Solar Tree and Plaza Dedicated At Dittmar Recreation Center

Austin Energy, the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department and the Austin Art in Public Places (AIPP) program hosted a dedication ceremony this morning for a one-of-a-kind solar tree and plaza with embedded LED lights and located in front of the gymnasium at the Dittmar Recreation Center in South Austin.

The celebration highlighted the summer solstice (June 21), the longest day of the year, when the most solar energy can be produced. The 2-kW Solar Tree stands 10 feet tall with a circular canopy supporting 10 solar panels, each generating up to 200 watts. The panels have the ability to capture light directly from the sun and from light reflected upward from the ground. At night, the tree displays a halo of LED lights, with additional light from LEDs embedded in the plaza. 

The tree was commissioned by the AIPP program as part of the construction of the gym, which opened in 2012.

Leased Trucks Enhance Austin Energy Fleet Reliability

These are among the first vehicles in a five-year lease contract that Austin Energy is employing to replace aging Electric Service Delivery work trucks. They are 36-foot bucket trucks but also include a 100-foot bucket truck, at right.

Some 17 bucket trucks have been delivered to Austin Energy in the first phase of a lease contract that will further improve our fleet of vehicles used for electric system maintenance and reliability.

The leased vehicles include a dozen bucket trucks with a 35-foot reach, typically used by repair crews working on overhead lines, as well as taller buckets, including a 100-foot lift needed to reach the highest levels. Typically, we have bought equipment outright and used it as long as it was operable. However, as equipment ages, reliability diminishes – a significant concern when working to restore power, often in stormy weather.

The five-year lease approach comes with service and repair contracts that ensure quick turnaround or vehicle replacement should problems develop. In the next fiscal year, the second and third phase of the contract will see more than two-dozen additional bucket trucks and other field vehicles delivered. Austin Energy tested the lease approach in recent years to verify its cost efficiency.

Seventeen new field trucks are being prepared for service.

These field trucks represent the first round of a three-phase vehicle replacement program.

All of the vehicles are being prepared for service this summer.

Squirrels Impact Electric System Reliability in Austin

A squirrel or any animal can cause a power outage when one part of the animal is touching a power line and another part is touching another piece of equipment such as the power pole. The power will move through the animal to the pole in what is called a phase-to-ground power surge, and a power outage occurs.

Squirrels cause more than 300 power outages each year in the Austin Energy system in spite of significant efforts to protect equipment with special animal guards. These guards are used by utilities all across the country.

Unfortunately, there is no absolute way to protect all electrical equipment from animal contact. Squirrels are a primary cause of non-storm related power outages in just about every part of the country with significant tree canopy.


Animals such as squirrels, snakes and other climbing or tree-dwelling wildlife can come into contact with electrical equipment and cause a power outage.

  

Austin Energy crews install guards such as these around pole-top power equipment to guard against animal encroachment

 

The plastic guards can encase pole-top electrical equipment to prevent contact by wildlife.



A crew member reconnects the equipment after installing the animal guard.



State-of-the-art Mobile Crane Will Help Line Crews in Tight Spaces

A new heavy “knuckle boom” mobile crane capable of lifting up to 50,000 pounds is the newest workhorse in Austin Energy’s fleet of trucks. A select group of line workers will be trained on the state-of-the-art unit that can be controlled from the truck or by remote control, so the operator can move around to get the best view of the job.

The hydraulic crane is mounted on the back of a heavy-duty, flat-bed truck and has six hydraulic arm extensions that provide a long horizontal reach to move transformers and other heavy equipment under low-hanging power lines.

Automated, Dark Sky Compliant Streetlights In Place By Year's End

Almost 34,000 of the 70,000 streetlights throughout Austin have been outfitted with communications nodes that signal Austin Energy when a light is out or when a light stays on during the day. The system also allows the utility to remotely adjust when streetlights turn on and off to better match seasonal sunrise and sunset changes. And, it provides economy of response when maintenance is needed, because all streetlights in an area with issues can be addressed in one repair trip.

