Trends we examine in this paper include:

• Urbanization
• Declining health
• Growing data
• Power distribution

Understanding the broader economy and how that will impact your local business is critical for developing a strategy that will enable you to execute on projects in the new economy.

White Paper

Learn more about FMI.

Most content in this guide is intended to be unbiased and universal in nature. However, there are occasional notes that reflect information about METTLER TOLEDO products. Most often, this is to explain how our systems and components work. You should have no trouble distinguishing the universal information from the information that is specific to METTLER TOLEDO.

Whitepaper

This white paper will explain the potential impacts of this exciting new law change and how operations can capitalize on it to speed up weighing, reduce processing costs, and maximize the efficiency of their vehicle weighing.

Whitepaper

NEW YORK — The water systems within the world’s building and facilities are a major source of carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to the global climate crisis, according to a new white paper released by WINT Water Intelligence.

While the availability of clean water has been recognized as an urgent worldwide concern, carbon emissions associated with the production, treatment, and distribution of clean water have often been overlooked. “The Carbon Impact of Water” details the immediate and long-term consequences of our current water infrastructure.

The paper also highlights the amplifying effect of waste and chronic inefficiency. Approximately 25% of all water in the built environment is ultimately wasted, driving up water-related energy use and associated greenhouse emissions.

“The Carbon Impact of Water” also offers expert guidance on best practices to reduce waste and emissions.

“The environmental impact of water misuse and waste is a critical challenge,” the report concludes. “Where in the past water was viewed as a scarce resource in some locations and a plentiful asset in others, it can no longer be taken for granted. Inefficient use of this resource creates shortages and increases greenhouse emissions, sometimes more than notorious emitters such as cars or transatlantic flights.”

While greenhouse emissions vary based on the source and distribution method, the research finds that every cubic meter of water consumed generates 10.5 kg of carbon emissions, or 85 pounds for every 1,000 gallons. For some local U.S. governments, where such information is readily available, water and wastewater can account for 30-40% or more of public energy consumption. Moreover, potable water ends up in sewage treatment processes that are not only energy-intensive but also release powerful greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane, which are many times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Unfortunately, inefficiencies are rampant in buildings. Approximately 25% of the water in the built environment is ultimately wasted through leaks, outdated technology, malfunctions, and human error. As a simple example, a leaking toilet continuously flows at 100-150 gallons per hour, wasting more than 1 million gallons a year and accounting for some 4.5 tons of greenhouse emissions — identical to the total annual emissions from a passenger car. In facilities with multiple restrooms, such as office buildings, sports stadiums, and shopping malls, some 2-3% of toilets typically leak at any point in time, creating significant carbon and water footprints.

Inefficient use of water is a significant source of carbon and other greenhouse emissions, but a few key actions, such as proper maintenance and installing advanced water intelligence solutions are highly effective ways of reducing waste, emissions, and overall environmental impact.

“It is our generation’s responsibility to efficiently use the water we’ve been given,” the paper concludes, “and to identify and curtail the unnecessary, expensive, and environmentally irresponsible waste of this precious resource.”

To read “The Carbon Impact of Water,” visit https://wint.ai/the-carbon-footprint-of-water.

About WINT
WINT is passionate about helping the world conserve one of its most precious resources and dedicated to helping businesses prevent the hazards, costs, waste and environmental impact associated with water leaks and waste. Utilizing the power of artificial intelligence and IoT technology, WINT provides a solution for commercial facilities, construction sites and industrial manufacturers looking to cut water waste, reduce carbon emissions and eliminate the impact of water-leak disasters. For more information, please visit www.wint.ai.

Regenerative agriculture restores the health of soils, improves ecosystem services, offers additional revenue for farmers, and provides an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and store enough carbon each year to meet 10% of the world’s Paris Climate Accord commitments.

Rapid deployment of reliable and low-cost soil organic carbon (SOC) monitoring and verification (M&V) solutions, along with careful attention to the equitable design of carbon markets, will accelerate the adoption of regenerative practices at scale.

Pecan Street’s Digital Dirt program spent a year systematically seeking out the expertise of leading researchers and practitioners in soil science, big data, land management, carbon and ecosystem service markets, and social justice.

This R&D roadmap summarizes key learnings and includes specific recommendations made by an interdisciplinary, multi-institution AI for Soil Carbon Monitoring and Verification Working Group.

Download A Roadmap for Soil Organic Carbon Measurement and Verification

Download Here

Learn more about Pecan Street’s Digital Dirt Program.

The Final Riverfront Development Site

Salesforce Tower Chicago, a 58-story tower named after its primary tenant, provides 1.2 million square feet of office space and completes Wolf Point Plaza, one of the last remaining riverfront sites in downtown Chicago.

The Walsh Group turned to the expertise of PERI Formwork Systems, Inc., to deliver a flexible, coordinated formwork solution utilizing just-in-time delivery of all materials and flexibility to climb independently of the tower crane.

A Case Study in Complexity

Salesforce Tower Chicago is a high-rise building with steel structures and a massive, four-cell vertical concrete core, which supports the tower. PERI collaborated with the project team to develop a specific sequence and schedule for delivering critical formwork components as ready-to-use systems just-in-time for use.

The contractor’s schedule and crane availability dictated the timeline for construction in addition to working backward from when certain elements needed to be complete. To aid in this schedule, PERI preassembled products into the largest shippable units to speed up on-site installation.

