is the VCSEL light sources for shorter reach
applications using multimode optical fiber. The 802.3ba is considering a
relaxation of the spectral width of these sources from 0.45 nm (the current
10GbE requirement) to 0.65 nm. This limits the distance of such a link (due to
chromatic dispersion effects) to 100 m (328 ft) using OM3 optical fiber.
For some
data centers and other applications that may require support beyond 100 m (328
ft), an ad hoc group within IEEE® is studying how this could be accomplished in
a cost-effective manner. It might make use of better performing transceivers,
or of an OM4 grade of optical fiber, or a combination of the two.
Handling “Delay Skew”
Any
discussion of a parallel transmission approach will include a topic called
“delay skew,” which is being addressed by the IEEE® task force. Delay skew is
the difference in signal arrival time from one lane, or optical fiber, to the
next. Skew can be affected by differences in the physical lengths of each
optical fiber within the cable, and by any difference in speed that the light
signal travels down one optical fiber compared to adjacent optical fibers.
Delay skew
will not be a hindrance to parallel transmission over any cable design, as it
will be compensated for effectively within the transceiver circuitry. In fact,
proven techniques for skew compensation in copper cabling and other parallel
optical fiber applications are already well established.
The new
standard for 40 and 100 Gb/s transmission will include procedures for
compensating for skew, ensuring that industry-recognized cable designs such as
loose tube, tight buffer, and ribbon cable all can be accommodated, and the
full performance range of current, industry-standard OM3 multimode optical
fibers can be used.
Exceeding the Standards for Higher
Performance
Data center
designers are likely to agree that the lowest cost solution for 10 Gb/s
deployment will contain a significant amount of OM3 optical fiber, and as the
systems migrate to higher speeds of 40-100 Gb/s, laser optimized 50/125
multimode optical fiber can provide the lowest cost and most reliable solution
as compared to copper cable or singlemode optical fiber.
Once
settled on the optical fiber type for their data center network, the user must
be sure that the optical fiber products they specify can provide the
performance and reliability needed. This is especially critical in 10G
applications at 850 nm, since loss budgets for these systems are lower than
previous applications. As briefly mentioned earlier in this article, you may
want your network to have extra power “headroom” to accommodate additional
connections and higher loss connectors, and to improve overall reliability.
There are
two ways to achieve greater power headroom (also known as power margin): first,
by reducing ChIL, the end-to-end loss resulting from all connections and
splices in the link, plus the attenuation of the cable itself; second, by using
a higher bandwidth optical fiber to reduce intersymbol interference (ISI),
which occurs when bits of data run together.
Because
network downtime can be very expensive, reliability is a key consideration for
high performance networks. For greater flexibility in network design and,
ultimately, greater reliability, follow these strategies:
· Specify lower loss cables and
connectors, which provide more power margin.
· Specify an optical fiber rated for a
longer distance than what it will be used.
· Do not assume that all products that
meet a particular standard are equal; it is possible to find higher performing
products that exceed the standards.
All of this
is especially true in demanding data center applications. The most
cost-effective solution is OM3 optical fibers that have been designed and
manufactured specifically for laser transmission, and have performance
characteristics that exceed the standards. They are available in various
performance grades, and should feature a DMD-controlled core that helps ensure
10 Gb/s support with low-cost 850 nm serial applications up to their rated
distances.
BICSI News September/October 2008. Reprinted with permission.
BUILDINGGREEN.COM
Current Stories from Environmental Building News
BuildingGreen
publishes information in outlets such as Environmental Building News (EBN) and
BuildingGreen Suite that cover the most pressing issues in environmentally
sensitive design and construction with a clear approach to all sides of an
issue, keeping our readers informed on building for sustainability. This email
brings you, as a news editor or website owner interested in sustainable design,
links to breaking stories currently posted in the free area of
www.BuildingGreen.com.
We
encourage you to post these summaries and links on your website. However,
please DO NOT post full articles without direct permission from Jim Newman at
BuildingGreen, LLC.
When
posting the summaries and links below on your website(s), please make it clear
that the stories are coming from Environmental Building News and that the full
article is available at www.BuildingGreen.com. Please include this byline:
"From
Environmental Building News, www.BuildingGreen.com."
BuildingGreen
LLC owns the copyrights to all material contained in this email and to the full
written articles. All rights are reserved except those explicitly granted
herein. Contact Jim Newman at BuildingGreen LLC, Jim@BuildingGreen.com with
questions or for additional information.
All
materials Copyright BuildingGreen, LLC 2008.
*********************************
Free Energy Modeling in Google SketchUp Nadav Malin
Integrated
Environmental Solutions (IES) has launched a plug-in for Google SketchUp that
delivers energy and carbon footprint simulations to inform early-stage design
decisions. The free plug-in provides results without any additional software
requirements, although owners of IES's Virtual Environment package or its
VE-Toolkits can perform additional analyses, such as daylight or airflow
modeling. The plug-in provides functionality from SketchUp that IES previously
offered only from Autodesk's Revit Architecture and Revit MEP, including
documentation for the LEED daylighting credit.
