Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

In the past 10 years, the data center industry transformed itself.  We’ve gone from first hearing the term cloud computing to talking about edge computing and driverless cars in a little more than a decade. The progress and performance made have been tremendous. And it really got us thinking. What if we compared the performance of the data centers back then with today’s data centers to see how they’re performing and to determine what progress we’ve made as an industry? So, we modeled three step function examples that have made a significant impact — UPS improvements, containment, and economization — and our model showed about an 80 percent reduction in losses just using those three technologies. We have increased physical infrastructure efficiency by about 80 percent by providing more efficient architectures and more efficient products. And this finding prompted this question: What will drive the next 80 percent of data center improvements in the next 10 years? We know that if we

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 calls for universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services by the year 2030. 1.1 billion people worldwide still have no access to electricity. That’s nearly equivalent to the U.S and European population combined. The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that, unless electrification efforts are further accelerated, by 2030 a total of 674 million people will still be without access to electricity. Though these numbers seem daunting, bold ideas are rapidly driving successes across the globe that show the SDG 7 goal is attainable. New initiatives including government programs, innovative business and financing models, new technologies that enable digital tracking and monitoring of energy assets, and locally-based training programs–are ushering in a new era of access to energy . For example, in Bisanti, Nigeria, Green Village Electricity (GVE) Projects Limited , a local partner of Schneider Electric, succe

Industrial Control System (ICS) operators recognize the need to improve cybersecurity , but many lack the understanding on how to start the process.  End users attend cybersecurity conferences, webinars, or read articles in the trade press and learn about specific cybersecurity topics – like threat detection or defense in depth architectures.  Many are tempted to start to take steps to improve security – but it is critical to first create a plan prior to taking action.  Schneider Electric has issued a white paper designed to provide guidance to operators who are initiating projects to secure industrial control systems. The whitepaper introduces the cybersecurity lifecycle which consists of four phases; Assessment, Implementation, Maintenance, and Auditing.  The white paper focuses on the Assessment Phase, and provides a detailed overview of the steps required to create a security plan.  The Assessment Phase is divided into 4 major steps: Documenting the System – Discovering all dev

In previous articles, I’ve talk about the importance of aesthetics for the control interfaces of machines, how a pleasant to see control interface could ease your sales talk by providing more attractiveness and well-designed components and control panels could ease the operators’ life by providing more ergonomics. In term of fashion for pushbuttons , the latest trend is the introduction of flush mounting products. It means that you usually have to choose among 3 criteria: the color (matt black or shiny grey) The aesthetics choice is usually based on taste, contrast with the panels. In cases were the environment is very bright, the light can be reflected on shiny metal pushbuttons, thus bothering the operators… so that black colored pushbuttons are preferred in that last case. the external height depending on the mounting solution (standard or flush) Flush pushbuttons are sometimes considered a more modern look & feel because this aesthetics trend is quite recent. In addi

Spending time with customers at this month’s Schneider Electric Innovation Summit in Paris made three things clear: Edge data centers are a big priority for enterprise and colocation providers, the colocation market is still experiencing healthy growth, and the digital transformation we’re now experiencing presents significant opportunities to operate data centers more efficiently and effectively. I love these events because they give me the opportunity to meet with a wide variety of customers and get a reality check on the issues they’re facing day to day. With more than 5,400 visitors on hand from around the globe, there was no shortage of people to talk to. It was great to confirm that the trends we’ve been seeing – and trying to address – are in sync with what customers are dealing with. Dave Johnson speaking at Schneider Electric’s Innovation Summit in Paris Strong demand for edge data centers Let’s start with the edge. It’s clear that Internet of Things (IoT) is driving dem

