Time 100 missing the basics

Every year Time magazine makes a big splash with their 100 most influential people story. Divided into the four categories of leaders, artists, heroes and thinkers, it appears that more than one entry either has double duty or is slotted into the wrong category. (Glenn Beck in the leaders group? Shouldn’t he be in the artists/entertainers group? J.T. Wang, the CEO of Acer Group is also among those leaders when I would have thought he’d be more comfortable in the thinkers group, given his skill for guessing consumer consciousness.)

And while the gamechangers get a big part of the Time 100 pie---Barack Obama and Ron Bloom, the U.S. car czar who has seemed to save Detroit nearly single-handedly, are both included on the list---I am annually surprised, and perhaps a bit perturbed, that the ‘thinkers’ don’t ever include our industry. Now, I don’t think we’ll be landing in the heroes category, but surely we have a shot at edging out golf and cricket stars. Granted, the sports fellows have their legions of cheering fans, but those will be some seriously perturbed followers if we decided to withhold electricity from their abodes. Can Phil Mickelson power their fridges? I think not.

OK. I guess withholding power to show our … well, power … is a bit childish. Still, I wonder why the people who form the backbone of society---those who do things like keep the lights on and build the highways---are never honored in the same way that, say, Conan O’ Brien (who simply had an NBC chat snafu this year) or Sarah Palin (whose biggest news was joining Fox News) seem to have achieved with mere celebrity.

The Time 100 is filled with Tea Partiers and Twilighters, free trade businessmen, charity workers and celebrity advocates who use their prettiness to shine a light on the world’s ugliness. We love the limelighter, I guess. Unfortunately, as it is in Oz, we pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. All the parts of our urban universe that actually run smoothly, like the power industry, get a bit taken for granted. We never care much unless someone shakes her booty on our TV or “saves” the booty of a declining system. (Both Lady Gaga and Temple Grandin, a booty shaker and a booty saver are on the list.)

Time declares that they are aiming for “the people who most affect our world,” but that doesn’t ring true. Most of the world isn’t impacted by Serena Williams or designer Marc Jacobs or the writers from “Lost.” In fact, I’d venture to guess that most of the world wouldn’t change a wit if those people disappeared in a gray cloud of nothingness like a “Lost”-esque smoke monster. Some might be saddened, of course, but I seriously doubt daily life for the world would be much altered, on the whole. Most of the world is, however, affected by changes in technology and infrastructure, like the growing smart grid movement and its sister trend, sustainable or smart cities. And, if they aren’t affected today, they will be tomorrow.

It would be delightful if, once, Time did a 100 list that reflected those people you don’t know about that keep your daily life---and most of the world’s daily life---going smoothly, from linemen to hometown farmers to nurses, from the hospital to the highway to your home. I would even add in those who are changing daily life in this industry arena, like energy policy gurus and renewables engineers and thinkers. In fact, if given a real choice in the matter, the “artist” section of Time’s 100 would be replaced with “industry,” and power would have a large chunk of the kudos.

After all, artists and entertainers get enough money and notoriety from their movies, music, art and musings. Do we really need to add extra fire to that ego by telling them they’re the most important people in all the world---especially when, literally, that’s really not true?

(I will fess up that Elon Musk, best known as the science mind behind “Iron Man,” but also a man who pushed Solar City, is on the Time list. But, I personally find that “inclusion by accident,” one might say. If Musk hadn’t helped Tony Stark take to the cinema sky, I doubt seriously he’d be on the list at all.)

If the power industry were to make its own list of most influential people, who would you put on it? I’d include Steven Chu, of course, that American physicist, Nobel Prize winner and 12th U.S. Secretary of Energy. His leadership with the smart grid grants has been phenomenal. I’d also be tempted to add in visionary Eddie O’Connor, that loud and open proponent of an offshore supergrid. And, finally, with my two cents, I’d nominate Preston Kissman.

Yes, Preston Kissman.

Who is Preston Kissman? He’s the vice president of distribution operations for the Public Service Company of Oklahoma, which delightfully keeps the lights and TVs a-rollin’ in my abode. So, Preston Kissman, to me, you top Lady Gaga as a most influential person---and you do not have to wrap yourself in police tape or make a Quentin Tarantino rip-off video to do so. In fact, Preston, I’d greatly appreciate it if you didn't wrap yourself in police tape and simply just kept doing what you’re doing---just keeping my lights happily twinkling.