Link to the
full article:
http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2008/9/3/Free-Energy-Modeling-in-Google-SketchUp/
Vapor Retarders and Air Barriers:
Managing Moisture in Building Envelopes Backpage Primer from Environmental
Building News
Moisture
from air can get into a wall cavity through air leaks or, in smaller
quantities, by diffusing through a permeable material such as drywall. Many
people think in terms of vapor barriers addressing both of these problems, but
there are two distinct functions: preventing air leakage, accomplished with an
air barrier; and controlling moisture diffusion, which calls for a vapor
retarder.
Preventing
condensation inside the assembly is not always as straightforward as installing
a vapor retarder on the warm side of the wall, however. Many regions see
significant heating as well as cooling needs; the warm side of the wall changes
in different seasons. Also, common building materials, such as plywood,
function as vapor retarders, even if they were not installed for that purpose.
Link to the
full article:
http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2008/8/28/Vapor-Retarders-and-Air-Barriers-Managing-Moisture-in-Building-Envelopes/
*********************************
D.C. Requires Building Owners to Report Energy Use
Washington, D.C. was among the early cities to
require privately owned buildings to meet LEED standards. Now, it is requiring the city government as well as private building owners to benchmark their buildings using the Energy Star Portfolio Manager tool and to submit performance data to the City, which will then publish it for the public.
Link to the
full article:
http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2008/8/28/D-C-Requires-Building-Owners-to-Report-Energy-Use/
*********************************
Sustainable Design Leaders Explore Their Profession Nadav Malin
In late
July, sustainable design directors and coordinators from 46 architecture and
design firms gathered in Colorado
Springs to compare notes and share best practices.
Several designers from around the country spearheaded the event after they
realized that: (1) they have been trying to figure out what their job entails,
so there must be others with the same question; and (2) fleeting conversations
in the halls at Greenbuild were not satisfying their hunger for sharing ideas.
Link to the
full article:
http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2008/8/28/Sustainable-Design-Leaders-Explore-Their-Profession/
*********************************
The Challenge of Creating Living Buildings
Allyson
Wendt
The Living
Building Challenge was launched in 2006 by the Cascadia Region Green Building
Council, a chapter of both the U.S. Green Building Council and the Canada Green
Building Council. A stringent certification system, the Living Building
Challenge consists of 16 prerequisites -- there are no optional credits. No
buildings have yet achieved certification, in part because the Challenge
requires buildings to be operational for at least a year before being
certified.
"We
knew this was going to be much more frustrating and much more time consuming
than any other options," said Skip Backus about pursuing Living Building
certification for the new building at Omega. Designed by BNIM, the 6,200 square
foot building should be completed by October 2008.
Link to the
full article:
http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2008/8/28/The-Challenge-of-Creating-Living-Buildings/
BuildingGreen,
LLC is publisher of the nation's oldest publication on sustainable design and
construction and the leading national directory of green building products. For
more information on BuildingGreen and its resources on environmentally
responsible design and construction, visit www.BuildingGreen.com, email
Info@buildinggreen.com, or call 800-861-0954 (outside the U.S. and Canada, call 802-257-7300).
BuildingGreen is a socially responsible company based in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Contact
Information
email:
Jim@buildinggreen.com
phone:
617-699-7323
web:
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CARLINI
Why don’t we have aggressive network marketing like “faster network speeds or your money back” in the United States
British
Telecom is the major network carrier in Great Britain. It has a service
that will come out and fine tune your computer’s connection in order to squeeze
out a faster speed for you.
For a fee of
about $160, they will come out and set up a connection they guarantee will give
you 0.5 Mbps more than what you have. If they can’t, you get your money back.
They seem to be pretty confident about their services. In the U.S., we have
network services, but we have no speed guarantees.
Oh, wait.
We do have speed guarantees, but the tariffs for dial-up lines have never been
updated. The guaranteed speeds are so slow you would never get any money back.
The last time I looked, guaranteed data speed on a dial-up line was 4,800 bits
per second.
That’s 4.8
Kbps, which was considered a decent speed in 1979.
Though we
talk about upgrading our network infrastructure in the U.S., we don’t
seem to be pushing as much as we should. Shouldn’t we have raised the bar a
long time ago? Instead of “discovering the Internet” with Bill Curtis, maybe
the commercials from the phone companies need to “discover speed” and how to
sell it to customers.
The
ShamWow! of Network Services
If you’ve
ever seen the commercials from ShamWow! (the “miracle towel”), you know its
hype and its claims. It also seems to attract your interest into buying some
towels.
Maybe this
is what some of the network carriers need to do in order to get more people
attracted to their network services. Marketing new network services was never a
strong suit of the phone companies. Maybe they need to get some tips from
British Telecom as well as the ShamWow! guy.
