electricity sort by issue
The IEC regularly supports key global and regional industry events, which can present the IEC endorsement on their website and materials.
In his address to Council, Frans Vreeswijk, IEC General Secretary & CEO, reminded the audience that digitization is a key focus for both industry and standards organizations. Standards will play a key role in the digitization of industry, healthcare and every other part of our life. The new Masterplan, approved and published prior to the General Meeting in Vladivostok, Russia, sets the goals and expectations for the Commission, in this area among others, for the years to come.
Energy efficiency (EE) is the most important and easily available source of energy; it can be collected along the entire energy chain, from generation, transmission and storage to final use in industry, homes or transportation. IEC standardization and conformity assessment (CA) work are central to electrical EE at all levels.
In hundreds of smart city projects around the world, governments, municipalities and private stakeholders are investing in smart grids, open data platforms and networked transport systems to meet the challenges of environmental sustainability, population growth and urbanization.
Given today’s low-cost or free crystal-clear voice calls and the real-time transfer between continents of vast volumes of data, including multimedia content, it’s easy to forget that just 150 years ago it took nearly two weeks for news from London to reach New York. The laying of the first fully working transatlantic telegraph cable from Ireland to Newfoundland cut that time to a few hours. IEC first President Lord Kelvin played a key role in the success of the project.
The first World Smart City Forum was held on 13 July 2016, co-located with the World Cities Summit in the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Convention Centre in Singapore. More than 300 participants joined the live event and listened to world experts who addressed, discussed and accepted live questions from audiences in the room and online. The event was simultaneously live-streamed to close to 1 000 online participants and IEC tweets reached well over half a million city stakeholders. The online community www.worldsmartcity.org has more than 1 000 active members.
Poor water quality and water scarcity continue to pose a major threat to human health and are responsible for millions of deaths every year. Extracting water and treating used and contaminated waters requires complex installations which depend almost entirely on electrical and electronic systems and equipment. Standardization work by many IEC Technical Committees (TCs) and Subcommittees (SCs) is essential to ensure that people across the world have access to appropriate water supply and water treatment.
IEC work impacts all aspects of life. Electricity and electronics are the cornerstone for all economies in developing and developed countries. IEC International Standards together with IEC Conformity Assessment Systems support 12 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
More than ever before the two major sports event of 2016, the European Football Championship, Euro 2016, and the 2016 Olympics Games, are supported by high-tech electrical and electronic equipment and systems. These make it possible to provide the best possible coverage on and off the venues and ensure high commercial returns for investors and sponsors.
On 30 and 31 March 2016, the first International Conference on Global Energy Interconnection (GEI) took place in Beijing, China. The event was initiated by State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Edison Institute and Caring for Climate (C4C), and co-organized among others with the IEC. Dr Shu, IEC Vice President and President of SGCC, and Frans Vreeswijk, IEC General Secretary & CEO, both presented how such a vision can be brought to reality, to an audience of more than 500 people.
Everybody wants to build Smart Cities but what is needed to make them come true? Which city pain points are hindering Smart City development and how can they be best overcome? A new online community initiated by the IEC in partnership with ISO and ITU aims to help stakeholders worldwide make their cities smarter. It is part of the lead-up to the first World Smart City Forum which will take place in Singapore on 13 July 2016.
The end of year season presents lighting designers and individuals with the opportunity to give free rein to their creative imagination and bring a festive atmosphere to towns, buildings and homes in many countries. The range of lighting equipment now available offers great flexibility for dazzling effects whilst keeping power consumption in check and improving safety thanks to more energy-efficient systems. Standardization work by IEC Technical Committee (TC) 34 and its Subcommittees (SCs) makes this possible.
IEC work continues to grow in importance. Today, electricity drives everything. It is unseen but indispensable. So normal that many of us never think about it.
The need for electricity access in developing economies is driving the urgency for standardization of low voltage direct current (LVDC). Around 1,3 billion people worldwide don’t have any access to electricity. LVDC and its associated technologies offer the potential to deliver safe, efficient and green electricity to many of them.
The IEC regularly lends its support to key global and regional industry events allowing them to put forward IEC endorsement on their website and materials. We would like to draw your attention to several events that may be of interest to the IEC community.
At the 2014 IEC General Meeting in Tokyo, the IEC Standardization Management Board (SMB) agreed to set up a Systems Evaluation Group, SEG 4: Low voltage direct current (LVDC) applications, distribution and safety for use in developed and developing economies. e-tech asked SEG Convenor Vimal Mahendru to explain what drew him to the LVDC domain, the global challenges and opportunities he anticipates for the technology, and the contribution IEC SEG 4 can make to its global adoption.
Awareness of the effects of electricity on the human body is not recent. Mentions of treatment using electricity were first recorded in ancient Greece and Rome. In more modern times, the introduction of X-ray equipment in the early 20th century, quickly followed by a myriad of other electric medical devices, paved the way to major advances in medicine. The rollout of entirely new electrotechnologies and fresh approaches in the medical environment are likely to have similar impacts.
Healthcare is undergoing nothing short of a revolution with key advances in long-established technologies and major development in new areas which all depend on electrotechnology.
The April issue of e-tech will focus on transportation and more specifically on EVs (electric vehicles), be they electric cars or electric urban transport vehicles.