I finished the week with an interview with Enrique Santacana, chief executive officer of North America Region for ABB.
Given the emphasis on power at the conference--even with control, they emphasized integrating power management and automation--so I asked, "What is all this we hear about the 'smart grid?' How does ABB fit into this trend?"
Santacana said, "Don't call it smart grid, but smarter grid. It's not about new equipment, but adding sensors, software, information, communications. Much like we already do in process control already. What we're really talking about is putting in an architecture over the grid with interoperability and standards. One benefit will be better end user decisions on how/when to use electricity. A second benefit is reliability of the grid. Third is extending the life of equipment. Fourth, utilize less peaking generation, a big source of greenhouse gas. Plus, renewable energy sources such as wind power can be better integrated into the grid. This will use more power electronics to stabilize variability of the source. With the 800xA platform, we can integrate power management with control. This is an exciting area for us."
Other comments:
"Putting power and automation conferences together means putting power customers and automation (manufacturing) customers together, too. And the manufacturing people are actually customers of the utility people. This conference gives them a chance to talk and discuss the impact each has on the other."
"Regarding the economy, the government needs to spend fast. And the banking situation must be stabilized. The biggest part of our drop in demand is due to projects on hold because of the inability to get credit."
"Mexico and Canada are still strong markets for us. Our slowdown is mostly related to commercial and residential construction slow down. This affects products such as distribution transformers."
In the face of bad news elsewhere in the automation market, ABB's strength in both power and automation makes it poised for growth in the coming recovery.
6:33:20 PM 
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