To those
who would argue that the phone companies really do have great marketing, how
many of you bought ISDN from the late 1980s? Projections for ISDN by “all the
experts” were that most Fortune 500 companies would have it in by the late
1980s and all residences would have it in by the early 1990s. That never
happened.
Maybe
network carriers like AT&T and Qwest need to show some definitive examples
of how they can move information faster instead of trying to protect their
stagecoach-era copper networks. Just like soaking up water with a “miracle
towel,” the network carriers need to show what high speeds can do for people
downloading large files and videos.
Fighting
Utopia, Providing Less
Qwest has
been cited for restricting competition and trying to keep consumers locked into
slow speeds delivered by their copper-based networks.
An article
followed up by many comments shows the lack of motivation for Qwest to offer
something competitive. Instead, Qwest roadblocks progress with lawsuits and
requests for restrictions while claiming the company is protecting the
consumer.
When you
look at the comparisons in the charts, Qwest comes up short and expensive.
The
comparison gets even more one-sided when you compare higher-speed services.
Qwest’s
president says: “Why provide a Rolls-Royce when a Chevrolet will do?”
A Rolls is
about 10 times the cost of a loaded Chevrolet and provides a lot more. Using
his own analogy, the price of Qwest should then be one-tenth of the
competition. Based on his executive expertise and perception of the market, we
should be seeing Qwest service prices drop down to this:
While the
Qwest monthly cost is one-tenth the price, the Mstar upstream speed is 50 times
faster than the Qwest upstream speed. That’s well beyond a Rolls-Royce
comparison.
Where do
they get these executives? Let’s see the Qwest president put his network
services where his mouth is. Try $5.95 a month with no ups and no extras. That
might be a more fair price for services that don’t compare in speed as well as
symmetrical upstream speeds.
Gimmick
For Customers?
Should we
also have the same “money-back deals” in the U.S.? While we have different tiers
of network services we can buy, do we have any real money-back guarantees if
you don’t get what you’ve bought?
There are
several speed tests you can use to
measure what you’re getting with your connection speed. The incumbent phone
companies have failed to get out of their tired strategy of “we will sell no
technology before we think it’s time”.
Instead of
spending tens of millions of dollars on lobbyists and lawsuits to impede the
progress of other alternative carriers and protect their stagecoach-era copper
infrastructure, they should pour more money into network upgrades and provide
speeds that keep us in a competitive edge instead of a non-competitive rut.
Carlinism: There needs to be real competition
to get network speeds up and costs down in the United States.
James
Carlini will be speaking at the University Club of Chicago on Sept. 30, 2008.
His topic will be “Beyond the Veolia Study: Intelligent Infrastructure”: All
members are invited to hear Carlini’s presentation on this important study,
which is a timely and important topic to Chicago
in connection with the Olympics. A continental breakfast will be served at 7:45
a.m. and remarks begin at 8 a.m. You can reserve your spot online here.
Check
out Carlini’s blog at CarlinisComments.com.
James
Carlini is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University.
He is also president of Carlini & Associates. Carlini can be
reached at james.carlini@sbcglobal.net or
773-370-1888.
Click here for
Carlini’s full biography.
Copyright
2008 Jim Carlini
To be removed from this Mailing, please contact the sender.
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Comcast, Other Bandwidth Providers Plan to Limit Monthly Downloads
Comcast is
planning to limit the amount you can download for any given month. Others are
planning to do the same.
More than
two years ago, I focused on the issue of making sure you got your money’s worth
on network speeds. I talked about seeing a network speedometer so you could
always know how much speed you were getting.
My focus
was to question the accuracy of service the average was buying. Would you pay
for a gallon of gas if the pump was only pumping out three quarts and
registering a gallon? No way.
Some
thought that idea was ridiculous while others thought it would be useful to see
what exactly you were getting for what you paid. Are you getting that extra
speed you’re buying? Is it constant? A lot of questions could be easily
answered. From the perspective of the carriers, perhaps they would be answered
too easily.
Some of the
cable companies are now going in a different direction with ideas of metering
usage to limit capacities of how much you can download per month. We could
start to see a meter or icon appear on our screens looking like this:
This was
first discussed as “consumption-based billing” at Time Warner in the early part
of 2008. Others are looking at this as a way to limit downloads as well. At
some companies, charges for going over capacity can range from $1.25 to $4 a
gigabyte. If you’re over by 10 gigabytes, you could incur a $40 “extra charge”.
Comcast
Plans to Limit Customers
Starting on
Oct. 1, 2008, Comcast is putting into effect a policy that limits the amount of
usage of capacity.
As pointed
out above, the idea of limiting the amount you can download isn’t unique to
Comcast. Other cable companies are looking at this as well. Comcast doesn’t
think it’s limiting the residential consumer too much. In the company’s
amendment to its acceptable use policy (AUP), Comcast defines what 250
gigabytes of monthly bandwidth can accommodate:
250
gigabytes a month is an extremely large amount of data. [It’s] much more than a
typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis. The median monthly data
usage by our residential customers is [currently] approximately 2 to 3
gigabytes.