Since the tower crane operated through one of the cores, PERI worked to achieve additional coordination between the concrete contractor and the steel contractor during construction of the high-rise structure. The ACS Core 400 typically only has one floor, but for Salesforce Tower Chicago, an additional lower one was added so the steel contractors could attach plates to the concrete for connection to the steel beams. To achieve this, the concrete crew was hoisted up to a certain level and then walked up a 150-foot stair tower to the core for work each day.

The design of Salesforce Tower Chicago features changing geometries with reduced wall thickness on floors 7, 22, and 40, changing the formwork settings on those levels. There is also a transition from a four-core cell to a two-core cell on level 40, decreasing the square footage of the upper levels.

After a year of construction to build the first 40 levels, the disassembly sequence began to remove the outer two cores, leaving the middle two cores for the final levels. Based on drawings completed in the planning and assembly phases, a crane removed one piece at a time. On the four-core cell, crews completed a new level of the tower, and the core moved up a level every four days. Once the core was reduced to a two-core cell, construction speed could increase to a new level every three days with a smaller crew size.

Safety, Speed, and Support

The core used PERI VARIO formwork to cast the concrete pour around the tower crane, carried by PERI ACS Core 400 self-climbing formwork system. ACS Core 400 was selected for its hydraulic controls that allow for climbing all four cells together and climbing the core from pour to pour.

VARIO is highly adaptable with freely selectable tie positioning and joint arrangement in accordance with planning specifications that delivers freedom in wall and tie design. It is continuously adjustable through the elongated holes in the walers and couplings with flush, aligned, and tight panel connections, making it the optimal formwork solution for Salesforce Tower Chicago.

The ACS Core 400 was designed for the US high-rise market, featuring a high-capacity single stroke cylinder that climbs to the next level in 20 minutes with less brackets, anchors, and over parts required. ACS Core 400 can support large concrete placing booms that allow for pouring slabs and walls simultaneously.

From ground level to level 40, crews utilized a four-core cell before transitioning to a two-core cell for levels 40 and up. The external panels of the ACS Core 400 system provided safe and comfortable work access while also supporting the load-bearing capacity of additional materials, supplies, and tools, including 100,000 pounds of rebar. This added support and platform space was particularly important since materials could only be delivered once a day.

In addition to the core cells, MULTIPROP vertical shoring was utilized for framing large door box outs for walking into the elevator lobbies and holding up horizontal shoring.

The aluminum MULTIPROP weighs less and carries significantly higher loads than tubular steel slab props. MULTIPROP features a practical wedge connection and an integrated measuring tape on the inner tube to quickly show the complete length of the prop, delivering both time and cost savings.

Open for Business

Proposals for the project began in February 2020, and the first product delivery was in August 2020. PERI provided continuous engineering support for construction management during the entire execution phase, with numerous revisions to the structure from top to bottom.

Construction on Salesforce Tower Chicago is expected to be complete in the first quarter of 2023.

Infrastructure leaders need to select a destination on a map — and to understand that sometimes the destination is just the first one in the journey. Hence, the need for a maturity model that defines the succession of destinations on the journey. This is the purpose of this paper. It will help you understand where you are, set the initial destination, and offer assistance in making that journey. Our map is modelled using a Digital Maturity Model, specifically focused for the application of a digital twin to infrastructure projects.

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Introduction

According to Accuweather, the damage costs from the winter storm in mid-February could be as high as $130 billion in Texas alone. In addition to the extreme cold conditions, loss of power was a contributor to the massive damages Texans suffered.

The purpose of this white paper is to serve as an initial overview and assessment of electrical system reliability failures experienced during the extreme weather event that occurred within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) Interconnection service territory from February 14, 2021 until February 18, 2021.^[1] The Southwest, Midwest, and Northeast experienced an extreme winter weather event in February 2021. The ERCOT service area underwent extreme winter weather from February 14 through February 18, 2021, with record low temperatures for much of the state of Texas. Those extremes created significant operational (equipment), electrical system (grid), fuel constraints and curtailments as with liquid natural gas (LNG) pipelines, and market (pricing) disruptions. A total of 356 generating units or approximately 50 percent of the total generating assets were forced offline during the event within the ERCOT service area. Frequency was ultimately impacted and registered below the 59.4 Hz limit for more than four minutes. Load shedding began on February 15 and reached a peak of approximately 20,000 MW. Load shedding was required for more than 70 hours before full system load could be restored.

There were likely several triggers for the number of forced outages related to the extreme weather but generally, they appear to fall into two primary categories. These categories are 1) the inability of a unit to either start or maintain operational status related to weatherization, including both fuel-based facilities as well as renewables—primarily wind—and 2) reduction or loss of priority reassignment of natural gas for gas-fired facilities. It should be noted that there has been significant attention focused on wind assets, but the facts indicate that all resources were substantially impacted with no one category necessarily more affected than others.

There are more likely other events related to icing of transmission and/or distribution systems that may have contributed to loss of service/contingent business interruptions of power, but these are beyond the scope of this paper.

ERCOT is one of nine Independent System Operators (ISOs) in the U.S.^[2] and is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors, that is subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.^[3] The Texas Legislature enacted laws which govern all activities of ERCOT under the Public Utilities Regulatory Act (PURA) Section 39.151.^[4] ERCOT works with the Texas Reliability Entity (Texas RE), which is the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-approved Regional Entity for the ERCOT region.^[5] In addition, Texas RE has been authorized by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) and is permitted by North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to investigate compliance with the ERCOT Protocols and Operating Guides, working with PUCT staff regarding any potential protocol violations.^[6]

The focus of this paper is to evaluate the event based on initial reports, identify current processes and procedures that are in place in support system reliability, identify vulnerabilities from initial reports and data, and to examine what, if any, immediate actions may be appropriate to accelerate improvements and mitigate risk for future events. This narrative utilizes an approach like a typical root cause process to evaluate the response challenges and failures of the ERCOT electric system during the February 2021 winter event. This paper should not be construed as a formal, exhaustive, and/or complete root cause analysis that would encompass a more detailed evaluation of equipment and operational performance of the ERCOT system.

