Historic Lehigh Valley Towns

Allentown Bethlehem Easton Nazareth Hazelton Jim Thorpe Wilkes-Barre

Allentown was a rural village founded in 1762 by William Allen, Chief Justice of Colonial Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, known as Northampton town. A thriving town with roots in the iron industry, by 1829 Allentown expanded from a small Pennsylvania Dutch village of farmers and tradesmen to a center of commerce. With the opening of the Lehigh Canal, many canal workers made their homes here.

The Lehigh Valley Gave Birth to America’s Industrial Revolution

The Allentown Art Museum is one of the city’s main attractions and the Museum of Indian Culture honors the legacy of native Lenape people. Allentown’s Canal Park provides easy access to the D&LTrail and access to the waterways for hikers, bikers, joggers, paddlers and fishermen.
Named on Christmas Eve, 1741, by a group of Moravians who relocated from North Carolina and settled at the confluence of the Lehigh River and Monocacy Creek. The canal and the railroads lured large-scale industry to the south bank of the Lehigh River and the Bethlehem Iron Co., soon dominated the town’s economy and way of life. Steel made from local iron, coal and limestone was milled and forged, launching the Industrial Revolution of the late 19^th Century.

Bethlehem is the Lehigh Valley’s Oldest City

Bethlehem has six distinct National Historic Districts as well as two National Historic landmarks. Many of its original structures built by early settlers still line downtown streets.

Easton is located at what the Lenape Indians knew as the Forks of the Delaware where the Lehigh and Delaware rivers merge and where the frontier town was laid out by William Penn. The town’s focal point was, and still is, a large central square. The first public reading of the Declaration of Independence outside of Philadelphia took place in Easton’s Centre Square in 1776 near the oldest continually running open-air Farmer’s Market in the United States.

Nazareth is located seven miles northwest of Easton, four miles north of Bethlehem and twelve miles northeast of Allentown at the foot of the Blue Mountain and includes the townships of Bushkill, Lower Nazareth, Upper Nazareth and the boroughs of Nazareth, Stockertown and Tatamy. Nazareth is the hometown of the world famous Andretti formula 1 auto racing family.

Hazelton is located in the foothills of the Poconos, a vacation destination that offers year round recreation as a vacation destination. Starting from the 1830s, the borough’s population grew steadily until the 1880s when waves of eastern European immigrants arrived to take jobs in coal industry. In 1891, it was chartered as a city.

Jim Thorpe was named after the legendary Native American athlete. It was originally established in 1818 as Mauch Chunk where entrepreneurs led by Josiah White formed the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company that shipped anthracite coal and other goods to market via the Lehigh and Delaware Canals. The town’s steep hillsides, narrow streets, and terraced gardens earned it the nickname The Switzerland of America. Today, the restored Old Mauch Chunk Railroad Station in the center of the town offers visitor services and train rides into Lehigh Gorge. The Opera House presents live theater and music.

WPart of the Wyoming Valley with the Susquehanna River flowing through the center of town, in the 1800s, hundreds of thousands of immigrants came to Wilkes-Barre to work the mines leading to economic and cultural changes and affecting the railroad-and-canal system that stretched 165 miles southward to Bristol.

Coal as an Efficient Heat Source in a Thriving Region where Mining was King

Digital Metering and Smart Grids in Your Community

Smart Meters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system; unlike home energy monitors, smart meters can gather data for remote reporting. With the inception of electricity deregulation and market-driven pricing, utilities have been looking for a means to match consumption with generation. Smart meters provide a way of measuring site-specific information, allowing utility companies to introduce different prices for consumption based on the time of day and the season.

Supply and Demand Integration

Data Management a critical element for smart meter systems is information technology at the utility that integrates networks with utility applications such as billing and customer service.

Historic Development of the Electric Grid the first alternating current power grid system was installed in 1886 as a centralized unidirectional system of electric power transmission and distribution. During the 20^th century, local grids were interconnected for economy and reliability; power stations were strategically located close to fossil fuel sources, railroad, highways or ports. The 21^st century is characterized by smart grid deployments, electronic communication technology, the application of alternative renewable energy sources and a de-emphasis on large, centralized power stations.