To put 250
gigabytes of monthly usage in perspective, a customer would have to do any one
of the following:
Send 50
million e-mails (at 0.05 kilobytes per e-mail) Download 62,500 songs (at 4
megabytes per song) Download 125 standard-definition movies (at 2 gigabytes per
movie) Upload 25,000 high-resolution digital photos (at 10 megabytes per photo)
For the
most part, that’s more than what a vast majority of people would use in a
month. Comparing it with the proposed limits by other companies, it’s
substantially more generous.
Some other
cable companies are looking at 30 to 60 gigabytes per month as the threshold.
Will that
average usage grow for the average user? In Japan, NTT has set 900 gigabytes as
the threshold number for uploads before extra charges are incurred. What new
applications that could be potential bandwidth hogs might be on the horizon?
Does Japan
know something we don’t?
Should
Consumption Be a Real-Time Meter?
Will the
cable companies send some type of warning so you don’t incur an overcharge? It
could look like this:
How
reliable are these “metering” capabilities? Has anyone set any standards of how
and what this metering should look like? What about accuracy? That was one of
the big problems with electrical utilities decades ago. Their metering
equipment wasn’t accurate. There are still utilities that have faulty measuring
devices and consumers have to question their accuracy.
In the case
of Time Warner, Frontier, Comcast and all the rest; who’s going to ascertain
that their “digital capacity meters” are accurate? Will it be the FCC? Even the
utilities that have been around for decades (if not more than a century) still
have billing problems due to inaccurate readings and billing calculations.
You might
see something like this if you go over your monthly gigabyte limit:
These are
questions that should be answered before policies and procedures get put in
place that impact the average user and their monthly bill.
Carlinism:
Improving critical infrastructure needs a bipartisan effort rather than
bipartisan apathy.
James
Carlini will be speaking at the University Club of Chicago on Sept. 30, 2008.
His topic will be “Beyond the Veolia Study: Intelligent Infrastructure”: All
members are invited to hear Carlini’s presentation on this important study,
which is a timely and important topic to Chicago
in connection with the Olympics. A continental breakfast will be served at 7:45
a.m. and remarks begin at 8 a.m. You can reserve your spot online here.
Check out
Carlini’s blog at CarlinisComments.com.
James
Carlini is an adjunct professor at Northwestern
University. He is also
president of Carlini & Associates. Carlini can be reached at
james.carlini@sbcglobal.net or 773-370-1888.
Click here
for Carlini’s full biography.
*********************************
Nicholas G. Carr: Is IT a Competitive Advantage or Necessity?
Published
on 9/17/2008 at www.MidwestBusiness.com where you always read REAL perspectives
Carlini’s
Comments, MidwestBusiness.com’s oldest column, runs every Wednesday. Its
mission is to offer the common man’s view on business and technology issues
while questioning the leadership and visions of “pseudo” experts.
If you
don’t understand that IT has become inextricably linked into the core business
of most industries, then you don’t understand IT.
I had the
opportunity last week to sit in on a traveling book presentation from Nicholas
G. Carr. He’s a former Harvard Business Review editor.
Carr wrote
the book “Does IT Matter? Information Technology and the Corrosion of
Competitive Advantage”. His latest book is called “The Big Switch: Rewiring the
World From Edison to Google”.
Can IT Be a Utility?
I listened
to Carr talk about the concept of IT moving toward a more “utility approach”
for service (like electricity). While his argument is weak since electricity is
a commodity, an organization’s IT has a lot of embedded intellectual property
in it that is unique and critical.
That can’t
be commoditized or entrusted to a third-party service offering. Though there
certainly are some non-essential applications that could be outsourced from a
corporation, the point that Carr makes is that IT is not part of the core
business. I disagree.
Has Carr
ever been involved in large-scale systems and application integration within a
competitive environment let alone mission-critical systems where the life and
death of the whole organization and/or its customers is balanced on real-time
capabilities?
Carr cited
the explosion of more companies utilizing computers over the last 30 years and
tried to make the case that IT would eventually parallel the evolution of
electricity. The market would pursue giving up the IT department to turn to an
outside, utility-provided IT service.
What he
didn’t observe is that IT is no longer a competitive advantage. Instead, it’s a
competitive necessity if you want to compete today. That’s why there has been
such an explosion of implementing computers.
Everyone is
trying to contend with others with sophisticated warehousing programs,
computer-aided manufacturing and other specialized applications and customer
service databases. Computers and all the related software applications are what
you need to be a player in just about any industry.
No Universal Solution
We were
very fortunate to have some discourse in the question-and-answer period after
his presentation. I pointed out that all these “universal solutions” to
organizational issues never turn out to be universally accepted let alone
universally implemented.
