critical power

US-based fuel cell plant manufacturer FuelCell Energy has appointed a new member to its board of directors.

Natica von Althann will serve on the FuelCell Energy Audit & Finance and Compensation committee.

Von Althann joins the board with previous experience from utilities after six years as a member of the PPL Corporation board of directors.

With the appointment of von Althann, the FuelCell Energy Board of Directors now counts eight members.

Kohler subsidiary Uninterruptible Power Supplies Ltd, has announced that it will hold free practical courses for graduates and new engineers.

The course, developed by the company’s in-house technical team, will begin with a ups revision session before moving on to batteries and sizing of ups systems.

The free course is the first stage in the company’s long term goal of developing a range of educational tools.  A spokesman for the company says they hope to be able to offer training both through events and online in the future, but that that is “probably 12 months away.”

The first course was held in mid-May, the next available class will be on 1 and 2 July at the company’s headquarters in Hampshire, UK.

Click here to register.

US- company Tripp Lite has teamed up with publishing company Icecat to increase the availability of its spreadsheets to its international channel partners.

The partnership will enable the company to respond quicker and more precisely to its channel’s demand for updated and standardised information about its products.

Tripp Lite’s e-commerce partners in Canada, UK, France, Mexico and Russia will now be available to access the company’s detailed datasheets in four different languages, through Icecat’s open catalogue.

Documents such as marketing texts, images, technical specifiactions and cross-references will be available in a variety of formats, such as HTML, LIVE, CSV and XML.

A federal court of appeals has overturned a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule allowing backup generators to run for 100 hours per year without being subject to air pollution controls.

Last week the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the EPA has failed to justify the exemption for diesel-fueled backup generators.

In 2010 the EPA started to allow backup generators to run for up to 15 hours a year without being subject to emissions regulations. By January 2013 the agency updated those rules, allowing the backup generators to run for 100 hours.

The rule was challenged by the Delaware Department of Natural Resources backed by a number of environmental advocacy groups and power suppliers, arguing that the 100-hour rule could encourage large consumers to use more power from backup generators in non-emergency situations.

Frost & Sullivan expects the data centre and telecom sectors in Southeast Asia will cause a surge in demand for power infrastructure services.

The market researchers say the ASEAN critical power infrastructure services market had earned revenues of US$257.1 million in 2014 and estimates this to reach US$374.4 million in 2018.

According to Frost & Sullivan, services such as power quality audits and installation currently account for a significant proportion of market revenues for three-phase UPS systems, while in the case of single-phase systems warranty extensions is a large part of the total revenues.

“As data centres are increasingly using scalable and modular power solutions, the periodic involvement of technicians and service personnel to upgrade power supply capacity across the network will be particularly required," said Frost & Sullivan Energy & Environmental Senior Research Analyst Amit Kumar Singh.

However, to keep costs down Frost & Sullivan predicts companies to be unwilling to outsource power infrastructure services, and that small independent service providers will lose business to large system integrators and UPS manufacturers.

"Critical power infrastructure original equipment manufacturers will have an edge over other service providers in the ASEAN region, as customers prefer to associate with them for all post-delivery needs," Singh said.