We are planning a discussion on US Department of Energy Transformer Efficiency Rules. The presentation is about the US Dept of Energy Transformer Efficiency Rules that will take effect on Jan. 1, 2010. The speaker is George Martinez, PE. The meeting location is at El Gallo Mexican Restaurant from 6:00 PM to 9:00PM. Please RSVP if you plan to attend. To RSVP or for further information, please contact Stan Friend at stan.friend@us.schneider-electric.com.

For more information, see announcement.

A big thank you to Hunt Armistead, Plant Engineer, for leading our great tour of the Austin Electric Holly Street Power Plant. It began with a seminar like discussion of the history of the plant and the political factors leading to its closure. Then we toured the facilities from the Lady Bird Lake cooling water cleaners to the tops of the steam generators, through the power generators, finishing in the control room. Since the plant had ceased operating, we were able explore portions of the plant that would not have been allowed near when it was operational. Hunt provided technical explanations of the various systems that were needed to keep the plant operational as we passed them. We really appreciate Hunt not only taking the time to educate us on the plant but also to answer the many questions we had. We were all physically tired at the end of the four hour tour but mentally stimulated from the excitement of the tour. It will be interesting to see how power grid manages Austin cooling season power requirements this August without the added capacity of the decommissioned generators. (See http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/news/2007/holly_closes.htm.)

Glenn Drayson traveled from Vancouver to provide us a general overview of emergency generator-paralleling switchgear for distributed generation, auto standby or prime power applications, and details on Thompson Technology's approach to solving the problems one might encounter. We appreciate very much his taking the time to visit us. He provided a copy of his presentation slides for any who are interested in further study and for those who could not attend.