Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

Photovoltaic (PV) energy offers the quintessential picture of self-sufficiency: A home with solar panels harvesting the energy of the sun to supply all of its own electrical needs. And yet, while that is a wonderful ideal, the situation in reality turns out to be not quite that straightforward. The reason is simple: The demand for electricity typically doesn’t coincide with the electricity production rates offered by solar panels. This mismatch occurs for a variety of reasons, including weather, demand patterns, and so on. So, what’s a person to do? Fortunately, technology provides some easy-to-adopt answers for those who are opting to self-consume PV electricity. Demand management to the rescue Self-consumption is the model promoted and supported today by a growing number of countries for various reasons. However, PV electrical production varies throughout the daylight hours, based on available sunlight, but doesn’t ordinarily coincide with household demand. Thus, the typical sy...

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards are by nature extensive because they have to cover all types of equipment and technical solutions. While they must be adhered to, they are not all that helpful in terms of explaining how best to comply. Schneider Electric wants to help fill that void. Our free 2018 Electrical Installation Gu ide is intended to help electrical engineers who need to design, select, install, inspect or maintain low-voltage electrical equipment in compliance with IEC standards. Translating standards into practice The guide is intended to be a working handbook that answers the same question – “Which technical solution will guarantee that all relevant safety rules are met?” – for a variety of circumstances and applications. It’s targeted at electrical professionals working in commercial, industrial, or domestic electrical installations, including consulting engineers, specifiers, designers, contractors, panel builders, facility managers, electrical...

Written by Elvis Colon, Services Business Manager, North America Operations In 1994, after serving in the US Army as a Prime Power Specialist, I came to a point in my military career where I needed to make a decision. Go all in and stay until retirement, or join the civilian world after 10 years in the military. My family situation at the time made choose the later. Time in the Military My military service took me to war and other conflicts like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during Desert Shield/Desert Storm operation. It also took me to Bosnia, Turkey, Somalia, South Korea and a few other places. Our main responsibilities were to deploy and provide reliable electrical power in a large scale all over the world, both during conflicts and peaceful missions. Some of our greatest jobs included powering the Patriot Missile and Hospital sites during desert Storm.  We set up power plants to support road construction and community development on remote, rural areas. During my years of servic...

Operating expenses represent the majority of a building’s lifecycle costs, sometimes exceeding 80%. Energy and maintenance are a big part of these costs. Considering that 30% of the energy used in commercial buildings is typically wasted , and moving to predictive instead of preventative maintenance can reduce costs by 8% to 12% , there’s still massive potential for savings in buildings. Smart circuit breakers with Ethernet connectivity can play an important role in helping you tap into these opportunities. Digitizing your power The first step to savings is giving your facility team a full understanding of energy consumption and power conditions. This requires being connected at all times to make sure you don’t miss any critical events or trends that could be putting uptime or energy efficiency at risk. To enable this, power distribution systems are becoming fully digitized, with connected devices and smart apps converting data into actionable information. With better information...

According to the Occupational Health & Safety Association (OSHA), 5 to 10 arc flash events  occur per day in the U.S., with most of these resulting in injuries and some being deadly. Beyond being a severe hazard to personnel, arcing faults also result in significant economic losses due to electrical fire damage to equipment and interruption of processes. The most common cause of arc faults is insulation failure. They can also be caused by loose connections, insufficient mechanical dimensioning, equipment malfunction, contamination or degradation of insulation, and animals. An arc flash is the light and heat produced as part of an arc fault. OSHA estimates that over two-thirds of all arc flash incidents are the result of worker error , for example due to entering a live panel or field, careless use of tools, or leaving a temporary earth connected. In detail, an arc fault is a short circuit conducted through ionized air (plasma) between one live part and ground or between two ...

Dire predictions about energy and the environment continue to make news, including the report from the U.S. energy forecasting agency . The agency projects that, despite gains in energy efficiency, global population growth and other drivers will cause energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions to keep rising. Many experts are also forecasting that aging power grids and greater occurrences of extreme weather events will continue to put reliability at risk. But the future is not all doom and gloom. Many organizations are now exploring and enacting plans to improve grid resilience, including decentralizing energy generation with microgrids , using smart grid technologies , and incorporating more renewables . At the same time, emerging and converging technologies are giving facility teams the tools they need to take more control of the reliability, efficiency, and safety of their power supply. Power distribution systems have become smarter, giving buildings and manufacturing facil...