Whatever
your core business, the fact is it’s intertwined with your information
technology networks. It can’t easily be outsourced without a loss of security
as well as management control. Can’t think of an example? Let me give you the
one I gave Carr.
The Chicago
Mercantile Exchange (CME) has a proprietary electronic trading platform that it
built in order to compete with other exchanges. The CME didn’t outsource this
strategic application. The CME also wouldn’t entrust a third party to run
systems that have hundreds of trillions of dollars worth of transactions
running on them.
This
capability has made the CME the leader in that industry and has given them a
competitive advantage over other exchanges from the intellectual property they
developed. The electronic trading platform is part of their core business.
If you have
driven your systems to a point where you have some type of competitive
advantage over the rest of the market (like the CME), would you entrust a third
party to maintain that advantage for you? I would never advise my clients to do
that.
Carr’s
response was that it will take 10 to 25 years for organizations to accept the
“utility” concept. He made the reference that people didn’t trust banks at
first and then entrusted them with their money.
I pointed
out that banks are not infallible. Just look at the $200 billion bailout of
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I didn’t mention the spinout of others like Citibank, Washington
Mutual and IndyMac Bank. In light of the financial implosion on Wall Street, it
was a poor analogy for him to use.
IT is a Strategic Direction
If you’re
not using IT strategically, then maybe you should step down as a CEO because
you’re still living in a 1950s framework of corporate strategy.
If your CIO
or CTO isn’t focused on harnessing new capabilities to expand and create new
markets using IT networks and if instead they’re just trying to reduce IT
budgets to get a yearly bonus, it’s time to replace them.
Universal
cost cutting is not an executive skill. It also shouldn’t be “incented” in
executive pay packages. Executives should be focused on expanding markets. They
shouldn’t focus on low-level cost cutting that at best is a clerk- or
analyst-level job.
Hire
someone who understands how to apply technology to the core business.
Not everything
is focused on cost cutting. You have to spend money to make money. Some CEOs,
CIOs and CTOs think they can outsource their company’s applications without
sacrificing control and ownership. Are there executives like that still out
there? Yes.
Successful
corporations have had second thoughts about outsourcing critical applications.
You don’t give away intellectual property or entrust a third party with that
intellectual property if you think it’s vital to your business.
Do you
think a casino that manages a very complex database of gamblers (including what
they spend when they come to Las Vegas)
would entrust that database to a third party that could potentially be hacked
into?
What about
all the databases of supposedly secure companies that have been hacked into for
people’s credit card numbers? Do you think a third party would do a better job?
That is Carr’s premise.
What if
they don’t? What should the damages be? Would the third party be indemnified to
not being liable for economic damages? If that were the case, why would anyone
in the world give away the strategic intelligence of their business to a third
party that wouldn’t be held economically responsible if that information was
corrupted or stolen?
Not Everyone Drank the Kool-Aid
While I
commend Carr for writing the book to stimulate discourse on this topic, I don’t
agree with his premise.
You can’t
commoditize intellectual property that is unique, strategic and critical to one
organization and put it out to a “utility” that may or may not be able to
protect or enhance it. If a CEO thinks this is the way to go, then he or she
should go the way of the CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (and without any
severance package).
Is there a
market for a “utility” type of capability for certain applications? Of course,
but it’s far from being a universal solution. Any organization that has built a
sophisticated platform of mission-critical applications should understand what
they have and should be very cautious to even consider handing that off to any
third-party service provider.
As I was
walking out of the seminar, a president of a local software company rode down
the elevator with me. He said: “It’s nice to see that not everyone drank the
Kool-Aid.”
Carlinism:
The further away someone is from working on actual implementations, the more
easy it is for them to suggest solutions that don’t work.
James
Carlini will be speaking at the University Club of Chicago on Sept. 30, 2008.
His topic will be “Beyond the Veolia Study: Intelligent Infrastructure”: All
members are invited to hear Carlini’s presentation on this important study,
which is a timely and important topic to Chicago
in connection with the Olympics. A continental breakfast will be served at 7:45
a.m. and remarks begin at 8 a.m. You can reserve your spot online here.
Check out
Carlini’s blog at CarlinisComments.com.
James
Carlini is an adjunct professor at Northwestern
University. He is also
president of Carlini & Associates. Carlini can be reached at
james.carlini@sbcglobal.net or 773-370-1888.
Click here
for Carlini’s full biography.
Electrical Contracting Magazine
Showing NECA’s True Colors: Shades of Green
While NECA
2008 Chicago
will address some basic and familiar issues, the focus is on groundbreaking new
technologies and trends. So at our trade show and other educational offerings
in October, you can count on the attending electrical industry experts to show
electrical contractors how to succeed in green construction.
The event
also will show a larger public, which includes influential decision-makers and
potential customers, just what the National Electrical Contractors Association
is doing to promote electrical contractors’ success in this growing market—and
why.