I’d put in a call to Time about Preston, but I have a distinct gut feeling that they wouldn’t call me back.

POWERGRID Europe to bring smart grid future to Amsterdam

The 2010 POWERGRID Europe conference in Amsterdam June 8-10 brings together key European political and industrial figures to discuss the best way to move forward with smart meters, smart grids and a sustainable future featuring smart urban development.

Conference sessions traditionally aim at engineering solutions. While POWERGRID Europe does cover all the technologies and applications for T&D in Europe, the conference will also feature a unique smart grid vendor panel---a megasession bringing in the leaders of the vendor community to discuss what is practical and impractical with smart grid developments. The concept of a “smart grid” is so very popular as a marketing term in the industry today that just about every piece of software, every gadget and every widget calls itself beneficial to the smart grid. In this session, an array of specialists from a variety of industry vendors discusses all the parts that really make a smart grid and just what a utility needs to know to pick the right product for their growing needs in that arena. Short presentations will be followed by a longer interactive panel discussion. Panellists include: Maikel van Verseveld, smart grids Europe and Latin America lead with Accenture; Peter Johnson, VP of energy markets with Alcatel-Lucent; Larsh Johnson, chief technology officer, eMeter; Andreas Berthold-van der Molen, EMEA utility market development with Microsoft; Scott Killian worldwide director of presales solutions at Sixnet, Peter Arndt, VP with Trilliant and Marco Janssen, president of UTInnovation. Additional speakers from CapGemini, Cisco, Current Group, Oracle and Invensys have also been invited to join the discussion. If a utility manager or engineer has a question about a product, a technology or a solution, this panel is available on the first day of the conference to answer that question.

If an attendee is looking for those engineering details rather than a smart grid vendor explanation, opposite the smart grid vendor panel will be a session on modeling for future networks on Tuesday afternoon. Within the power industry, the easiest way to see the invisible—the mathematical, the theoretical, the futuristic—is to model it. This session examines the use of models to believe in items ranging from wind turbine integration to the measurements required for distribution networks. Chaired by Bill Meehan, director of utility solutions at ESRI, this session will feature papers from ABB, Current Group, Lancaster University in the UK and Wartsila Finland.

During the second part of the smart grid vendor panel megasession, attendees will have another session choice running concurrent—a look at network stability. Advancing the grid of the future requires work with today’s network and improvements in the areas that keep all the parts in good order. This session will give both theoretical and practical perspectives on reliability, monitoring and control.Chaired by Edward Coster, senior specialist asset management with Stedin, this session will feature papers from the University of Stuttgart, EFACEC and Siemens.

Wednesday, June 9 begins with two megasessions, one on interoperability and the other on what the POWERGRID Europe committee deemed “grid evolution.”

As projects grow and interconnect, the technology involved must be able to adapt. Unfortunately, though, the concept of a single set of international interoperability standards remains elusive. The interoperability session discusses the future of standards and how to coordinate the grid until we reach the “single set” goal. Chaired by Eric Lambért, project manager with EDF Electricite de France R&D and Heiko Englert, head of standardization & regulation management with Siemens AG, Energy Automation in Germany, this session will feature papers from vendors like Landis+Gyr to statistics and knowledge experts like the IEC to research associations like FGH e.V. and OFFIS.

Running concurrently with the interoperability session will be the grid evolution session. There is no immediate way to get from the network of today to the grid of the future without a bit of slow and steady progress---a bit of evolving. This session examines the practical and immediate ways the industry is moving forward in its efforts to grow a stronger grid. Chaired by Richard Charnah, technology director, with Areva T&D and Claes Rytoft, senior vice president with ABB Power System, this session will feature papers from Newton-Evans Research Company, Pro Integris and HEP OPS in Croatia, IBM, the College of Electrical Engineering in China, the DG Joint Research Centre at the European Commission, the ENTSO-E, and Energynautics GmbH.

After the joint plenary session on Wednesday, June 9, POWERGRID Europe sessions will continue with two shorter discussions on information technology in modern power grids and on the grid integration of renewables, which is one way to lay the groundwork for a sustainable energy future.

Information technology (IT) is the “smart” in smart grids. Modern utilities rely heavily on IT interconnections and advancements for everything from predicting markets to tracking consumer data. The session on the role of information technology in power grids looks at four different aspects of IT and the grid, from geographic systems to substations and from protocols to microgrids. Chaired by Peter Moray, director of the European UTC in Belgium, this session will feature papers from ESRI, Areva T&D, Red Eléctrica de España and Alstom.

