wiredinUSA January 2013

INDEX

Texas grid sets record

Changes on the board The Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Council Americas, a non-profit organization of nearly 300 companies and organizations dedicated to ex- panding the availability of ultra high speed broadband, has elected three industry executives to its board of directors for 2013. In recent voting, thecouncil elected Walt Donovan, vice-president of telecom business development for Quanta Services, and Scott Jackson, business development manager of Smart Grid for Graybar Electric Company, to three-year terms on the nine-member board. Re-elected to a three-year term on the board was Kevin Morgan, director of marketing for ADTRAN. Serving as chairman of the board in 2013 will be Kevin Bourg, senior director of global market develop- ment for Aurora Networks. He has been active in the FTTH Council over the years serving on the tech- nology and planning committees as well as chairperson for the 2012 FTTH Conference & Expo in Dallas.

Texas set anewrecord inNovember, for the percentage of electricity generated by wind power – 26% of total supply across the state’s main grid system. On 10 th November, wind turbines generated 8,521MW of electricity. This total was enough to power 4.3 million average Texas homes and represented 85 % of the state’s optimal wind generation output, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). ERCOT manages the grid for 85% of the state’s total electric load, matching supply and demand for 23 million customers across 40,500 miles of transmission lines. Texas already has the most installed wind capacity of any state in America with a total of 10,929MW and 10,000MW within the ERCOT system. Roughly 21,000MW of new wind turbines are currently under review by ERCOT, and the state is nearing the completion of several massive transmission projects designed to move wind power from West Texas to eastern metropolitan areas where demand is highest.

Expanding wire harnesses

The Sentral Group has acquired TennesseeWire Technologies in a move to extend its manufactur- ing capabilities and locations. Tennessee Wire Technologies is among leading suppliers of wire harnesses, wire leads and control panels into the industrial and HVAC markets. “Regional manufacturing is an initiative we started over a year ago to expand our capacity while dramatically enhancing our ability to respond quickly our customers' changing demands,” said Sentral president David Ritland. “The industrial and environmental markets serviced so well by Tennessee Wire are a perfect complement to our core competencies and diversified customer base,” he continued.

As part of the Tennessee Wire acquisition, Sentral also forms a joint venture with Sinbon Electronics, based in Taipei, Taiwan. The venture enhances Sentral’s ability to provide competitive pricing on high-volume repetitive products augmented with local warehousing support. The Sentral Group now has over 165,000ft 2 of manufacturing space in the United States, and over 300 full-time employees. Sentral Assemblies, founded in 1990, is a manufacturer of custom wire harnesses, cable assemblies, tubing assemblies and electro-mechanical assemblies and is among the largest privately-owned cable assembly companies in the US.

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