Eaton Powerware has joined a new organization that is intended to raise public and government awareness about issues facing the power industry today.
The Critical Power Coalition was announced this week on the anniversary of the blackouts last August that darkened much of the northeastern United States and Canada.
Other members include American Power Conversion, Caterpillar, Cummins, Digital Power Group, SquareD and Siemens.
Eaton Powerware has a major presence in Raleigh.
“Nearly every significant facet of the nation’s banking, communications, safety and vital infrastructures relies on electric power to operate. Meanwhile, increasing power demand is compromising the power grid’s ability to supply clean, uninterrupted power,” said Mark Ascolese, co-chairman of the group, in a statement.
“While government and public utility companies continue to work on strengthening and improving the grid,” he added, “companies and government organizations are tasked with designing and managing critical power in their own operations inside their facilities and will ultimately need to develop systems and plans to sustain critical operations when the utility grid is unable to provide clean, uninterrupted power.”
The group said security is also a concern, pointing out that “the only way to ensure an uninterrupted supply of both continuous, and ‘clean’ power to mission-critical operations is for companies and government organizations to take action within their facilities. Supporting operational continuity and high ‘power security’ is the mission of the critical
power industry.”
For more information about the Critical Power Coalition and a white paper titled “Critical Power”, see: www.criticalpowercoalition.org
