- September 27, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This is the third of three posts on the regulation of general-service lamps pursuant to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Read the first and second here.
Did Congress mandate a 45-lumen-per-watt Standard for general service-lamps by 2020?
No. The language of the statute and its legislative history confirm that Congress did not mandate that all general-service lamps meet a 45 lumen-per-watt energy conservation Standard by January 1, 2020.
The underlying legislation that drives regulatory action for the most common general-service
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- September 26, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Jonathan Stewart, Industry Director, Utility Products and Systems Division, NEMA
In 2018, NEMA set out to tackle the workforce development gap through three projects under the Workforce Development Strategic Initiative. They involved a curriculum sharing feasibility study, an industry promotion digital toolkit, and an industrial maintenance technician youth apprenticeship.
The digital toolkit and apprenticeship program will be rolled out at the Workforce Development Seminar on Wednesday, November 14, which will be held in
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- September 25, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Peter Weems, Senior Director, Policy and Strategy, MITA
Because Standards serve as the backbone of industry self-regulation, it is important to get them right. Industry consensus Standards help reduce costs and expand markets through the promotion of interoperability, safety, and quality.
As the electrotechnical industry changes and as the pace of innovation quickens, NEMA must keep up. One of the association’s primary activities is the production of technical intellectual property. Given that Standards
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- September 24, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Fred Ashton, Economic Analyst, NEMA, and Alex Boesenberg, Senior Manager, Government Relations, NEMA
There is nothing more important than ensuring a plentiful food supply. From Florida oranges to Idaho potatoes, farmers are faced with abundant challenges from seed to harvest. Big data is changing that. As farming transforms to a more data-driven industry, sensor technology is becoming as important a tool to farmers as the tractor.
Sensors in the fields are providing farmers
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- September 23, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Craig Updyke, Director, Trade and Commercial Affairs, NEMA
On August 21, NEMA testified before an interagency committee chaired by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) regarding Administration proposals to place tariffs on a third list of products made in the People’s Republic of China. The third list was developed by the agencies in reaction to Beijing’s imposition of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products and refusal to assuage U.S. complaints about
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- September 22, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Thomas D. Little, PhD, Professor, Boston University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Dr. Little is the associate director at the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Light Enabled Systems & Applications (LESA)
Visible light communication (VLC) sounds like a newfangled notion, but it’s not.
The ancient Greeks shined light across the sky to communicate quick and urgent messages; in Boston, Paul Revere famously signaled “one if by land, two if by sea”
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- September 21, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Steve Griffith, PMP, Industry Director, NEMA
The early internet dealt with intangibles. You sent or received emails, corresponded on forums, and read and distributed articles.
The modern internet deals with assets, the most valuable immediate items that you can touch and want to protect. These assets are stored in encoded form on a network-to-network chain called the blockchain or ledger, where each participant sees whom you do business with. This not only protects
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- September 19, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Mark Kohorst, Senior Manager, Environment, Health & Safety, NEMA
The notion of a circular economy (CE) is emerging as a dominant template for crafting environmental policy in key global markets. Restorative and regenerative by design, it seeks to move beyond the traditional “take, make, dispose” approach that characterizes most economic systems. Instead, the aim becomes buying less and reusing more by keeping products, components, and materials at their highest utility and value
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- September 17, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Patrick A. Hope, Executive Director, MITA
Mr. Hope has held government relations positions within medical specialty societies.
With new developments continuing to push the boundaries for medical imaging and related devices, technological innovation has completely changed the healthcare landscape. Below are a few of the many developments that are helping doctors and patients.
Software-Aided Diagnosis
Patient privacy is a huge focus for equipment manufacturers and hospitals, so technologies that make it easier to protect data
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- September 15, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Suzanne Alfano, MBA, CET, Industry Director, Building Systems Division, NEMA
While building energy models provide a reasonably accurate prediction of the performance of individual equipment like chillers and pumps, these models poorly predict the performance of systems.
Under this Strategic Initiative, NEMA will contract with an independent consultant to
identify gaps in inaccurate modeling of energy conservation benefits of systems in commercial buildings;
create a white paper detailing the results of the research and recommendations
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- September 14, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This is the second of three posts about the regulation of general service lamps pursuant to the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Read the first one here.