Event Schedule

On February 14, 2021, an extreme cold weather event began to take place in the ERCOT service area. The event lasted through February 18, 2021. Total available generation prior to the event was 107,514 MW. By Monday, February 15, 2021, the ERCOT system shed 20,000 MW of load. The peak loss of generation reached 52,277 MW or 48.6 percent of the total available generation. On Sunday, February 15, demand for power reached a new high for the ERCOT service area at 7:06 PM of 69,222 MW. From approximately Monday, February 15, through Tuesday, February 16, very little improvement in generation availability was achieved. By Wednesday, February 17, there were small gains in net generation; then, subsequently, as temperatures increased, normal operations and generation capacity were returned by Friday, February 19. It is important to note that normal operations for ERCOT does not necessarily entail full power restoration at the delivery point or to the end user. Simply put, normal operations for the ERCOT electrical grid does not mean that all industrial, commercial, or retail users had their electrical service restored at this time but rather, generation and transmission capabilities had been restored to pre-event levels.

Discussion

 System Resilience & Reliability

There are generally two components associated with grid architecture which were impacted by the severe weather event: resilience and reliability. Grid resilience is the ability to withstand grid stress events without suffering operational compromise or the ability to adapt to the strain. It is largely about what does not happen to the grid or electricity consumers.^[7] Simply put, resilience is the ability of the electrical system to strain or deform without a sustained outage.

Reliability, on the other hand, is a measure of behavior once resilience is broken. The start of a sustained outage is the transition point from the domain of resilience to the domain of reliability.^[8]

During this extreme winter event, ERCOT managed the system to satisfy the parameters for reliability within the ERCOT regulatory, operational, and market constraints at the time of this extreme weather event to avoid a total system failure. Emergency system measures utilized load shedding, to avoid a complete compromise of the electrical system. While emergency measures may have been necessary to avoid total system failure, the more significant question is whether the reliability parameters were appropriate. The loss of electrical service to more than 4 million customers within the ERCOT service territory during very unusual, yet not necessarily unique, winter weather conditions certainly brings into question how reliability parameters were established for such an event and to what extent the impacts should have been anticipated.

One of the primary components of grid reliability is availability of resource reserves that can be deployed to the grid during a sustained outage of generation resources. In the case of this event, both online generation as well as resource reserves, including standby and backup generation resources, were affected by the extreme temperatures and were not available to meet load demand. This, in turn, necessitated load shedding to maintain the real-time balancing of supply and demand.

System Preparation

Prior to this event, the ERCOT service territory experienced similar extreme cold weather events during the first week of February 2011 as well as in 1983, 1989, 2003, 2006, 2008, and 2010.^[9] The following was summarized in the Executive Summary of the 2011 FERC Staff report:

“Going into the February 2011 storm, neither ERCOT nor the other electric entities that initiated rolling blackouts during the event expected to have a problem meeting customer demand. They all had adequate reserve margins, based on anticipated generator availability. But those reserves proved insufficient for the extraordinary amount of capacity that was lost during the event from trips, derates, and failures to start.”

The report goes on to say:

“The actions of the entities in calling for and carrying out the rolling blackouts were largely effective and timely. However, the massive amount of generator failures that were experienced raises the question whether it would have been helpful to increase reserve levels going into the event. This action would have brought more units online earlier, might have prevented some of the freezing problems the generators experienced, and could have exposed operational problems in time to implement corrections before the units were needed to meet customer demand.”

Essentially, the findings of that report would appear to align with the results from the 2021 extreme winter storm event. The suggestions of that report included 26 recommendations to improve reliability performance during an extreme winter weather event. One specific requirement, highlighted from Recommendation 11, indicated that, “NERC concluded there would be a reliability benefit from amending Reliability Standards to require Generator Owner/Operators to develop, maintain, and implement plans to winterize plants and units prior to extreme cold weather, in order to maximize generator output and availability.”^[10]

Follow-Up from Previous Extreme Winter Weather Events

Both the timing (February) and type of extreme weather event in 2011 and 2021 are similar. In 2021, however, there was a significantly greater loss of generation due to forced outages as well as the total number of units that were unavailable due to forced outages. Frequency deviations—resulting from demand exceeding supply—became more critical during the 2021 event. Given that recommendations were developed following the 2011 event, the question remains as to why similar events would produce similar results, though it should be noted that the 2021 event was more “extreme” in terms of low temperatures.

A status review of recommendations from ERCOT’s February 24, 2021 Emergency Meeting indicates that, even though many actions had been taken, the enforcement component to verify that generation owners weatherized their facilities appears to have been insufficient. There are approximately 680 generating units within ERCOT. According to ERCOT, approximately 80 units per year can be spot checked. That is slightly more than 10 percent per year of the total number of units. One possible vulnerability is the need for additional inspection/assessment support so that more frequent spot checks can be accomplished, with additional follow up as needed, to assure proper weatherization measures are implemented in accordance with FERC/NERC 2011 recommendations.