The practicalities of connection distributed generation like renewables to current T&D system require significant thought. The grid intergration of renewables session looks at both the generation and use of renewable sources across the power grid. Chaired by Marco Janssen, president and CEO of UTInnovation, this session will feature papers from 50Hertz Transmission (formerly Vattenfall Transmission), BPL Global, the EDISON/AIDA project leader from IBM and KEMA.

The final day of POWERGRID Europe features two megasessions running concurrently: smart cities and transmission challenges. While we need the final goal of smart cities, it will take a lot of work tackling transmission challenges to make it to a sustainable energy lifestyle.

Smart grids are a start, but smart cities remain the ultimate goal. The smart cities session reviews a number of smart city projects from retrofitting parts of Amsterdam’s grid to completing a city from scratch with Masdar. Each city will be discussed in a presentation followed by a long group panel discussion where the audience is invited to ask questions of the experts to see how the lessons learned with these projects can be applied to every city. Chaired by Pallas Agterberg, director of strategy & innovation with Alliander, this session will feature papers from Accenture, Amsterdam Innovation Motor, Fortum Power and Heat AB, transmission association the ENTSO-E, Masdar and the European Commission’s Information Society. For an overview of every angle of a smart city, this session is the place to be for the details.

Everyone talks about the power behind the smart grid today, but, in the end, we can’t have all the wonders at the consumer end without a robust transmission system. The transmission challenges session discusses how to keep the transmission side of the equation operating smoothly. Chaired by Charles W. Newton, president of Newton-Evans Research Company, this session will feature papers from TenneT, KEC International Ltd., ABB, HEP-Transmission System, Prysmian S.p.A., Zagreb, and E D SE PTI NC in Germany.

POWERGRID Europe offers all the traditional elements of a good conference, including fabulous networking opportunities, great papers with engineering detail and an extensive exhibit floor. Additionally, however, POWERGRID Europe continues to expand in unique directions that cover the immediate issues of the day (in the smart grid vendor panel and the grid evolution sessions) and the issues of the future (with renewables and smart cities). Featuring industry know speakers from vendors to utilities, regulators to innovators, POWERGRID Europe covers every angle of the T&D industry in Europe.

As the conference director of POWERGRID Europe, I hope to see you there.

More information at: www.powergrideurope.com

Live from Eurelectric's Smart Grids Workshop: It's All about Consumers

It's nice when you unexpectedly meet an old friend, isn't it?

While sitting in a meeting at Eurelectric's "How will Smart Grids Change the Face of Europe's Electricity Distribution and Consumption?" policy workshop in Brussels this afternoon, in walked Richard Charnah, the technology director for AREVA T&D and a committee member for our POWERGRID Europe show coming up in Amsterdam. It was great to see him, and additionally delightful to get input from someone I trusted about what was discussed.

This afternoon, there was a lot of talk about the consumer. How to sell smart grids to the consumer, what the consumer is afraid of with smart grids, why the consumer needs to be on board with smart grids, ways to bring the consumer into the smart grid discussion.

I have to say, I was a bit disappointed. I'll be honest: Talk about the consumer is, in fact, a bit like an old friend---since I've heard it so much---but I don't care about the consumer. And, in a return act, the consumer doesn't much care about the smart grid.

The consumer is the part of the smart grid equation that just won't die. We don't really care about them; they don't really care about us (as a smart grid industry). Everyone really just wants to be left alone to do our own thing. Yet, still, we end up in the same room when anyone talks about changing the current power distribution system. It's like having to endure those hated relatives at Thanksgiving.

And, although the smart grid will have a lot of long-term societal benefits in making energy more efficient and bringing in more green power, we never, as an industry make the choice to sell them on a culture change. We always aim for selling it like a benefit to the wallet, like they will see so much more money and cost savings with the smart grid.

Well, sure, if they keep up with their own consumption and the time-of-use (TOU) rates. And, additionally, if they have the excess load that's both (1.) not immediately necessary and (2.) planned in advance to shift to cheaper consumption times. But, that's a bit like assuming every single consumer of the smart grid was an A+ science student and went to MIT. Some consumers don't want to track consumption, compare rates and plan ahead for use of dishwashers and clothes dryers.