The fact
that participation in sustainable, energy-efficient construction promises
bottom-line benefits is already apparent. The economists at McGraw-Hill
Construction say the market for environmentally friendly buildings will account
for between $12 billion and $20 billion this year alone. That’s up to 10
percent of the total construction market, and the figure is expected to double
within five years.
As the 2008
“Profile of the Electrical Contractor” revealed in the July issue of Electrical
Contractor, last year almost half of all electrical contractors (46 percent)
worked on projects that included green/sustainable building elements, and this
type of work provided, on average, 9 percent of total revenue. There’s no doubt
the percentages will be higher in the next profile.
Additional
research found that NECA-member contractors are currently addressing the green
marketplace challenge in three ways:
1. Working on projects that use
alternate forms of energy and the technologies necessary for safe installation
and harvesting renewable power (solar, wind, etc.)
2. Working
on projects that retrofit and improve existing systems to boost efficiency (performing
energy audits, installing efficient automation controls, etc.)
3. Working
on projects that use new building techniques to improve efficiency in new construction,
such as design/build and building information modeling, and contribute to the
achievement of Leadership and Energy in Environmental Design certification
The
performance of this type of work is not only made -possible but also necessary
because, as NECA president-elect Rex Ferry said at our association’s Energy
Solutions Summit, “We’re at a crossroads where the rising costs of energy and
the emerging technologies to actually do something about those costs have met.”
Read a recap in NECA Notes, starting on page 263.
Ferry also
said, “It takes less money to save one kilowatt--hour than it does to produce
one kilowatt-hour.” That’s an important consideration because electricity runs
our homes and businesses and is crucial to America’s economy and security.
Unfortunately, several trends are converging that threaten to break down our
access to affordable, reliable electric power.
More than
30 years after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, fears of such a breakdown were reawakened
by the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and they exist today due to war in
the Middle East, concerns over the expansion of greenhouse gases and
environmental damage, worries about the adequacy of America’s power
infrastructure, and escalating costs. In fact, worldwide increases in
consumption, coupled with unregulated market speculation on energy futures, and
limits on generation capacity—a consequence of deteriorating
infrastructure—have created an economic and political situation that
necessitates systematic action.
That’s why
NECA supports a national policy premised on energy independence. Our efforts include
working with legislative and regulatory bodies and other relevant entities to
help improve electric reliability and infrastructure investment, maintain the
diversity of all available fuel resources (including nuclear), enhance energy
efficiency, and increase use of renewable energy sources (including but not
limited to solar, wind and biomass). However, NECA recognizes the move toward
domestic energy independence must be driven by electrical contractors who construct
and maintain the infrastructure to generate, transmit and distribute the
electrical power our nation relies upon.
Expanding
our services within the green construction field makes us shrewd business
owners. Contributing to the nation’s economic stability and security makes us
heroes.
President’s
Desk by milner irvin
Reprinted
with full permission of Electrical Contractor Magazine www.ecmag.com
*********************************
Contractors Moving Data
Data center cabling management
The data
center market continues to grow, and there are ample opportunities for
electrical work within a data center. One of the obvious and ongoing concerns
within a data center is heat, which greatly affects a data center’s operations
and energy costs.
“The amount
of heat generated by data center equipment and the corresponding energy load
expended on cooling the active equipment is a growing concern for IT and
facilities managers,” said Bradford Eaton, product marketing manager,
Wiremold/Legrand. That concern is further fueled by budget constraints and
mounting energy costs.
“As port
densities increase and the consolidation of blade servers becomes more
prevalent, the heat generated in equipment racks will simultaneously increase.
Managing this heat effectively with proper airflow is a cornerstone of
energy-efficient design,” Eaton said.
Today’s
data center has faster servers, more equipment and a focus on virtualization.
These trends also are increasing needs for better cable management. Many
contractors have worked in that area. Those with experience are well aware that
data centers can easily turn into cabling nightmares based on infrastructure
alone, and they are a hotbed of various kinds of wiring and cabling.
Designing right is key
Data
centers depend on proper design for infrastructure and operational needs.
“The right
connectivity infrastructure is essential,” Eaton said. “It’s the thread that
holds together the fabrics of the data center, turning islands of hardware into
a seamless tool strategic to business success. It needs to support high data
rates to 10 gigabits per second, provide easy management, and be capable of
remaining flexible enough to allow easy configuration and provisioning for
optimal delivery of applications and services.”
There are
data center specific systems, offered by companies such as Cooper B-Line, Hubbell Premise Wiring,
Legrand North America (Cablofil/Legrand, Ortronics/Legrand, Wiremold/Legrand),
Leviton Network Solutions, Panduit and Snake Tray. These systems contribute to
sustainable data centers by providing cable management solutions and advanced
racking solutions to help facilitate cooling efficiency and reduce network down
time, as power and cooling issues remain big issues within such power-intensive
environments.