Authority for Enforcement

According to Slide 17 of the ERCOT Emergency Meeting presentation:^[11]

“Generation owners and operators are not required to implement any minimum weatherization standard or perform an exhaustive review of cold weather vulnerability. No entity, including the PUC or ERCOT, has rules to enforce compliance with weatherization plans or enforce minimum weatherization standards.”^[12]

As mentioned earlier, ERCOT performs site visits to review compliance with weatherization plans. However, according to ERCOT, “the only entity that can confirm that a plant is weatherized to any particular standard is the entity that owns the plant.”^[13]

A review of other Independent System Operator/Regional Transmission Organization (ISO/RTO) systems such as PJM Interconnection, LLC, shows that formal requirements for cold weather guidelines exist along with a provided checklist of requirements. PJM Manual 14D: Generator Operational Requirements, Appendix N,^[14] specifically provides a checklist, safety focus, and annual training requirements. The list includes personnel preparation, staffing needs, and equipment preparation.  Appendix N of that manual specifically provides a checklist, safety focus, and annual training requirements for cold weather conditions.^[15] The list includes personnel preparation, staffing needs, and equipment preparation. Compliance enforcement includes penalties if certain measures are not in place within specified schedules.

According to the PJM’s standards for mandatory enforcement, Section 215 of the Federal Power Act requires the Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) to develop mandatory and enforceable Reliability Standards, which are subject to FERC review and approval. Commission-approved Reliability Standards become mandatory and enforceable in the U.S. according to the NERC Implementation Plan associated with the Reliability Standard, as approved by the Commission.^[16] Pursuant to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005), Congress expanded FERC’s role and jurisdiction under the Federal Power Act (FPA) by adding a new Section 215 pertaining to electric grid reliability. Section 215(e) of the FPA authorizes the Commission or an Electric Reliability Organization (subject to review by FERC) to impose a penalty on a user, owner, or operator of the bulk power system for a violation of a Reliability Standard.^[17]

Because the transmission grid that the ERCOT independent system operator administers is located solely within the state of Texas and is not synchronously interconnected to the rest of the United States, the transmission of electric energy occurring wholly within ERCOT is not subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction under certain enforcement sections of the Federal Power Act. Bulk electric system reliability has been delegated through a delegated authority agreement between NERC and Texas RE that assigns compliance and enforcement authority to Texas RE for purposes of assuring NERC reliability standards are maintained for the bulk electric system. Determining whether Texas RE has compliance and enforcement authority regarding weatherization of generating facilities would require a more detailed assessment of the representations in the ERO agreement between NERC and Texas RE.

ERCOT is an “energy only” system with no capacity market. What is the need and potential benefit of a capacity market? A good analogy is provided by PJM in its description of a capacity market:

“Capacity represents a commitment of resources to deliver when needed, particularly in case of a grid emergency. A shopping mall, for example, builds enough parking spaces to be filled at its busiest time – Black Friday. The spaces are there when needed, but they may not be used all year round. Capacity, as it relates to electricity, means there are adequate resources on the grid to ensure that the demand for electricity can be met at all times.”^[18]

A capacity market has been suggested as potentially incentivizing additional generation assets that could serve as added backup generation during unusual circumstances such as an extreme weather event. The state of Texas has not implemented a capacity market within ERCOT; rather, it relies on market rules to incentivize the availability of additional capacity assets.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to assess the overall planning process for adding either firm generation or backup generation within the ERCOT service territory. There are several guides and related documents that are relevant to system expansion, including expansion of generation within the ERCOT service area. They are identified in the ERCOT Planning Guide (Planning Guide), dated January 2021. If there is a conflict between the Planning Guide and Protocols, any Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) Substantive Rules or the NERC Reliability Standards, then such PUCT Substantive Rules, NERC Reliability Standards, and the Protocols shall control.^[19] It is not clear at this time whether Texas RE, on behalf of ERCOT and in accordance with NERC requirements, can or has implemented compliance enforcement either related to or in anticipation of generation for this or other extreme weather events. Weatherization and associated availability of generation could be one component of resolving grid performance issues that assure compliance with specific NERC operational guidelines. It appears that issues related to the lack of weatherization of generation assets contributed to the significant load shedding associated with the 2021 extreme winter weather event.

The Texas legislature passed a law after the 2011 weather event that required 1) mandatory reporting of emergency operations and 2) independent review by the PUCT.^[20] As part of the report following the 2011 extreme cold weather event, FERC Staff recommended that winterization practices for Texas be mandatory and that the legislature grant the PUCT the authority to impose penalties for non-compliance as well as hold senior management responsible for a particular generation asset to review and acknowledge that their winterization plans were appropriate.^[21]

Standard of Care

Standard of care generally refers to the duty of a professional to provide services as expected to be provided by similar professionals under similar circumstances.^[22] In the case of generation assets within the ERCOT service area and, more importantly, performance of those assets during the most recent extreme weather event, there is a standard of care that a reasonable owner/operator would be expected to take to assure that their facilities were available. Whether those standards were met is yet to be determined but there will certainly be substantial review as to whether reasonable care was appropriately applied to the weatherization of generation assets. From all current indications, one of the weak links in the overall performance within ERCOT appears to be related to a lack of sufficient weatherization of generation assets.

So, what should reasonable standard of care related to weatherization of electrical grid assets, and, more specifically, generation assets take into consideration? According to the previous FERC findings, reasonable standard of care includes, but is not limited to:^[23]

• Consideration during plant design
• Equipment and material selections
• Maintenance and inspections of its freeze protection elements
• Evaluation of specific freeze protection maintenance items
• Inspection and maintenance of heat tracing equipment
• Inspection and maintenance of thermal insulation
• Inspection of valves and piping
• Use of wind breaks/enclosures
• Proper training of personnel specific to extreme weather events

In addition, consideration should be given to any changes or modifications during the lifecycle of the facility as well as to how those changes may impact current weatherization or require additional weatherization.

