Most American citizens take energy for granted – until we lose power. Back in 2004 Central Florida had three major hurricanes in 60 days knocking out power for days at a time. That event made all Central Floridians appreciate our utility grid more than ever. It is also one of the many reasons that the United States is investing billions of dollars into upgrading our century old utility grid to make it “smart”.
It’s hard to appreciate the complexity of what is involved in providing electricity for everyday activities such as reading a book or watching television. The United States utility grid is the largest and most complex interconnected machine on earth. It is 99.97% reliable and yet that .03% of outages cost our country over $150 billion a year.
Converting over to the Smart Grid is an incredibly challenging and expensive endeavor. This report, provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, does an excellent job of explaining what the grid is, what it isn’t and what it will become. It touches on all of the things the grid effects, such as the economy, national security and climate change. It is exciting to understand what the Smart Grid will do for us and this is an interesting read.
Envirobrite, in operation since 1994 manufactures energy efficient highbay and commodity fixtures with our HighFive, OneForOne, and Optimize product collections – We also manufacture energy saving retrofit kits with our RiteFit collection for troffer and strip fixtures. Lighting Retrofits is synonymous with Envirobrite.
