Inspired by the rolling blackouts in Tokyo after March's devastating earthquake, Japanese car manufacturers Mitsubishi and Nissan are working on a way to update their electric-powered vehicles, turning them into emergency power sources for household appliances.

Today's electric cars are already able to power up small devices like mobile phones. But by bumping up the wattage of a cars' discharge capacity, from around 100 watts to nearly 1,500 watts, you can begin to power up larger devices like rice cookers or microwaves.

A ComEd spokesman calls this the worst summer storm season in the company's history. Between 3,000 and 10,000 were without power Sunday morning after another bout of heavy rain and lightning ripped through the area.

The summer of storms continued Saturday night and Sunday morning, as another bout of heavy rain and lightning tore through the area.

The storm left many in the area without power. According to ComEd Spokesman Arlana Johnson, there were 32,000 customers without electricity at around 11 a.m. Sunday, and crews were out working on downed lines and other issues. Roughly 17,000 of those customers were in the western suburbs, Johnson said.

OTTAWA — Ontario’s electricity generators have shelled out $35 million this year to get neighbouring jurisdictions to take surplus power off their hands and are helping to drive up the cost of power to consumers in the process.

According to the province’s Independent Electrical System Operator (IESO), electricity prices were negative — meaning sellers had to pay buyers in the U.S. or Quebec to take surplus electricity — a total of 95 hours in the first six months of this year.

That’s up sharply from the same period in 2010, when there were only 10 hours of negative prices at a cost of $4.2 million. However, it’s down from 2009, when there were 280 hours of negative prices in the first six months, and 351 for the year as a whole.

Electricity is all around us. It lifts elevators, pumps gas, lights rooms, cooks food, and even powers a growing fleet of cars. We generally take the vast electric grid for granted until it turns off. Only then do we realize how important it is. Blackouts owing to technical foul-ups are bad enough, but new hazards, some malicious and some from nature, threaten to create electrical disturbances on an unprecedented scale.

Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment, said Monday that it signed a joint venture deal with a Chinese company to create a remanufacturing business.

Caterpillar (China) Investment Co. Ltd. and China Yuchai International Ltd.'s Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Co., Ltd. (Yuchai) will work together on the venture, which will provide remanufacturing services for Yuchai diesel engines and components and some of Caterpillar's diesel engines and components.

Diesel engine maker Yuchai is the largest producer of internal combustion engines in China.

The company will be 51 percent owned by Guangxi Yuchai, with the remaining stake held by Caterpillar China. Other terms of the agreement weren't disclosed.

29 Oct 2009 , Wuhan, China : Cummins Power Generation (CPG)’s global manufacturing capability has expanded with the opening today of Cummins’ (NYSE:CMI) newest plant in central China.

The CPG Wuhan plant, which also began production today, will offer a broad range of diesel electrical generator sets from 11 – 2000 kW, G-drives and automatic transfer switches (ATS) for emergency backup, prime power and continuous electrical power.

Cummins has invested $19 million in the 20,000-square-meter facility. The high-volume plant will have an annual capacity of 7,300 units of diesel electrical generator sets, 20,000 G-drives and 15,000 ATS. When operating at full capacity, CPG Wuhan will be one of the leading manufacturing facilities of power systems for CPG worldwide and in China’s booming electrical power market.

They called this the "AURORA" Demonstration did they check to see if there was a company called Aurora that actually sells Aurora Brand Generators?  Nope....   It has nothing at all to do with Aurora Generators.   I wonder what would happen if they called it the "HONDA" Demonstration.......

November 9th, 2009 : http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/11/09/power-grid-hacking-back-in-the-news/comment-page-1/#comment-8008">Rich Miller

Can hackers disable the U.S. power grid? This issue, which has been debated for years in the security community, is once again in the news after a segment on cybersecurity on CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday night, which reports that hackers disabled parts of the power grid in Brazil in 2005 and 2007. The CIA first discussed these events in early 2008, but without divulging the identity of the foreign country that was affected.

The EPA’s mobile non-road requirements now apply to stationary applications.
By Jennifer Oredson, Technical Writer

Keeping apprised of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) complex diesel emissions regulations can be a challenge, but now that these requirements encompass not only mobile off-highway applications but also stationary applications, it’s up to the generator owner/operator to stay informed. When armed with the appropriate information, it will be relatively straightforward to source these products.

A complete listing of the emissions requirements for stationary diesel engines was published in the Federal Register in July 2006. Prior to this time, the EPA had exempted all stationary engines. Now engines used in stationary applications—such as diesel-powered generators—are required to meet the same emissions levels as mobile off-highway diesel engines.

Guarantees fuel supply and delivery in power outages.

Atlas Oil Company has introduced its new Generator Assurance Plan, which guarantees customers priority access to fuel and delivery during power outages.

With this new program, diesel generator users can make sure they have a secure and available supply of diesel fuel to keep back up generators running, in any situation.

During power outages, demand for diesel generator fuel spikes while access to supply shrinks because fueling terminals require electric power to actually pump fuel.

To combat this problem, Atlas has emergency generators power its fueling locations and stores large quantities of fuel at its SE Michigan locations. In addition, the company operates around the clock and has access to dozens of trucks and drivers. Confident in its access to fuel, Atlas is offering Generator Assurance Plan subscribers a money back guarantee.