ERCOT stated in its initial findings after the 2021 event that generation owners and operators are not required to implement any minimum weatherization standard.^[24] However, this may not relieve owner/operators from what would be considered a reasonable standard of care, given the importance of the product provided and the potential consequence if that product is not delivered.

Conclusion

There will be a number of detailed follow-up assessments of this winter storm to determine root cause of system failures, potential contingent business interruption, system vulnerabilities, and improvements required to mitigate risk for future events.

Regarding system improvements, an independent and detailed audit and assessment of weatherization (i.e., what worked, what needs to be improved, etc.) at all generating facilities would be an important first step, especially from the perspective of generation owners and operators. Periodic critical review of performance is an important indicator to customers, shareholders, and regulators that reasonable standards of care are being considered and updated as needed. By self-initiating this type of detailed weatherization audit, owners/operators will also be in front of the eventual regulatory examinations that will certainly follow such an event.

Another important consideration is the potential impact this winter storm had on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria performance—perceived or actual. ESG is used to measure the sustainability and societal impact of an investment in a company or business. This is a particularly important measurement for private equity and other investors and has a growing interest for customers as well.

Questions that should be considered include those seeking to understand how the recent performance of a facility or system affected:

• Public image and public health and safety
• Reputation
• License to operate
• Regulatory scrutiny
• Attraction of future investment
• Ability to obtain insurance coverage and cost of that coverage
• Shareholder value
• Pricing impacts and effect on customer rates

All these questions and the associated answers ultimately go directly to the bottom line of a company’s financial performance. A materiality assessment of ESG programs and attributes following this extreme weather event would provide a baseline measure of potential impact from the storm event as well as a measure of improvement going forward.

Both independent weatherization audit assessments and materiality assessments of ESG programs and attributes would have an immediate and measurable benefit to energy providers as well as their customers.

Acknowledgments

We thank our colleagues John Dulude, PE, MBA, Vice President – Energy Transition & Impact Assessment and Permitting (J.S. Held), Paul Banks, PG, Executive Vice President – EH&S Practice Lead (J.S. Held) & Chris Norris, PMP for providing insight and expertise that greatly assisted in this research.

References

1. Katherine Blunt & Russell Gold. (February 19, 2021). The Texas Freeze: Why the Power Grid Failed. Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-freeze-power-grid-failure-electricity-market-incentives-11613777856
2. ISO/RTO Council. (Archived 2012-12-27). https://www.isorto.org/site/c.jhKQIZPBImE/b.2603295/k.BEAD/Home.htm
3.  NERC. https://www.nerc.com/Pages/default.aspx
4. ERCOT. https://www.ercot.com/about
5. ERCOT. Bill Magness. (February 24, 2021). ERCOT Presentation, Urgent Board of Directors Meeting. “Review of February 2021 Extreme Cold Weather Event, February 24, 2021.”
6. Texas RE. https://web.archive.org/web/20130328213848/https://www.texasre.org/about/Pages/Default.aspx
7. JD Taft, PhD. (November 2017). Electric Grid Resilience and Reliability for Grid Architecture.
8. FERC Staff. (August 2011). Report on Outages and Curtailments During the Southwest Cold Weather Event of February 1-5, 2011, Executive Summary.
9. PJM Operations Planning Division, PJM Manual 14D: Generator Operational Requirements, Revision: 53. November 23, 2020. Appendix N, P. 145.
10. NERC Mandatory Standards Subject to Enforcement. https://www.nerc.net/standardsreports/standardssummary.aspx
11. FERC Enforcement Reliability. https://www.ferc.gov/enforcement-legal/enforcement/enforcement-reliability
12. ERCOT Planning Guide. January 1. 2021, P. 1-1.
13. Insureon. https://www.insureon.com/insurance-glossary/standard-of-care

TowerPinkster wanted to better utilize their BIM models to create and keep in sync the design specifications.  After evaluating spec applications, the decision to select VisiSpecs was easy based on the ease of migrating their current specs, the short learning curve, and time saving features over their old process.  Distributing the spec writing tasks across the firm to a diverse user base who might only use the tools a few times in a year required intuitive and easy to use tools.  “Our users editing specifications have all given positive feedback reinforcing our decision to go with VisiSpecs,” stated Lyal Ward, Senior Mechanical Engineer at TowerPinkster.

Read the complete Case Study and other customer testimonials here.

Visit www.chalklineinc.com or email info@chalklineinc.com to learn more about VisiSpecs and to request a free trial, register for live webinars, see customer testimonials, and download product information.

About Chalkline, Inc.

Chalkline is the developer of VisiSpecs^TM, the next generation suite of applications to visually document, coordinate, and verify the BIM models and project specifications. VisiSpecs is a hybrid cloud solution where it’s desktop and mobile applications store and access the model and specification data on the Company’s cloud servers for easy access and collaboration among distributed team members.  VisiSpecs is built on the familiar applications already in use resulting in minimal training and setup time. Users can easily integrate their own masters and project documents with the project models to accomplish true BIM integration without learning to use complicated model applications and without a lengthy integration process. And for those that do use the model applications, VisiSpecs provides direct, integrated access to the project specifications and documentation.  For more information, visit www.chalklineinc.com.

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CHALLENGE

As the Construction Services Discipline Leader for RS&H, David Elliott and his team travel to job sites around the country to “kick the tires” and ensure projects proceed as planned. With responsibilities spanning the coast, Elliott needs to maximize his time and ensure project disputes don’t slow down progress or come back to haunt him.

