Power Generation and RFID

The electricity is generated form rotating turbines attached to electrical generators. The RFID helps to improve the managing and tracking the assets used int he power plants.

In case of coal-fired energy plant the coal supply is managed by the RFID technology. The coal is transported by the rail cars to the power plants. During the winter time when it is hard to work due to the hard meteorological conditions. Applications of RFID may automatize the tracking of the coal supply. The consumption of coal can be monitored hourly  and the weight of coal can be conveyed by the radio frequency devices.

The information of the RFID based on the book: RFID for energy and utility industries (2009) written by Dipankar Sen, Prosenjit Sen, Anand M. Das

Active, semi-passive and passive RFID tags

The RFID can be active, semi-passive and passive. The difference among the three types that the passive do not have internal  power source while the semi-passive and active one have a small battery as power source. The passive tags are activated by the radioactive signals coming from the RFID readers. The electromagnetic field provides energy to activate the tags. On the other hand, the active tag has its own battery to read from and write into the microchip, and forward the information to the RFID reader. Comparing of the two tags, active one is more expensive than the passive one, but it has a higher reading rage. The active tag has approximately 100 meters range and battery life more than 10 years. Active tags can also store more information, data than the passive one. Active tag has two types: one where the tags respond only when the reader asks, the other gives information periodically. The latter is called as an active beacon tag.

Active tags are used along the sensors that measure humidity, temperature, light radiation and radiation. The following technologies are going to be combined  or used by RFID: Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, GMS, GPRS and Infrared.

The semi-passive tag has it sown battery power, however, it is usually in sleeping mood. The radio frequency transmitted from readers activates the battery and the tag has the power to read the microchip

More about the RFID technology

RFID has three main components: tags, readers and host computer. The tag is a basic component which can be implemented or attached to the animal, object and product. So through the tag the objects can be identified easily. The RFID reader reads the tag, it uses radio frequency to recognize  the presence of tags. The readers can write into the tags if it is writeable. The next step is that readers pass on the observation to the host computer. Observation means detection of tags by readers. The host computer is  a hardware which create reports according to the received data.

The tags are similar to bar code, they have a special layers, so they can be easily fixed to the objects. The packaging of the tags depends on  the environment, outdoors or chemical factories require special adequate layers in order to prevent the tags from the damage.

RFID and Energy Policy

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a method of identification of an object by attaching a tag into the object. The RFID uses radio frequency to communicate. Some tags not only communicate, but they store the data and information.This technology belongs to the automatic identification and data capture (AIDC). AIDC involves bar code, magnetic ink character, optical character recognition (OCR) and electronic article surveillance.

In the 1960 the US government started to use this technology for tracking and monitoring nuclear and certain other hazardous materials. Nowadays, as Wal-Mart and Department of Defence (DOD) started to use the RFID technology in supply chain management, its popularity has increased in the business community. Both Wal-Mart and DOD use passive RFID tags.

The RFID-based solutions can increase the efficiency of business processes. In the field of energy policy, the
RFID applications are useful for the tracking of assets replacement, utilization and loss. Furthermore it monitors the usage and losses among the lines. The use of RFID chips to label containers is an excellent solution for the inventory and shipment of the materials. Each drums has its own ID, so it is easy to follow the whole process and the information is stored in the database. The RFID technology helps to identify the date on which materials were generated and to determine whether they were hazardous or not.

The most desirable outcome of RFID technology and wireless technology are low-cost, high-benefit and large return on invested capital. However, the above mentioned applications require an understanding on hardware and software knowledge.



Main source: Dipankar S., Proesnjit S., Anand M. Das: RFID for energy and utility industry

Clean Energy

In the energy topic we should deal a lot with the clean energy. As far as global warming and oil spills, environmental damage are concerned, the alternative energy has more and more importance in our world. According to the IHS Emerging Energy' survey the top 5 producers of alternative energy are in Europe, namely in Iceland, Denmark, Portugal, Finland and Spain. The renewable share of electricity production is 4.7% in the U.S.

 http://energypolicyinfo.com/2010/08/the-clean-energy-race/

Despite of the fact, the U.S. shows low efforts toward green energy, there are some efforts to integrate solar, wind and other intermittent generators under the state's current 20% renewable standard. However, the gas as an energy source cleaner than coal and cheaper than building renewable systems. That is why the renewable energy did not receive as much attention as in the case of other developed countries.

On the other side of the coin, Californian government prefers the renewable energy and initiates lot of projects aiming at getting 1/3 of their electricity form renewable sources by 2020. One of the most significant wind farms was built just outside of Bay Area at the Altamont Pass and Californian government are planning to finalize twice as many renewable contracts as in 2009. Michael Peterson, the CEO of Solargen Energy would like to build a solar plan in Panoche Valley which would power about 120 000 houses. 80% of the US'S geothermal energy is generated in California.

Energy Sector in General

Hearing the expression of the energy sector, lot of things may come up in our mind: renewable, non-renewable energy, gas, oil, electricity. It is a real widespread topic which should be specified in order to be a real expert of one of its segments.

To be specific I will investigate in more details not only the specific sector, but the energy company too. As I am planning to apply for the internships in this semester, I am trying to analyze energy companies in Connecticut! Furthermore, I would like to explore significant technologies used by these companies.

First of all, I collect the electricity companies in Connecticut such as Northeast Utilities including Connecticut Light and Power, United Illuminating, Connecticut Natural Gas, Yankee Gas, Wallingford Electric, Standard Oil.

As I was searching on the Internet in order to highlight significant oil&fuel companies in Connecticut, I have found hundreds of them: http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/accredited-business-directory/oils-fuel

To conclude, I need to find the specific sector and company to become an expert in the energy sector. However, I am planning to collect some information about other companies, to be aware of the competitors.