I never would have thought my local city government and newspaper would be a good place to learn about buying solar panels, but they are turning out to be. Yesterday, I linked to story about the pitfalls of erecting wind turbines without using a certified installer. Well, this morning, the same newspaper carried a story about my local mayor possibly getting hoodwinked in a big solar deal for the schools. It could be a bit of mayoral malfeasance, but negotiating solar contracts on a per kilowatt with escalator clauses with involvement of subcontractors (and subterfuge, too) is complicated stuff. The story is a good read and should make you question how much experience small solar installers have.
In a related matter only involving a large solar installer, National Grid, my electric company, announced plans to set up its own arrays on property it also owns. Ripping a page out of the cell tower playbook, it will also look to build and operate arrays on land deals it strikes with customers (like me - what’s their number). The electricity delivery company will spend $38 million on arrays at four sites it already owns. It claims 20 years experience with solar, putting 4.7 megawatts of solar generation on its New England-focused distribution system.
Against a backdrop of mounting product complexity and a need to keep a lid on development costs, companies are recognizing a need to make simulation a more integral part of the design process. In response, vendors in the CAD world are building out CAE functionality as part of their CAD suites while simulation vendors are building tighter integrations to leading CAD tools. Keith Meintjes, Ph.D., Practice Manager, Simulation and Analysis at CIMdata, Inc., joins Design News CAD Editor Beth Stackpole in this radio program to explore the new face of integrated CAD and CAE, how companies are benefitting from this tighter partnership between platforms, and how integrating CAE earlier in the development cycle pays off in optimized product designs.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
16 
