Hugh O’Kane ELECTRIC COMPANY, INC.

The financial sector is a critical artery for national and global institutions and governments to pump trillions of “mission-critical”transactions on a daily basis that fuel economies within and across borders. But even a small power outage interruption can cause thousands of financial dealings to freeze, resulting in the world’s monetary heartbeat to arrest . The financial sector requires colossal computing power to trade at lightning speed and frequency, to analyze and react to market fluctuations, and to provide customers—both private and government—with seamless access to monetary services and trades. Financial institutions require a highly reliable uninterrupted power supply (UPS) fed through a resilient electrical network that can maintain optimal operations in the event of a blackout, breach or natural disaster that would otherwise cripple its power source. Case in point: the US Federal Reserve in February 2020 experienced a three-hour national outage. To many, that may seem tri...

Pre-COVID, the next generation of broadband connectivity—5G—looked like it would follow suit with the generations before it when it came to its rollout and establishment. But the pandemic changed that. And changed quickly the critical need for advanced broadband connectivity.   Unlike the generations before it and the current Wi-Fi networks deployed, 5G provides faster connection speeds, quicker downloads, lower latency, and the ability to connect more devices in a network or area—critical for business growth to city-based enterprises. In short, 5G holds the potential to stimulate local economies, improve overall urban broadband services and even ease some of the challenges of expanding existing networks. This, however, can only be experienced if legislators pave the way for the 21st century digital highway so its residents and business owners can access it. Remember March 2020? Not only did businesses and enterprises suffer as workers throughout populous urban centers like New Yor...

Industrial wastewater management plants, electricity suppliers, oil refineries, chemical, fertilizer and manufacturing plants all require a tremendous amount of power to maintain operations. While their primary electrical grid is their main source of power, such facilities require backup, or Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems to ensure seamless operations. Unlike data centers, enterprise campuses or other commercial facilities, industrial plants face much more rigorous operating conditions. These can include arresting weather conditions to power surges that can cripple and degrade safety protocols in place . Equipment within these plants is often exposed to harsher environments including fluctuating temperatures or air elevated moisture content in the air that can cause interruptions. According to Bloomberg , not only are electrical utilities making $100 billion in investments annually to upgrade their aging grids, but these facilities are also facing pressure to make their inf...

Data centers provide power to more than just servers equipped to handle file storage, data management, backup and recovery. In today’s hyper-productive world a data center, in essence, is the lifeline of an enterprise. This nerve center is designed to support business transactions and provide external and internal services such as e-commerce transactions, email hosting, big data/artificial intelligence, and online gaming to name a few. What are the critical power usage strategies needed to run an efficient data center? As one can imagine, a great amount of power is needed to support these centers in order to ensure uninterrupted service. In fact, the power infrastructure for most data centers must be designed to not only accommodate the servers running the transactions, but also the physical structure itself. Air handlers/cooling/ventilation systems, lighting, environmental controls, fire systems, security, surveillance, and sensors all require a substantial amount of power. Emergency ...

How disruptive is it when your power goes out? What does that do to your day? Now, imagine how arresting it is for enterprises, multinational corporations, distribution centers (that Amazon package is not arriving today), banks, hospitals—you name it. There are thousands of business and critical service environments that require 24/7 uninterrupted power. Nearly a year ago, the devastating power outages in at least 14 different U.S. states , where power was lost during the winter storms that swept through the country last February is an indictment of the escalating need for critical power systems. During those storms, more than 5 million customers dealt with rolling blackouts that lasted several days. This month, Texas almost had revisionist history of the turmoil it suffered last February when it lost nearly 1.3 gigawatts of electrical generation—equating to about 1.5% of its winter capacity—when plunging winter temperatures hit the state at the start of January. According to Bloombe...

Power cogeneration, or combined heat and power (CHP), is not only a smart choice for the environment, but it’s also great for the bottom line. It produces electricity and thermal energy on-site, replacing or supplementing electricity provided from the local utility, significantly improving energy efficiency. Incorporating commercially available technology, CHP can provide an immediate solution to pressing energy problems. Cogeneration solutions represent a proven and effective near-term energy option to help enhance energy efficiency, ensure environmental quality, promote economic growth, and foster a robust, long-term and resilient energy infrastructure. In 2020, energy production in the United States fell to just below 96 quadrillion British thermal units, down more than 5% from 2019’s record high, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration . In fact, cogeneration is one of the few options in energy alternatives that combines environmental effectiveness with economic...

With the profound adoption of wi-fi allowing for seamless, easier access to the internet, it made connecting multiple devices easier and eliminated the need for enterprise networks and also home users to be tethered by cables. But the higher the number of units logging on to the internet arrests data speeds and congests bandwidth for the home user or business proprietor. This, especially for enterprises, caused serious problems at point-of-sale connections, with administrative transactions and overall reliability for conducting everyday business. Therefore, not only private residences but also commercial establishments continue to seek the fastest and most consistent connection possible. In the US, fiber internet service has been available to businesses in almost all parts of the country, including today some of the most remote locations outside of urban centers. At speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second, there is no doubt that fiber internet indeed delivers fast downloads. But which cab...