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The power system is currently undergoing a major transition, with increasing levels of renewable resources being connected to the grid and displacing conventional generation. Many of these resources are connecting not to the transmission system, as had been the convention in the past, but directly to the distribution system in the form of distributed energy resources (DERs). With the introduction of DERs, the entire distribution planning process, functions, and objectives have been put in the spotlight. The industry has put a renewed focus on the methods and tools used to plan the system and how it should evolve in the future to incorporate higher levels of DERs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distribution planners are facing a new reality: the vast majority of new generation currently being connected to the grid is through the distribution system. This ?edge? of the grid, where utilities have the least amount of visibility and controllability, is also where most of the change is occurring. The result is a new set of challenges associated with further integrating these ever increasing levels of distributed energy resources (DERs). To meet these challenges, an integrated approach for planning is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objectives To describe coagulation abnormalities in dogs following severe acute trauma and to evaluate the relationship between coagulation, clinical, and laboratory variables, and disease and injury severity, as well as the ability of coagulation variables to predict the presence of body cavity hemorrhage (BCH), necessity of blood product administration, and outcome. Design Prospective, multicenter, observational study. Setting Two university teaching hospitals. Animals Forty client-owned dogs sustaining severe blunt or penetrating trauma. Interventions Blood samples were collected within 12 hours of the traumatic incident for measurement of blood gases, lactate concentration, platelet count, activated clotting time, prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), fibrinogen concentration, antithrombin activity, D-dimer concentration, protein C activity, plasmin inhibition, plasminogen activity, and kaolin-activated thomboelastography. Results Decreased platelet count was a risk factor for the presence of BCH ( P = 0.006) and decreased platelet count ( P < 0.001), protein C activity ( P = 0.001), angle (α) ( P = 0.001), maximum amplitude (MA) ( P < 0.001), and clot strength (G) ( P = 0.002) were risk factors for blood product administration. Nonsurviving dogs were hypocoagulable with prolonged aPTT ( P = 0.008), decreased plasmin inhibition ( P = 0.033), decreased α ( P = 0.021), and decreased MA ( P = 0.038) compared to surviving dogs. Multivariate analysis accounting for disease severity showed that prolonged aPTT ( P = 0.004, OR = 1.74) was the strongest predictor of nonsurvival. Prolonged aPTT was positively correlated with APPLE-fast score ( P < 0.001, r2 = 0.35), lactate concentration ( P < 0.001, r2 = 0.35), and negative base excess ( P = 0.001, r2 = 0.27). Acute traumatic coagulopathy, as defined by 2 or more abnormal coagulation tests, was diagnosed in 15% of dogs at hospital admission and was more common in dogs with increased disease severity ( P = 0.002), decreased systolic blood pressure ( P = 0.002), and increased lactate concentration ( P = 0.011). Conclusions In dogs with severe traumatic injuries and hypoperfusion, measurement of thromboelastography and aPTT should be considered to support clinical assessments in predicting the need for blood product administration and nonsurvival. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional power plant performance metrics are designed for dispatchable generation. These can be difficult to apply to variable generators such as wind and solar power. This article describes additional metrics that can be applied to photovoltaic (PV ) power plants and illustrates these metrics using measured data collected from a 1-MW PV plant in Tennessee over a one-year period. The article persuades that new metrics will be needed to measure and effectively employ PV for duty in a traditional generation fleet. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]