Utilities and Power: Better Solutions, Cleaner Energy
Better solutions for cleaner energy are being explored in the plains of Minnesota. In Minnesota stands more than 2,400 wind turbines, making the state the 7th largest producer of wind power in the United States. Today, the country as a whole has nearly 60,000 wind turbines operating in 41 states and two U.S. territories.
As environmental concerns over climate change and resource scarcity grow, organizations like Minnesota Power are finding newer and better ways to generate power using renewable resources. By the year 2021, under their EnergyForward initiative, Minnesota Power expects to be at 50 percent renewable energy – up from about 30 percent renewable today.
The first step in achieving this goal involves adding more wind, hydro, and solar generators while using natural gas to ensure 24/7 access to power. The initiative will generate around 500 additional megawatts using hydroelectric generators and wind turbines, and around 23 megawatts from solar.
Idaho Power is setting equally ambitious clean energy goals. In 2019, Idaho Power unveiled a goal to provide 100 percent clean energy by 2045. While this goal may seem a reach, those who are familiar with the company’s successes in this area understand their potential. In the same year, the organization demonstrated its commitment by agreeing to purchase up to 120 megawatts of solar power from a generation facility owned by Jackpot Holdings, LLC.
For energy companies, the management of multiple corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives can be difficult, given the plethora of projects implemented for maintenance alone. Since their function is to provide electrical power to entire cities, their employees must work around the clock to respond to emergencies quickly and diligently.
Recently, Idaho Power issued a warning to residents that power outages may occur due to the wildfires in the region. Natural disasters are some of the many challenges that energy companies face on a semiregular basis, as they require an abundance of maintenance and expensive repairs. All the while, these companies continue to do their part to combat climate change and to help prevent natural disasters from occurring.
In August of this year, Idaho Power proposed they reinvest money formally spent on coal-fired power plants in renewable energy as a part of their 100 percent clean energy initiative. The company requested a decrease of $3.9 million related to its exit from the coal plant and an increase of $3.7 million towards renewable energy.
Takeaway
Transitioning to clean and sustainable energy is an arduous task requiring a great deal of capital, innovation, and creativity. To complete their objectives, energy and utilities companies must explore state-of-the-art solutions for managing the complex projects that lie ahead.
With these large projects (especially in engineering) comes the need for CAD file management. Energy companies, similar to manufacturing, require vast numbers of drawings and documents to build, renovate, and maintain their facilities.
Minnesota Power and Idaho Power use eQuorum to meet these challenges, using software ranging from PlotStation Quorum’s printing and plotting solution) to ImageSite manage CAD file distribution, workflows, and more.
These solutions help their engineering and maintenance departments better manage programs, initiatives, and maintenance of critical assets, from substations to generation facilities, wind farms, and more. It is essential for these organizations to progress projects according to plan by clearly and quickly communicating markups and ensuring their drawings are current.
eQuorum has been serving companies for more than 25 years, offering value-driven solutions that give companies the tools they need to complete their objectives. If you would like to learn more about eQuorum’s engineering workflow and document management solutions please click here. If you want to learn more about how you can fight climate change and help in the efforts to move towards renewable energy click here.
Additional EDMS Features
Our EDMS solutions
ImageSite and EngineBox are eQuorum’s robust workflow and document management solutions, created to help workers manage their essential workflows while maintaining complete control over their engineering files and documents. Not only do they provide a secure collaboration site for workers, but they also help organizations manage document distribution with third parties like vendors, contractors, and customers. Both systems are offered at a competitive price, enabling organizations to get a quick return on their investment by providing the features and functionality needed to help organizations improve efficiency, productivity, and collaboration. Companies can choose from concurrent user subscriptions or named user subscriptions, ensuring organizations have subscription options that make sense for their business.
ImageSite®
Our single source engineering workflow and document management system. Built in HTML5 so there is no software to deploy to client computers or mobile apps to download. Offered as an On-premise or Private Cloud system.
Our EDMS solutions
ImageSite and EngineBox are eQuorum’s robust workflow and document management solutions, created to help workers manage their essential workflows while maintaining complete control over their engineering files and documents. Not only do they provide a secure collaboration site for workers, but they also help organizations manage document distribution with third parties like vendors, contractors, and customers. Both systems are offered at a competitive price, enabling organizations to get a quick return on their investment by providing the features and functionality needed to help organizations improve efficiency, productivity, and collaboration. Companies can choose from concurrent user subscriptions or named user subscriptions, ensuring organizations have subscription options that make sense for their business.
EngineBox™
EngineBox is a cloud based workflow and document management version of ImageSite that resides outside the corporate network.
The eQuorum Customer Promise
In 2005, eQuorum developed the first all browser-based EDMS. The system, although for on-premise use, was still created to remove client software and JAVA from user computers and allow users to have a single viewer based on the simple navigation functionality of browsers. Today, eQuorum provides that same application in a private Cloud or a SaaS Cloud option. We can do this because we are, and have always been, browser-based, understanding the enhanced speed, security, and usability of this technology.
With the abundance of document management systems on the market today, there’s no doubt that choosing the right Cloud document management software can be a difficult decision. eQuorum is here to provide a comprehensive, powerful, and most importantly – affordable Cloud document management solution. We believe in providing real value to our customers by eliminating unnecessary costs, providing industry-leading functionality, and equipping your team with the right tools using cutting edge technology to bring your products to market faster.
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eQuorum®
We specialize in engineering workflow and document management. Our comprehensive, yet easy-to-use software provides the solution to manage data from design to manufacturing and production, to sales, support and administration.