Some of us are just not that good at organizing the little things like when I might need a clean plate or when I might run out of clean underwear. Not everyone in every classroom was an A+ student. I was in English, but not in math. And, seriously, I would hate, hate, hate to have to run numbers in my head every single time I thought about turning on the TV. While most industries, like the cell phone/smart phone peeps, are opting away from TOU stuff that made consumers angry because they thought they were being overcharged and, conversely, investing in large blocks of minutes and data plans, we're going the opposite way, joyfully assuming a desire among consumers to track graphs on energy use that I doubt is a real for any more than five people on the planet.

I really wish we'd stop talking about the consumer entirely. It's just not the most important part of the smart grid equation right now, but it seems to take up the most thought. So, if we must talk about those pesky consumers, if we must figure out just how to sell the average man, woman and child (be he or she residing in Africa, Asia, Europe or the Americas) on the smart grid, can we please NOT assume that said man, woman or child is going to be gung-ho in collecting, sorting and analyzing data---nor keen on super amounts of planning, either.

Let's sell consumers on the social benefits, the cultural benefits: renewables integration, fewer outages, better outage management, an overall more reliable grid ready to do things like plug in electric vehicles. Let's talk about the smart grid in terms of social benefits and chuck this concept that we can sell it in "pounds and pence," as I heard today.

If the consumer needs to be sold, let's appeal to their hearts and not their wallets because, in the end, we don't have enough control over how they manage, sort and plan their energy consumption---nor over their perceptions of cost---to accurately sell this in terms of coin.

Now, let's all talk about important things like standards and interoperability and let the consumer go back to a bit of evening TV without the fuss of figuring out if this is the right time to use power tonight to benefit our energy bottomline, shall we?

Coal Mine Disaster Brings New Reason to Consider Renewables

The rather dramatic irony of this blog entry is that I thought about writing it yesterday after reading about China’s flooded mine and all the men trapped there. At that point, I was thinking about how much safer our own mines are here in the U.S., how that probably wouldn’t happen here after all the OSHA safety requirements and other issues involved. I was going to write about that, slant the article to say we can help China make mining less dangerous. Then, this morning, I read about the coal mine blast in West Virginia that has killed 25 people with four still missing.

Coal mining is a dirty, nasty business---even with our OSHA regulations, even with our laws and safety requirements. We’re not so different, at the core, from China, after all. It may, in fact, be impossible to make mining a really safe endeavor.

I come from a long line of coal miners. I’ll bet you are surprised by that revelation. My grandfather was a coal miner. And his father. And his father’s father. My family’s dug a lot of black chunks out of the ground.

My grandfather used to talk sometimes, quietly about what miners fear most---back then it was a scary term called “blackdamp.” Blackdamp is the removal of oxygen in the air, which is replaced by toxic gases. Pretty much all tight, sealed environments can create blackdamp, but it’s especially nasty in coal mines because the coal itself adds to the problem. Coal, once exposed to air, begins absorbing oxygen and giving off carbon dioxide and water vapor. My grandfather used to talk about blackdamp as if the mine itself was breathing, cutting off air from the miners inside its gullet.

You can’t smell blackdamp. You usually only become aware when you get lightheaded and dizzy, uncoordinated like you’ve had way too much to drink.

Blackdamp was what miners feared most in my grandfather’s day. But, that wasn’t usually what killed them. It did kill some, of course, but most miners were killed from the force and power of collapses or accidents, not from the creeping blackdamp. Still, the blackdamp scared them most---that slow, crazy spiral to asphyxiation that it represented. My grandfather said the scariest thing was an awareness that death is coming down that mine in bits and parcels, in small steps and strides. And you had to watch. You had to realize what was coming.

My grandfather stopped fearing the blackdamp in 1947 because he stopped being a coal miner in 1947. March 26, 1947, to be exact. He was running late for his shift at the Centralia Coal Company’s No. 5 mine on the edge of Centralia, Illinois. He wasn’t usually the type to run late---at least not as I recall. (We always made it to the movies and the circus early enough to get sodas and popcorn when I was a kid.) But, that one day in 1947, he was a bit behind. He told me the reason was something to do with a family birthday celebration that had kept him up way too late the night before.