In addition to the communications nodes, crews are installing fixtures that shine the light down rather than out and up. That work is part of the City of Austin Dark Sky initiative. Both the installation of the communications system and the Dark Sky retrofits are projected for completion by the end of this year.

The communications system is projected to save almost $400,000 a year in reduced streetlight energy use. Significant savings will also be achieved through economy of scale maintenance response. These streetlight initiatives began in the spring of 2011.

An Austin Energy crew replaces an older streetlight fixture with one of the new flat style casings for Dark Sky compliance and increased energy efficiency.

The new light fixtures have a transmitter on top that will alert Austin Energy when maintenance is required.

New Substation To Serve Eastern Travis County

Austin Energy crews and contractors have been busily at work constructing the new Dunlap substation in far eastern Travis County to get portions ready for this summer.

The substation is being built in phases over the next two years to serve growth and help relieve transmission congestion on the statewide grid. The substation will serve both transmission and distribution needs and will include the largest autotransformer ever for Austin Energy at 672 megawatts (MW), 30 feet tall and weighing almost 500 tons. An autotransformer steps-down high voltage coming in from power plants. By contrast, the second largest autotransformer in the Austin Energy system is 480 MW.

The substation also will include a 30 MW transformer to support distribution of power to Austin neighborhoods.

Visit our photo album of crews in action on the substation construction site.

Austin Area Students Win at International Science Fair

From left to right:

Casey Hicks, Leah Powers, London Bolsius, Jahan Rabii, Jessica Wang, Alex Crisara, Advaith Anand, Lily Xu, Susan Xu, Vanna Hovanky

Ten students, representing six “Best of Fair” science projects from the Austin Energy Regional Science Festival (AERSF), traveled to Phoenix, AZ, last week to participate in the Intel International Science and Engineering fair (Intel ISEF).

Intel ISEF, the world’s largest pre-collegiate science competition, played host to more than 1,600 students from the US and 70 foreign countries or territories. The students competed in 17 science categories for 1st through 4th category places, as well as more than 30 Special Awards from universities, government agencies and professional associations.

London Bolsius, a Sophomore from Round Rock High School, won a 1st place special award and $2,500 from SPIE-The International Society for Optical Engineering; His project,”3D Scanner,” was awarded a second place and $1,500 in the Computer category of International. As a result, London will have an asteroid named in his honor – a distinction given to all 1st and 2nd place category winners at Intel ISEF, putting him in the same category as Albert Einstein, Madame Curie and - - the Beatles.

Jahan Rabii and Alex Crisara, a Junior and a Senior respectively from Anderson High School in Austin, won a 2nd place special award and $2,000 from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and $3,000 in stocks from the United Technologies Corporation. Their team project, “Algae-Based Life Support for Long Duration Spaceflight”, also placed third in the competition category of Engineering: Materials and  Bioengineering, winning them another $1,000 in prize money.

Other AERSF students who attended Intel ISEF were Casey Hicks and Leah Powers, Seniors from Vista Ridge High School in Leander who competed in the Biochemistry category with a project that investigated natural remedies for antibiotic resistant bacteria; Jessica Wang, Lily Xu (Juniors - Liberal Arts and Science Academy, Austin) and Susan Xu (Junior- Kingwood High, Houston) developed a Cellular and Molecular Biology project that predicts more accurately whether patients with the cystic fibrosis gene will actually develop the disease; Vanna Hovanky (Junior - Bowie High School, Austin) studied a colon cancer fighting mechanism in Microbiology; and Advaith Anand (Junior - Liberal Arts and Science Academy, Austin), also in Engineering: Materials and  Bioengineering found new materials for separating natural gas from liquids, rendering it usable more efficiently.

The Austin Energy Regional Science Festival is one of the largest of 14 regional science fairs across Texas. It serves 23 Central Texas school districts and is one of only a few regional fairs that include elementary school students. Austin Energy is the organizer and main sponsor of the fair. Other industry sponsors include Intel, BAE Systems, Synopsys (whose travel grant paid for the students’ trip to Intel ISEF), Oransi, Compass Learning, the City of Austin’ Office of Sustainability, Tokyo Electron, the LCRA, Austin Water and the Travis County Medical Alliance.