SOLUTION

Appia^® — Infotech’s leading solution for construction administration and inspection.

By storing daily reports and other project data in Appia’s easily accessible and searchable cloud database, Elliott and his team are more productive in the field and back at the office – where potential disputes are squashed thanks to robust recordkeeping.

RESULTS

• Reduction in Research Time
• Increased Productivity in the Field
• Clearer Project Communication

RS&H and Appia: A Decade Strong

Elliott and his team have been using Appia for over 10 years to manage inspections and contracts on airfield projects throughout the country. Before that, Elliott notes that “we were just kind of old school.” An inspector would write up the report on paper, scan it, and email it in, where it would be printed and stored in a physical file. Moving to Appia, where inspectors can capture data in the field and transmit it back to one database in the cloud, has allowed Elliott and his team to maximize productivity.

“Inspectors can be more effective with their hours – as opposed to sitting in a trailer trying to do a pay app or checking paperwork, they can be in the field actually monitoring quality and giving a better product to the owner.”

When discussing how his field staff enjoys using the software, Elliott mentions that they enjoy the flexibility that comes with Mobile Inspector^®, Infotech’s field collection app that feeds data back to Appia.

It’s easier to enter data into a phone or a tablet in the field rather than a bulky laptop back in the truck. Of course, every rose has its thorn:

“I’ve got a few inspectors who are going to projects that use Appia and a question I get from them daily – ‘when am I getting an iPad?’”

In addition to productivity increases during the project, Elliott notes that the totality of information within the system allows his team to closeout projects faster – not to mention eliminating the necessity for physical storage when the project is complete.

“I think that closeout can go a lot quicker and easier with Appia because you can just package all of the data and hit print. Plus, having the advantage of burning everything to a disc means there will be a lot less space taken up when we have to archive project data and hold it for a certain length of time.”

Query Comes to the Rescue

In 2012, Elliott was working on a particularly problematic project in Tallahassee. Subcontractor disputes happen frequently enough that firms like RS&H are well-equipped for mediation and resolution. Sometimes, however, subcontractors will look to take advantage by misrepresenting quantities. The Runway 18-36 project in Tallahassee had one such subcontractor. Despite Elliott’s multiple offers to assist with measurements on the project, the subcontractor continued to debate quantities and eventually made a claim against the project owner over a year after construction was complete. That’s where Appia came in.

Elliott was able to generate query reports for the exact items in dispute in a matter of minutes and put together a report that would’ve normally taken days in one evening.

“8-10 hours of researching files the old way, I did in about 5 minutes. It happened to come in late on a Friday and we needed to get something to the owner by Monday. To be able to stay from 5-8 and complete the report on a Friday evening for what the old way would have taken the whole weekend, that was a tremendous benefit.”

That incident isn’t the only time that Appia’s query function and comprehensive reports came in handy. Elliott recounts the recent experience of a project manager on a project in North Carolina.

“Just recently on a multi-phase project in North Carolina, they were having trouble finding a buried conduit that they had to connect in a later phase. They were saying it’s not there. In 5 minutes, our project manager was able to pull up the report and the photo of where it was and go out to the guys and say: ‘Stop telling me it isn’t here. It’s here. Here it is.’”

Customer Support and Implementation

Elliott endorses Appia as intuitive but does note that there is a bit of a learning curve. For questions and concerns, he and his team rely thoroughly on the Infotech customer support team. Elliott values their help, but above all, he appreciates their honesty.

“Customer support has been excellent. When I’ve had to call for various reasons, everyone has been very helpful or at least very honest. Sometimes, the answer is ‘no, I’m sorry, that can’t change,’ and I understand that.”

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The Plastics Pipe Institute, Inc. (PPI), has published a new document about ovality in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) conduit, including Cable in Conduit.  Available on PPI’s website, TN-61 “Coilable HDPE Conduit Ovality and Coil-set” provides information about what situations can cause ovality and coil-set in HDPE conduit products, and describes measures that can be taken by installers to correct or reduce ovality during installation.  PPI is the major North American trade association representing all segments of the plastic pipe industry.

The amount of ovality in conduit that results from coiling can vary, based on several factors.  The primary factor is the diameter of the conduit, while the secondary factor is the bend radius of the coiled conduit.  Other factors which influence the percentage and permanence of the ovality include time stored in the coiled configuration, and ambient temperature and temperature cycles while in storage.

“It is important for users and installers to be aware that a certain amount of ovality is normal in a flexible product like HDPE conduit,” explained Patrick Vibien, P. Eng., director of engineering for PPI’s Power & Communications Division (PCD).  “In fact, this flexibility is one of the major advantages of HDPE conduit, allowing nominal sizes from ½ to 6 inch to be coiled onto reels or supplied as coils.  Continuous lengths of HDPE conduit minimize joining, and are ideally suited for installation underground, either laid into an open trench and backfilled, or using trenchless installation techniques.”

The Technical Note, with illustrations, includes numerous technical definitions related to HDPE conduit and its properties, such as Creep, Stress Relaxation, and Viscoelasticity.  It also describes how industry standards, such as ASTM F2160 and NEMA TC 7, allow a certain degree of ovality in these conduit products.

Continued Vibien, “Excessive ovality could restrict the installation of cables into installed conduit.  Therefore, the TN lists several techniques for mitigating ovality, and also describes how to re-round conduit during installation using proven techniques, to prevent ovality from causing problems in the field.”