The celebration hadn’t, however, slowed down my great-grandfather. Not a bit. He was bang on time for the mine collapse---the worst coal mine disaster that the country had seen in nearly 20 years. 111 men died in that mine disaster, including my great-grandfather Jacob Rethard. My grandfather, Raymond, would talk about digging with shovels and picks and bare and bloody hands---anything to get to his father and those other men trapped, even though they knew just minutes after the shaft fell that hope for the lives of those men was completely futile: If the force didn’t get them, the blackdamp and growing lack of oxygen certainly would. It was a race against time, and they didn’t have the equipment to win. Still, my grandfather kept digging until he recovered the body of his father. His father was no. 110---the 110th body. No. 110 out of the 111 dead men pulled from that mine.

And my grandfather walked away from that disaster dirty and bloody and done. He left coal mining behind without a second thought.

As human beings, we are incredibly resilient. My grandfather certainly was. He became a security guard, working everywhere from Vegas to Oklahoma City. He raised a family and rarely talked about that coal mine collapse that killed his father. He was funny, a great cook, and he used to build the most amazing blanket-and-kitchen-chair forts in his living room, much to the annoyance of my grandmother. He pressed on.

As a society, we often mirror my grandfather’s ability to move forward. Hundreds of men in China die, and it really doesn’t stop us from flicking a light switch. We don’t make that connection much. 25 men in West Virginia died today, and it hasn’t stopped me from using my computer or my television. We have a great capacity to accept and move on. But, maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to adapt.

I’ve thought a lot about the place of renewables in this industry in the last few years---most of it focused on the practical. I still think they are expensive and lacking in a certain economy of scale. But, perhaps I should think less about the financial cost of renewables and more about the lives they might save---not just with reducing global warming but direct human lives like those we lose regularly in coal mines around the world.

Jacob Rethard was a solid, tough family man who was proud to be a coal miner, but it cost him his life. My grandfather, Raymond Rethard, walked away from that disaster that killed his father a changed man, one who saw coal mining as not worth the risk. In the end, he died at a ripe old age surrounded by family---not by darkness and blackdamp.

Perhaps we should pay more attention to the humanity embroiled in the dangers of mining. If renewables become more prevalent, could we save more men in China and in West Virginia and in Illinois from dying in the dark? Years ago I made a definitive choice to never buy diamonds because of the human cost they sometimes require to mine. It was a change in attitude, and I know I’m not alone in that attitude or choice. Perhaps we, as an industry and as a society, also need to consider a change in attitude and adjust our social concepts and technological advances to give the advantage to renewables, even if they are more expensive. We should remember that we sometimes pay a very large, very human price for very cheap power.

And, bottom line, that human price may be much, much less if renewables were given a stronger foothold in power production. It would be a nice change if no man had to fear the dark blackdamp in our smart energy future.

Projects of the Year Award Winners Named

The editors of POWERGRID International magazine (including little ol' me) and PennWell Corp. have announced four winners for the magazine's annual Projects of the Year Awards program.

The winners were selected for four specific categories: Best Energy Efficiency/Demand Response Project, Best Grid Integration of Renewables Project, Best Smart Grid Project and Best Smart Metering Project.

The awards were given out during the keynote presentation at the DistribuTECH 2010 conference in Tampa, Fla.

For more details on these award winners, see the April issue of POWERGRID International magazine.

Best Energy Efficiency/Demand Response Project
The winner of the Energy Efficiency/Demand Response Project of the Year Award is PJM for the organization's Interconnect Demand Response Integration project.

The PJM Interconnection regional transmission organization is the world's largest power grid, serving 51 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia.

In June 2009, PJM implemented a next-generation software system to expand demand-side resources and improve the operational efficiency of demand-side programs in its wholesale electricity markets. The software, eLRS, based on UISOL's DRBizNet, links and automates wholesale power market transactions that involve PJM, utilities and demand response curtailment service providers. Some 750 users in 200 market participant organizations are using eLRS to enable more than 7,500 MW of demand response in PJM energy, capacity or ancillary services markets.

PJM sought a flexible secure, standards-based system that could cost effectively adapt to meet future needs and market rule changes. It markets over 7,000 MW of demand resources that represent approximately 450,000 end-use customers. The eLRS solution is one of the largest and most sophisticated production deployments of a demand response management system in the world.

Best Grid Integration of Renewables Project
The winner of the Grid Integration of Renewables Project of the Year Award is Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) for the GRU Feed-in Tariff project.

In the fall of 2008, The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) awarded Ed Regan, Assistant General Manager for Strategic Planning for Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU), and several utility executives throughout the country a grant to visit Germany and witness first-hand Germany's booming solar industry. The stimulus behind that solar boom is Germany's feed-in tariff, a pay-for-performance policy mechanism designed to encourage the adoption of renewable energy.