Specific
solutions include a wire mesh cable tray that allows for overhead or under
floor cable routing and enables better airflow than solid conduit. This
particular option is relevant since aiding and enhancing airflow is crucial to
cooling concerns. Some companies that make this type of product include, but
are not limited to, Cablofil, Panduit and Snake Tray.
Another
solution is overhead cable pathway racks, which, according to Eaton, “provide
cable management and an innovative mounting method for … rack-mount copper and
fiber panels and cabinets, freeing up valuable rack space and facilitating
better airflow.”
The type of
enclosure also can assist with the management of cabling. For example, Wiremold/Legrand
offers integrated zone cabling enclosures that save space and increase
flexibility by providing connectivity within raised floor applications.
Leviton
Network Solutions offers adaptable, easy-to-install cable management products
that include Versi-Duct slotted duct, Spectro-Link fiber raceway, and frame and
rack solutions.
Another
solution is to put the cabling under the floor. Under-floor systems, such as
Snake Tray’s Snake
Canyon line, assist with
existing access floors. This modular cable tray system instantly integrates
with the existing structural elements of the access floor, regardless of which
raised floor model was installed.
Contractors’ knowledge is important
Since data
centers are high-density installations that usually require a variety of
interdependent products to support the cabling infrastructure, contractors
should look for a supplier that offers a full range of cable management
solutions. This, in turn, helps contractors in providing the most relevant
solution for each individual project.
“Racks of
servers and storage, handling petabytes of data, fulfill mission-critical needs
by providing instantaneous access to information,” Eaton said. “The
complexities of modern data centers and storage networks create challenges in
topology, throughput, data integrity, enhanced security, redundancy and environmental
controls.”
There seems
to be no end in sight in terms of data centers and their growing popularity. As
more businesses across virtually all markets find their data and communication
needs rising, they are turning to data centers to help funnel and support such
activity.
“The future
will see skyrocketing data transfers, a seemingly unquenchable thirst for
bandwidth, and the need to support new services,” Eaton said. “Creating a
resilient, agile data center requires robust, reliable user-to-server,
server-to-server, and server-to-storage connections.”
Many
manufacturers are addressing cable management solutions. Be sure
to do your research before taking a
data center job.
systems BY
jennifer leah stong-michas
STONG-MICHAS,
a freelance writer, lives in central Pennsylvania.
She can be reached at JenLeahS@msn.com.
Reprinted
with full permission of Electrical Contractor Magazine www.ecmag.com
*********************************
A Perfect Storm Is Building
A perfect
storm is heading for the building industry. Energy prices continue to rise due
to worldwide demand that increases both the cost of construction and building
operation for owners and developers. The public is becoming increasingly
concerned about the environment and global warming and demanding that both the
private and public sectors act to reduce greenhouse gases. In addition, the United States
produces only a fraction of the energy it uses on a daily basis, obtaining much
of its needed energy from foreign suppliers. This energy deficit is raising
concerns about national security and adversely impacting the U.S. economy.
Each of
these issues has been around for decades, but only recently have all three
converged and been seen as interrelated. For the first time, business leaders,
environmental activists, government officials and the general public are aligned
and focused on finding an integrated solution to energy, environmental and
economic issues. This perfect storm will provide a great deal of opportunity
for electrical contractors prepared to aid in recovery efforts.
Building energy use
According
to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA), commercial
and residential buildings consume about 40 percent of the energy used in the United States,
and annual energy usage is expected to increase in coming decades despite
efforts to conserve.
In
comparison, the U.S.
industrial and transportation sectors each only accounted for about 30 percent
of the U.S.
annual energy usage. Similarly, according to the EIA, commercial and residential
buildings also account for about 40 percent of the carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions, which also is greater than either the industrial or transportation
sectors. Therefore, there is a lot to be gained by reducing building energy use
in the country or by supplanting traditional fossil-fueled electricity production
with greener technologies, such as photovoltaic (PV) and wind generation.
The need to
rein in building energy use is driving many federal, state and local
governments to adopt increasingly stringent energy codes. Building owners more
often are challenging their design and construction teams to produce
high-performance buildings that exceed the minimum energy requirements.
A number of
professional, industry and trade organizations in the building industry are
promoting sustainable design and construction practices including the reduction
of fossil fuels used to construct and operate buildings with the goal of
achieving “carbon neutral” buildings in the coming decades. Since electrical
energy use in buildings often can range from 65 to 100 percent of a building’s
total energy supply, depending on geographic location and space heating, the
electrical contractor will be in the eye of this perfect storm as it develops.
Zero-energy buildings
Many in the
construction industry envision the future to be zero-energy buildings (ZEBs). A
ZEB is a building that is completely energy self-sufficient, producing all the
energy it needs internally. It does not need to be connected to the local
utility’s distribution system. Currently, PV is seen as the most promising distributed
generation technology for ZEBs because PV uses sunlight to produce electricity,
conversion efficiencies are increasing, manufacturing costs are decreasing and
utility energy prices are increasing. These trends are making PV both green and
economical. Unfortunately, PV only produces energy when the sun is shining, and
a ZEB must be able to store electric energy for use at night and on cloudy days
when the PV array is not producing. Reliable low-cost energy storage is an
obstacle that will need to be overcome before ZEBs become a viable alternative
in locations where electric utility service is readily available. However, some
recent strides have been made.