With more than 5,000 customers, partners, colleagues and countless others in attendance, there’s a solid chance I did! But for those of you who didn’t join us at this year’s event, there are more opportunities in the future. But first… What is Innovation Summit? Innovation Summit is Schneider Electric’s event series which brings together experts, thought-leaders and executives to discuss the future of powering and digitizing the economy through the convergence of automation and energy technology. Events are global, throughout the year with several  Global Innovation Summits  already on the calendar. Global Innovation Summit in Paris kicked off with a keynote delivered by our CEO, Jean-Pascal Tricoire. We in the data center biz know that data centers are critical to building the digital economy and that sentiment came through loud and clear in Jean-Pascal’s keynote highlighting two of our colocation customers:  Interxion  and Pulse Data Centre . These two companies are meeting the dem

Score your goal in soccer and you may have won the game, even the championship. Hit your goal for your company and you can avert catastrophe, save thousands of dollars, and secure reliability for your company’s systems. Consider the following: How well does your company meet its energy, efficiency and financial goals? Do you have a workable plan in place guaranteed to meet high-performance, high-quality energy goals? Are you able to quickly identify the sources of potentially damaging disturbances as well as corrective action for those disturbances? Managers at Oracle Corporation, the software giant based in Redwood Shores, CA,  asked these same questions regarding their own company. They were searching for a high-performance, high-quality electrical distribution system.  Oracle wanted reliability, efficiency, safety, and support for their customers. They were able to find a solution with Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure TM , an open, interoperable, IoT-enabled system architec

Over the course of visiting some of the more than 100 data centers Schneider Electric manages, I’m continually struck by this idea: running an effective data center operations team involves many of the same elements that go into running a successful performance race car team. At a base level, both endeavors require the following: Collecting lots of data in real time Analyzing the data to determine potential courses of action Effectively communicating with stakeholders A highly trained human being to take in data and make decisions On the front lines: pit crews and operations teams   Let’s first look at the most visible folks on a race car team. Whether you’re talking Formula One or NASCAR, the setup is much the same. A successful team has a crew of experienced, proficient mechanics who tune the engine and generally do whatever is required to maximize the car’s speed and safety. The team also includes a pit crew that specializes in changing tires, adding fuel and making othe

Throughout time, humanity has been striving to improve its condition and circumstances. This striving has come in fits and starts. And at times, we fail in a big way…think war and starvation. But taken as a whole, human civilization has been steadily building and laying a foundation that has dramatically improved the lives of all people. The rule of law, freedom, democracy, human rights, property rights, education systems, legal systems, a free press, industrialization, science, and technology…these are the foundations of our modern society. Perhaps not always applied well and often imperfect, this foundation has, nonetheless, brought unprecedented well-being and a higher standard-of-living to billions of people. I believe we are working to add to this foundation today in the domains of energy sustainability and Information Technology (IT) as a utility. The problem we must deal with as a society, however, is that these foundations can undermine each other when one is pursued at the exp

The digital world is about to get faster and more populated. All the major carriers have announced 5G rollouts, public road testing of autonomous cars has been approved in some areas, drone deliveries are happening; augmented and virtual reality is changing the interactive experience; cities, homes, and industry are getting smarter. As many more millions of connected things hit the market, the  cell tower edge  will be a huge enabler; and we’re equipping it. https://fast.wistia.net/embed/iframe/64rmiygs4x?dnt=1#?secret=SgNcjuNGv2 The perfect definition of edge computing is constantly debated, but its function and importance are abundantly clear. The IoT effect has created the need for more compute, network and storage closer to the end user, to meet the demand for staggering bandwidth and allow critical decisions to be made at the source, while at the same time ensuring low latency. That criticality can only be served through edge computing. If we think of edge computing as vital to

Improved fracking technology in oil and gas fields is creating an unprecedented boom in natural gas production, exerting tremendous pressure on natural gas prices globally. As recovery of Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) from the gas streams drives revenues for natural gas processing plants, any favourable market climate for encouraging production may adversely affect supply-demand equilibrium.  Excess NGL may drive prices down in the short term. Any shifts in market values of NGL and natural gas may impact the fractionation spread, affecting the profitability of the gas processors. To stay ahead of the game, optimizing recovery of Natural Gas Liquids is imperative for gas processors to sustain and profit in this competitive market. As the optimal processing conditions of NGL extraction –either ethane recovery or rejection mode- is highly dependent on the current pricings of Natural Gas and NGL components, incorporating economic data into process models and optimization objective functions e