Digital Metering and Smart Grids are full ecosystems with multiple technologies characterized by: usage by time, outages in real-time, remote disconnection, detection of electricity fraud, automated billing and contract management, demand side management, distributed generation management.

Advanced Metering and Grids Infrastructures the evolution of the network is instrumental for the wide diffusion and high penetration of renewable energy sources and the implementation of energy saving measures, hence to the reduction of CO2 gas emissions.

Smart Grids Enable and Presume Active Consumer Participation

ESCo is an energy and water service/savings company that provides design, implementation and financing of energy/water saving projects, retrofitting, conservation, infrastructure outsourcing, power generation and supply, as well as risk management.

Smart Metering Benefits

Client Management flexible and tariffs, bad credit management and consumption patterns data.

Cost Efficiency and Loss Reductions no field teams for meter reading and disconnections.

Value Added Services bidirectional metering, remote curtailment, automation and smart appliances.

Smart Metering: 65% Energy Efficiency Improvements 25% more Micro Generation

Energy Management Systems and Software in Your Community

EMS are computer-aided tools that monitor, control, and optimize the performance of the generation and transmission of electric utility grids. Energy Management Systems can be used to centrally control devices like HVAC units and lighting systems across multiple locations. EMS also provide metering, sub-metering and monitoring functions that allow facility managers to gather data and insight to make more informed decisions about energy activities across their sites.

Operating Systems EMS rely on a model based approach. Traditional planning models and EMS models were always independently maintained and seldom in synchronism with each other. Using EMS software allows planners and operators to share a common model reducing the mismatch between the two as well as cutting model maintenance.

A Common User Interface allows for Easier Information Transition from Planning to Operations

EMS Suppliers began to deliver solutions based on industry standard hardware platforms with Windows based solutions and blade servers occupy a fraction of the space previously required; a blade rack of 20 servers occupy the same space previously occupied by a single server.

Energy Efficiency EMS can also refer to a system designed to achieve energy efficiency through process optimization by reporting on granular energy use by individual pieces of equipment. Newer, cloud-based energy management systems provide the ability to remotely control HVAC and other energy-consuming equipment, gather real-time data and generate intelligent guidance on finding and capturing the most compelling savings opportunities.

ESCo is an energy and water service/savings company that provides design, implementation and financing of energy/water saving projects, retrofitting, conservation, infrastructure outsourcing, power generation and supply, as well as risk management.

Building Automated Systems energy management system also refers to a computer system designed specifically for the automated control and monitoring of electro mechanical facilities in a building which yield significant energy consumption such as heating, ventilation and lighting installations for single or groups of buildings. Most of these energy management systems also provide facilities for the reading of electricity, gas and water meters. The data obtained from these can then be used to perform diagnostic and optimization routines on a frequent basis to produce trend analysis and consumption forecasts.

Energy Management Software is a general term and category referring to a variety of energy-related software applications which may provide utility bill tracking, real-time metering, building HVAC and lighting control systems, building simulation and modeling, carbon and sustainability reporting, IT equipment management and energy audits.

Tools for Energy Cost Reduction and Consumption in Buildings and Communities

Data Collection is for three main purposes: Reporting, Monitoring and Engagement. Electricity and Natural Gas are the most common utilities measured, though systems may monitor steam, petroleum or other energy uses, water use, and even locally generated energy:

Reporting tools are targeted at owners and executives who want to automate energy and emissions auditing. Cost and consumption data from a number of buildings can be aggregated or compared with the software, saving time relative to manual reporting.

Monitoring tools track and display real-time and historical data with various bench marking tools such as energy consumption per square foot, weather normalization or more advanced analysis using energy modeling algorithms to identify anomalous consumption.

Engagement refers to automated or manual responses to collected and analyzed energy data. Building control systems can respond as readily to energy fluctuation as a heating system can respond to temperature variation. Another objective of Engagement is to connect occupants’ daily choices with building energy consumption. By displaying real-time consumption information, occupants see the immediate impact of their actions. The software can be used to promote energy conservation initiatives, offer advice to the occupants, or provide a forum for feedback on sustainability initiatives.