According to PPI President David Fink, “HDPE conduit, also known as PE conduit, is the preferred material to house and protect electrical power and communications cables in typical applications such as power utilities, telecommunications, CATV, SCADA, FTTH, ITS, highway lighting, and other underground utilities.”

Benefits of HDPE conduit, according to PPI, include availability in long lengths without joints, high strength, flexibility, proven reliability and installation toughness.  PE conduit is widely used in trenching, horizontal directional drilling (HDD) and plowing installation methods.  Published on PPI’s website directly at https://plasticpipe.org/pdf/tn-61.pdf, TN-61 is one of several PPI documents related to the design and installation of PE conduit, which are published as a service to the industry by PPI’s Power & Communications Division.  Additional information about conduit for Power and Communications can be found online at www.plasticpipe.org/power-comm.

About PPI:

The Plastics Pipe Institute, Inc. (PPI) is the major North American trade association representing all segments of the plastic pipe industry and is dedicated to promoting plastic as the materials of choice for pipe and conduit applications.  PPI is the premier technical, engineering and industry knowledge resource publishing data for use in the development and design of plastic pipe and conduit systems.  Additionally, PPI collaborates with industry organizations that set standards for manufacturing practices and installation methods.

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By Augustus “Gus” Raymond

Entering the 19th century, the 482’ Strasbourg Cathedral was the tallest structure in the world, horses, and wind sails were the fastest form of travel, almost a billion people were alive, the world’s GDP was barely $1 trillion (in 2019 $US), 80% of people lived in destitution, and the average person lived 35 years. As the new millennium started only two centuries later, the Petronas Towers stood at 1,483’ tall, space shuttles could reach speeds of 17,500 mph, over six billion people were alive, the world’s GDP exceeded $30 trillion, only 20% of people lived in poverty, and the average person lived 65 years. It could reasonably be argued that humanity advanced more in those two centuries than all history prior to 1800. Among the factors contributing to this success was a simple change in building materials, allowing buildings to be built faster, bigger, safer, and more economically. Stone and wood, favorites of old construction, were surpassed by rediscovered concrete and novel steel which boast superior strength-to-weight ratios, structural predictability, production replicability, and various shapes and sizes. However, in recent decades, global recessions, natural disasters on rising populations, increasing sustainability concerns, and escalating manual labor costs are presenting engineers with challenges that call for supplements to concrete and steel. Humanity looks to alternative building solutions to overcome the obstacles of the present and future.

Wood comprises both the most historically utilized and replenishable building material on earth. Despite being overtaken by concrete and steel as the favorite of engineers, wood continues to be used globally, particularly in vernacular and residential structures. Wood, even given its status as a most ancient building material, is finding ways to be innovated and improved. Over the last half-century, the science of combining wooden members via glue and fasteners to make bigger elements known as Mass Timber has been on the rise around the planet. With the invention of Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) by Austrians in the mid-90’s, though, Mass Timber has now proven to be a truly viable building solution.

Formed by crisscrossing and gluing laminae of sawn lumber, CLT can manifest as walls, roofs, floors, and other panelized building components. This orientation provides high axial compression and in-plane shear loads as well as reduces swelling and shrinking. CLT’s size and connectivity render construction quicker than even concrete and steel. The panel’s thickness offers insulation, strength against extreme wind activity, and even fire resistance. The fibrous nature also suggests seismic flexibility. As a newer material, CLT’s limits are still being explored with research from skyscrapers to shear diaphragms to vibration responses. While some are praising CLT’s triumphs, people are historically resistant to change.

Due to shared dominance of concrete and steel across the global industry, there has been some pushback against CLT’s approval, and the AEC industry (architects, engineers, and contractors) has few endorsees of CLT’s examination. This trepidation stems from an idea that CLT could potentially replace concrete and steel in certain niches of the market, exacerbated by the increasing tally of Mass Timber exclusive buildings. Aggravating matters further, Mass Timber too often orates how it overcomes deficiencies of concrete and steel through its advantages rather than seeking cooperation with the building material paradigms. If concrete and steel perform better in cooperation than alone, could Mass Timber likewise perform better when included within the mix than unaccompanied?

The duo formed by concrete and steel provide many benefits that either one individually might not be able to achieve, forging a close relationship between them that is regularly selected. Concrete possesses high compression strength, moldability on site, variability in mix designs and applications, and imperviousness to combustion and moisture (provided no cracks form). Steel, almost concrete’s counterpart, likewise boasts compactness, ingredient abundancy, high structural predictability, and high tensile capacity. Concrete covers steel’s weaknesses in compression strength, corrosion, vulnerability to heat, and workability. Steel accommodates concrete’s weaknesses in tensile capacity, weight, and cracking. The two, despite some of their individual deficiencies, integrate well and provide a strong, economical (in material costs), and predictable option for buildings around the globe.

As stellar as concrete and steel in tandem are, adding Mass Timber, particularly CLT, to the team could bring even more benefits. CLT can be built between 25% and 75% faster than similar reinforced concrete and steel buildings on a square footage basis, has a 20% overall faster schedule, and uses 90% less construction traffic. CLT has a much higher strength-to-weight ratio than concrete or steel, providing lighter buildings on foundations if soil conditions are less than opportune. CLT, comprised of renewable resources, contributes significantly to a building’s environmental conscientiousness, particularly in buildings seeking certification, such as LEED. Likewise, joining concrete and steel can mitigate the construction unfamiliarity and high material costs of CLT.

