Engineering connections REMEMBER when the estimated number of connected devices in 2005 was around six billion, followed about five years later with the acronym “IoT” achieving buzzword/hype status? Now fast forward to next year, when that number is expected to skyrocket to a staggering 75 billion, or roughly nine devices per person on the planet.…

  Cold starts, hot power markets, and great expectations Recent cold spells across the United States have shifted the focus from “range anxiety” in electric vehicles (EVs) to concerns about their performance in cold…how they start, and how far they can go. Buzzworthy? Apparently. Newsworthy? Maybe, but it’s not new news. Reflecting on a youthful…

  Engineering a green mindset and sustainable future Growing up in the pre-2000s era with a power electronics engineer for a father, my family’s first introduction to power and energy efficiency efforts was primarily analog. The word “vampire” was associated with a TV show called Dark Shadows; it had nothing to do with standby power…

A frequency you can count on There are few constants in life, but what few there are might include death, taxes, and a U.S. grid frequency that doesn’t vary by more than ±0.5 Hz. However, the certainty of the grid frequency is coming into question, thanks to the rising percentage of renewable energy sources that…

A frequency you can count on There are few constants in life, but what few there are might include death, taxes, and a U.S. grid frequency that doesn’t vary by more than ±0.5 Hz. However, the certainty of the grid frequency is coming into question, thanks to the rising percentage of renewable energy sources that…

A frequency you can count on There are few constants in life, but what few there are might include death, taxes, and a U.S. grid frequency that doesn’t vary by more than ±0.5 Hz. However, the certainty of the grid frequency is coming into question, thanks to the rising percentage of renewable energy sources that…

A frequency you can count on There are few constants in life, but what few there are might include death, taxes, and a U.S. grid frequency that doesn’t vary by more than ±0.5 Hz. However, the certainty of the grid frequency is coming into question, thanks to the rising percentage of renewable energy sources that…

A frequency you can count on There are few constants in life, but what few there are might include death, taxes, and a U.S. grid frequency that doesn’t vary by more than ±0.5 Hz. However, the certainty of the grid frequency is coming into question, thanks to the rising percentage of renewable energy sources that…

How to turn off a smart meter the hard way Potential cyber attacks have a lot of people worried thanks to the recent conflict in Ukraine. So it might be appropriate to review what happened when cybersecurity fi rm FireEye’s Mandiant team demonstrated how to infiltrate the network of a North American utility. During this…

Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a flying battery! According to a company called Joby Aviation, in a few years you’ll be able to summon up an air taxi on your Uber phone app for trips of 25 miles or so. And you won’t have to feel guilty about the…