Net
zero-energy buildings (net ZEBs) will probably be implemented first in states
where a net metering provision allows building owners to provide energy to the
utility when their PV array is producing more than needed and pull energy from
the utility when the building load exceeds the capability of the PV array. The
utility only bills the owner for the difference between the amount of
electricity used by the building and what was produced and delivered by the PV
array to the utility distribution system. With net ZEBs, the amount of energy
produced annually by the PV array meets or exceeds the annual building energy
need, even though there is an exchange based on when the electric energy is
produced by the PV array and needed by the building. The utility distribution
system in effect serves as the energy storage device for a net ZEB.
Building system integration
The kind of
building performance breakthroughs needed to substantially reduce building
energy use and associated greenhouse gases in the near term, and ultimately
achieve ZEBs in the long term, requires building system integration. The
traditional view of a building as a collection of loosely related systems that
are individually optimized during the design and construction process typically
results in a building that performs less optimally as a whole. In contrast,
high-performance buildings require that individual building systems, such as
the building envelope, power generation and distribution, artificial and
natural lighting, heating, ventilating, air conditioning and other building
functions be treated as subsystems and that the building be the system to be
optimized.
Integration
and interoperability are popular terms in today’s building industry. These reflect the reality
that, in a modern building, the operation of each system affects all other
systems.
For
instance, about 30 percent of the energy used by commercial buildings is used
for artificial lighting. Increasing the amount of glass on the building’s
exterior will increase the amount of natural light entering perimeter spaces
and should reduce the need for artificial lighting. However, increasing the
amount of glass and the amount of light entering the space will impact the HVAC
system load, which needs to be taken into account.
Similarly,
in order to ensure adequate light levels and quality, a lighting control system
needs to be installed that will adjust the artificial light levels based on the
natural light entering the space. Furthermore, occupancy sensors placed in a
space to reduce energy use by turning off lights when spaces are unoccupied
also can be used to reduce HVAC energy by turning down variable-air-volume
boxes if the air distribution system has been zoned to do so.
The goal of
building system integration is to optimize the building’s overall operation in
order to provide a healthier and more productive environment for occupants as
well as to increase the efficiency of building operations. The realization of
this goal requires the integration of key building systems, using a building
control system.
The
electrical contractor can be involved in the installation of individual control
system components, such as the raceway system, layout and installation of
proprietary control systems, or the design and installation of
open-architecture control systems. Electrical contractors often install control
systems that deal with a particular building function, such as lighting, data
and communications, fire alarm, or security. These individual systems usually
are integrated together with the HVAC system controls and other building
systems by the building management system. However, with open architectural
control systems, the EC can become the system integrator if it has the ability
to design, install and program the control system. Building system integration
represents an important future market for electrical contractors.
CSI Division 25/Integrated
Automation
The growing
importance of building system integration is illustrated by the inclusion of
Division 25 in the 2004 edition of the Construction Specifications Institute’s
(CSI) Master-Format. CSI MasterFormat serves as the basis for most
specifications in the United
States, and Division 25 specifies the
integrated automation (IA) system that ties together all of the subsystems represented
by MasterFormat Facilities Subgroup along with Division 11/Equipment and
Division 14/Conveying Systems. The Facilities Subgroup includes Division
21/Fire Suppression, Division 22/Plumbing, Division 23/HVAC, Division
26/Electrical, Division 27/Communications, and Division 28/Electronic Safety
& Security. Division 11 covers equipment that serve a unique function in a
building, such as food service, laboratory or athletic equipment. Conveying
systems, such as elevators and escalators, are covered in Division 14.
The figure
at left illustrates the relationship between CSI Division 25 and all of these
other divisions. From the figure, it can be seen that the function of the IA
system is to bring all of these individual building systems together in order
to optimize building performance. All the hardware and software needed to implement
an IA system are specified in CSI Division 25. This includes conductors and
raceways; network equipment, such as servers and hubs; instrumentation and
terminal devices, which interface directly with building equipment or through
system-specific devices specified elsewhere; gateways, which establish a
communications link between the IA system and other stand-alone building
systems; and control sequences that describe how the IA system is to operate.
The EC’s role
High-performance
buildings require that buildings be designed, constructed and operated as a
single integrated system rather than a collection of loosely related,
independent systems that are individually optimized as done in the past. The
design and installation of building control systems is the key to reduced energy
consumption and operating costs over the life of the building. Building owners
need help designing, installing and maintaining these building control systems.
The electrical contractor should be aware of this converging storm and begin to
prepare to move in and tackle the challenges. 