New York: bright lights, big city. It’s a constant state for the Big Apple. However, recently, the bright lights weren’t just from tall, tall buildings. The additional radiance came from some of the leading minds in the energy industry — advisors and advocates who congregated to discuss the critical issues of today and the next decade. More than 2,000 decision-makers from the business, finance and policy communities assembled at The Future of Energy Summit , hosted by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The topics were wide ranging, but the constant was a focus on sharing ideas and developments moving utilities and companies to a more efficient, productive and low-carbon tomorrow. Here are 3 trends that cut across many of conversations on what the future of energy will hold. 1. Machine Learning As a prominent industry researcher, BNEF is constantly looking at and for technology trends. So what’s on the horizon? Machine learning, according to Claire Curry, head of emerging technolo

We’re in the Uncanny Valley of Targeted Advertising Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, thinks people want targeted advertising. The “overwhelming feedback,” he said multiple times during his congressional testimony, was that people want to see “good and relevant” ads. Why then are so many Facebook users, including leaders of state in the U.S. Senate and House , so fed up and creeped out by the uncannily on-the-nose ads? Targeted advertising on Facebook has gotten to the point that it’s so “good,” it’s bad—for users, who feel surveilled by the platform, and for Facebook, who is rapidly losing its users’ trust. But there’s a solution, which Facebook must prioritize: stop collecting data from users without their knowledge or explicit, affirmative consent. It should never be the user’s responsibility to have to guess what’s happening behind the curtain. Right now, most users don’t have a clear understanding of all the types of data that Facebook collects or how it’s an

Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling Will Help Shed Light on Police Use of Biometric Technology A decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday will help the public learn more about how law enforcement use of privacy invasive biometric technology. The decision in Webster v. Hennepin County is mostly good news for the requester in the case, who sought the public records as part of a 2015 EFF and MuckRock campaign to track mobile biometric technology use by law enforcement across the country. EFF filed a brief in support of Tony Webster, arguing that the public needed to know more about how officials use these technologies. Across the country, law enforcement agencies have been adopting technologies that allow cops to identify subjects by matching their distinguishing physical characteristics to giant repositories of biometric data. This could include images of faces , fingerprints, irises, or even tattoos . In many cases, police use mobile devices in the field to scan and ide

  Automation systems control physical assets that transform energy and raw materials into finished products, and all being well, the finished product is sold at profit (which in simple terms is the difference between that product’s selling price and the cost of the energy and raw materials used to make it). It is also important to keep in mind production assets are significant capital investments. If you’re in business, you’ll know all about maximizing your Return On Capital Employed (ROCE). For production assets, this generally means making as much product as possible while keeping the plant running reliably and safely. To maximize asset productivity while optimizing (not necessarily reducing to a minimum) energy and raw material costs requires access to data from multiple points in the plant’s various systems. This data can then be analyzed and used to make adjustments to processes in real time. As we know, the performance of new electronic components continues to advance at a rat

We’re in the Uncanny Valley of Targeted Advertising Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, thinks people want targeted advertising. The “overwhelming feedback,” he said multiple times during his congressional testimony, was that people want to see “good and relevant” ads. Why then are so many Facebook users, including leaders of state in the U.S. Senate and House , so fed up and creeped out by the uncannily on-the-nose ads? Targeted advertising on Facebook has gotten to the point that it’s so “good,” it’s bad—for users, who feel surveilled by the platform, and for Facebook, who is rapidly losing its users’ trust. But there’s a solution, which Facebook must prioritize: stop collecting data from users without their knowledge or explicit, affirmative consent. It should never be the user’s responsibility to have to guess what’s happening behind the curtain. Right now, most users don’t have a clear understanding of all the types of data that Facebook collects or how it’s an