On January 15, 2009, the Gainesville City Commission unanimously approved a solar feed-in tariff (FIT) ordinance, thereby making Gainesville Regional Utilities the first entity in the nation to offer such an incentive. The ordinance allows GRU to accept a maximum of four cumulative MW of PV installations into the FIT program per year. GRU treats projects on a first-come-first-serve basis, with a queue available for when the yearly MW allotment fills. GRU began accepting applications on March 1, 2009. Within one month of the program's initiation, the queue filled through 2012. In November of 2009, the queue filled through 2016 and GRU placed a hold on accepting applications.

GRU's FIT model has been replicated throughout the country, with feed-in tariffs now available in states such as California, Vermont, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington.

Best Smart Grid Project
The winner of the Smart Grid Project of the Year Award is the City of Ruston, Louisiana for the City of Ruston Smart Grid Innovation project.

Ruston, located in Lincoln Parish between Shreveport and Monroe in north Louisiana, is home to 20,546 residents. The coverage area is approximately 16 square miles, containing a meter population estimated at 10,600 electric meters and 8,872 water meters.

While the centerpiece of Ruston's program is AMI, the planning also includes an integrated MDM system, which will be closely integrated with the AMI system to provide enhanced smart grid/AMI functionality, including: data integration/normalization, aggregation/settlement, load profiling, centralized meter data storage and a loss analysis reporting system (LARS).

LARS will provide a comprehensive view of line loss by systematically reconciling wholesale power purchase records with power purchase sales down to the substation and individual feeder circuit. This allows pinpointing where losses occur and operational corrections can be made to recover revenue and increase the efficiency of the distribution network. Additionally, the system will provide a real-time, multi-layering graphical interface, enabling a view of overall system state-of-the-utility network.

Ruston's leadership in pursuing a holistic smart grid vision is forward-thinking, especially compared to peer-sized utilities across the nation.

Best Smart Metering Project
The winner of the Smart Metering Project of the Year Award is Pulaski Electric for the Lightspeed AMI project.

Pulaski Electric System (PES) provides power to 15,000 homes and businesses in Giles County, Tennessee. As Tennessee's oldest municipal utility and the first in the state to receive power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, PES has a long history of providing top tier service through the use of technologies. Getting full Smart Grid functionality – namely Advanced Metering, Demand Response & Distribution Automation – from a fiber optic network was a logical step for a city-owned utility that prides itself on being one of the most progressive in the state.

PES reasoned that fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is really an extension of municipal infrastructure and is as important as good roads, schools and other essential services. When attracting a big name provider for a project that involved laying 130 miles of optical fiber to connect a mere 5000 premises in Pulaski city proper became a problem, the utility decided to build its own FTTH network—a decision that gained overwhelming endorsement from residents and unanimous approval from town council. It also put PES on a short list of municipal utilities to own and operate its own FTTH network.

PES leverages the high-speed FTTH network for smart grid functionality, implementing a multi-application hybrid AMI network that offers flexible expansion options using either fiber or RF communications and putting PES ahead of many larger IOUs in the smart metering arena. With the FTTH system in place, PES can move quickly into customer service and monitoring options without delay.

About POWERGRID International
POWERGRID International magazine (formerly Utility Automation & Engineering T&D magazine) celebrates its 15th year as the voice of the electric T&D industry in 2010. More than 35,000 T&D professionals read POWERGRID International magazine for expert coverage of the industry's important news and emerging trends. The magazine and DistribuTECH are owned by PennWell Corp., a worldwide media company based in Tulsa, Okla.

PennWell Corporation is a diversified business-to-business media and information company that provides quality content and integrated marketing solutions for the following industries: oil and gas, electric power, water and wastewater, renewable, electronics, semiconductor, contamination control, optoelectronics, fiberoptics, enterprise storage, converting, nanotechnology, fire, emergency services and dental.

Founded in 1910, PennWell publishes over 100 print and online magazines and newsletters, conducts 60 conferences and exhibitions on six continents, and has an extensive offering of books, maps, web sites, research and database services. In addition to PennWell's headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma the Company has major offices in Nashua, New Hampshire; Houston, Texas; London, England; Mountain View, California; Fairlawn, New Jersey, Moscow, Russia, and Hong Kong, China. In 2010, PennWell celebrates 100 years in business.