There is a long history of U.S. energy efficiency law treating Standard “general service” light bulbs differently than non-standard light bulbs such as reflector lamps*, lamps with odd bulb shapes, non-medium screw base lamps, and lamps designed and marketed to serve niche applications. Congress has made this clear by stating that these
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- September 12, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Philip Caldwell, Edison Expert, External Affairs, Schneider Electric
Earthquakes nearly ran me over in 1998.
That was when Square D Company / Schneider Electric asked me to review seismic qualifications for building code applications. My initial goal was to get a colleague to take the lead. Despite our best efforts, however, we kept getting hit by a very big bus driven by earthquake provisions in building codes.
In the 1970s, advances in earthquake engineering
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- September 12, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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NEMA Field Representatives are engaged in emergency preparedness and recovery efforts in all regions of the United States to help mitigate electrical hazards before, during and after natural disasters. They maintain relationships with local inspectors and city officials offering education, technical guidance, and supply-chain outreach. They provide intelligence reports on power outage status, electrical equipment, and product needs as they arise. And they field questions from the insurance industry, the enforcement agencies, and building owners related to their particular needs.
There are currently
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- September 10, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Suzanne Alfano, MBA, CET, Industry Director, Building Systems Division, NEMA
The new Building Management Systems (BMS) Section, approved by the NEMA Board of Governors at its July meeting, will integrate building management applications related to energy efficiency and power reliability with devices that measure and report energy use.
A BMS is an integrated system of hardware, software, and interfacing communications that automatically monitor and control building subsystems like HVAC, lighting, power, fire, access
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- September 8, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Don Leavens, PhD, Vice President and Chief Economist, NEMA
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis second-quarter GDP advance estimate released July 27, 2018, economic output grew at a 4.1 percent annual rate from the previous quarter.
Positive consumer spending, net exports, nonresidential fixed investment, and government spending offset a drag from imports, a contraction in residential investment, and an inventory drawdown. Compared to the same quarter last year, GDP was 2.8 percent
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- September 7, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Joseph Eaves, Director, Government Relations, NEMA
While people on the street may focus on daily political news cycles, NEMA stays above the fray, planning instead for a new Congress and mapping the policy areas that are most likely to affect NEMA Members.
Regardless of which party controls the 116th Congress, it will face several major matters beyond the annual appropriations process. NEMA is focusing on four categories, based on conversations with congressional staff,
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Our friends in the energy efficiency advocacy community have raised their voice recently contending that the Administration is poised to curtail energy savings from more efficient light bulbs by wrongfully saving certain incandescent light bulbs from regulatory extinction.
NEMA filed a petition to review a Department of Energy (DOE) rule in March 2017 that addressed this issue; therefore, we have something to say about that.
Our objective in filing the lawsuit was simple: to get a court to order DOE to adhere
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- September 5, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Dean Kamen, whose inventions range from drug infusion pumps to the Segway, is credited with saying, “Every once in a while a new technology, an old problem, and a big idea turn into an innovation.”
That trifecta is not too far different from the purpose of NEMA Strategic Initiatives: To seek out promising opportunities or emerging challenges, thoroughly research them, and report to Members so individual companies can make business decisions armed
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- September 1, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the September 2018 issue of electroindustry.
Digitalization, Electrification, Future of Standards, Workforce Development
Each year, NEMA asks its Members to submit ideas for seizing emerging opportunities and overcoming challenges facing the electroindustry. The NEMA Board of Governors recently approved the 2019 Strategic Initiatives, which collectively explore the themes of digitalization, electrification, the future of Standards, workforce development, and more.
Digitalization and the IoT
Blockchain Guidance
Going beyond the hype of blockchain, this initiative will develop technical industry guidance detailing
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- August 29, 2018
- NEMA Communications
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This piece was originally published in the August 2018 issue of electroindustry.
NEMA testified at a public hearing July 24 on proposals made June 20 by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) to place 25 percent tariffs on a range of specific products from China, including certain electric motors, electricity meters, insulating materials, and wire and cable products. See NEMA Urges Administration to Minimize Collateral Damage from Tariffs. The new proposals build on a list of products for which the U.S. implemented
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