An example of such a building where CLT united harmoniously with concrete is the 18-story University of British Columbia’s Brock Commons Residential Hall, which uses a concrete core, CLT flooring and walls, and glulam columns. This provides both structural rigidity and seismic flexibility, construction familiarity and logistic speed, lighter loads on a foundation and stability in wind events, and many other dichotomies frequently desired when designing a building. Upon completion, it was the tallest Mass Timber building in the world and the tallest wooden building in the hemisphere. Since then, codes have changed and taller Mass Timber exclusive buildings have been built, but Brock Commons proved that CLT and concrete can integrate effectively. Other examples of structures that incorporate some combination of Mass Timber, concrete, and steel are the John W. Oliver Design Building at UMass Amherst (all three), Woodland Trust’s Headquarters (Mass Timber and steel), The Cube in London’s ShoreDitch (Mass Timber and steel), and Hoho Vienna (Mass Timber and concrete). The prototypical building of the future could likely be a combination of the trio: a building where floors, shear walls, and roofs are CLT; long span beams or beams under extreme loads are steel; and foundations and cores are concrete. Such a structure would be able to provide construction speed, strength, seismic flexibility, fireproofing, construction familiarity, and environmental consciousness that display ingenuity and serve humanity.

As with many systems, the combination of parts is more valuable than the parts individually. If concrete and steel’s preeminence led to such astounding progress in the last two centuries, imagine what adding another revolutionary material with its own set of benefits to the assembly can accomplish over the next two centuries.

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Augustus Raymond is EI Project Manager at CE Solutions.

*This article was originally published in Civil + Structural Engineer in November 2019

When I started my first “real” job after college graduation, I had no experience with the tools that my employer used. The tools they used weren’t a part of the engineering curriculum at the time, unless you count yellow pads and a HP calculators.

Back then, professional software was often priced at hundreds or thousands of dollars per user, well out of range of a college student. Likewise, engineering departments didn’t have funds in their budget to provide software to hundreds or thousands of students.

In today’s world, new structural and civil engineering graduates can avoid the challenge I faced – if their engineering professors know how to help. Many firms use open source software in their mix of tools. Today, open source tools are pervasive, accepted for business use, and mostly well-organized – unlike when I graduated. Sometimes you can even get support from the author.

Getting student access to professional engineering software gets a little more difficult. However, engineering students at some schools can gain experience using professional engineering software through academic licensing programs. These programs provide the students with software at no charge via arrangements made by their civil/structural engineering professors and instructors.

For example, ENERCALC’s Structural Engineering Library and RetainPro professional structural engineering software is available to free of charge for the academic year to professors and instructors of civil and structural engineering at four-year colleges and universities. The software can be distributed to students at no charge for their use with coursework during the academic year.

Structural Engineering Library offers 30+ modules for analysis, design and code check of beams, columns, footings and more. RetainPro analyzes and designs nearly any retaining wall, concrete or masonry, or combination of both, cantilevered or restrained, plus gravity walls, soldier pile walls, and segmental walls (SRWs) with or without geogrids (MSE).

Because of academic license programs like ENERCALC’s, thousands of firms can find new EITs who can hit the ground running because they already know at least one of the software tools used daily in their new firm.

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“This is the first document of its kind for our industry,” stated Sarah Patterson, technical director of PPI.  “The goal of TN-60 is to bring awareness to a number of  factors when using NDT for the inspection of plastic pipes, fittings and joints, while emphasizing that careful due diligence  is needed when selecting an NDT technology and inspection team.  There is a high degree of complexity in reading the scans from an NDT inspection. It is analogous to a medical x-ray. While a qualified technician can take the x-ray, a board-certified radiologist medical doctor is the one to review the results and provide the analysis.”

Interest in the topic, according to PPI, has gained considerable momentum during the past several years.  “In 2016 (Berlin), NDT was added to the Plastic Pipes Conference Association (PPCA) conference agenda,” explained Patterson, “and was attended by a record number of industry professionals from around the world.  More than 100 people participated to hear the seven papers from firms located in six countries and join in the one-hour panel discussion.

“The reason for the high interest in the NDT session was because for nearly 25 years, NDT was done by individual firms.  Now, the technology has made its way into the standards organization for the inspection of plastic pipes, fittings and joints.  This session provided a forum for the two industries, NDT and plastic pipe, to discuss the technologies as well as methodologies being proposed for acceptance criteria.”

Presentations examined NDT technologies, inspection methods, detection of any indications in butt fusion and electrofusion joints and ways to determine if an indication is actually a defect.

Members of the Energy Piping Systems Division (EPSD) of PPI are involved in gas distribution, and oil and gas gathering.  “The EPSD groupand the industry itself have had quite a lot of interest in NDT technologies during the past few years,” stated Randy Knapp, Ph.D., engineering director of the EPSD. “It is important for the industry to know about NDT and NDE.  This PPI document and PPI’s continuing involvement will play an important role in moving these non-destructive processes forward responsibly.  TN-60 will be emphasized during any presentations we make and especially at the AGA meetings we attend.”

“PPI created an NDT task group in late 2015,” Patterson continued, “where we, like our other PPI committees and groups, investigate best practices and data in order to provide guidance to the industry for the use of NDT methods for the inspection of plastic pipes and fittings.

“At this time, PPI has not established a position on the use of NDT inspection for plastic pipe, fittings or joints as the maturity of the technology and related inspection practices vary significantly.  We will continue to monitor and actively participate with the NDT industry as it develops these technologies, which show promise.”

For additional information, go to the Plastics Pipe Institute’s website at:  www.plasticpipe.org.

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In this case study, we highlight how Cade solved his problem with a tool for construction administration and inspection that enabled his team to:

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