Utility Automation & Engineering T&D articles from April 2005

Utility Automation & Engineering T&D archives from April 2005

BPL shows promise, but still faces challenges.(FROM THE EDITOR)(Broadband over power line)
April 1, 2005... This month's first feature article (pages 14-19) gives an overview of broadband over power line (BPL) technology--a technology that we've probably been remiss in not covering more lately. Interest in BPL has been rising rapidly the last...

NERC adopts new reliability standards.(NEWS)(North American Electric Reliability Council )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The Board of Trustees of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) in early February unanimously agreed to adopt a comprehensive set of reliability standards for the bulk electric system. The new reliability standards...

Consumers Power becomes first Oregon co-op to fully deploy AMR.(NEWS)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Consumers Power Inc., a Philomath, Ore.-based rural electric cooperative, recently completed full deployment of the Turtle System, a power line carrier-based automatic meter reading (AMR) system from Hunt Technologies Inc. Consumers Power...

Delgado touts ATC model for transmission investment.(NEWS)(Jose Delgado)(American Transmission Co.)
April 1, 2005... The stand-alone transmission company model is in a better position to make the necessary system investments because it focuses solely on providing reliable service on a non-discriminatory basis to all transmission users, said American...

Progress Energy Florida improves reliability.(NEWS)
April 1, 2005... Progress Energy Florida has completed its three-year Commitment to Excellence plan, achieving the major reliability and operational improvement objectives the company promised in February 2002. Progress Energy was created from the merger of...

American Superconductor to connect Canadian wind farm to grid.(NEWS)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... American Superconductor Corp. recently announced a new order for one of its D-VAR voltage regulation system for the Kettles Hill wind farm near the U.S.-Canadian border. The Kettles Hill project is located in the vicinity of Pincher Creek...

GE Energy upgrades transmission systems at two OG & E sites.(NEWS)(OG&E Electric Services)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... GE Energy recently announced the completion of two transmission improvement projects for OG & E Electric Services' sites. The projects required GE to design, manufacture and deliver autotransformers in a short amount of time. One...

Global study suggests utilities moving to digital relays.(NEWS)
April 1, 2005... The Newton-Evans Research Company recently completed a six-month research program, conducting a global survey of protective relay usage patterns in the world's electric power business. Findings from more than 100 North American utilities and...

Hydro-Quebec to get world's first HVDC-based de-icing system.(NEWS)(high voltage direct current )(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Hydro-Quebec has awarded a contract to Areva T & D to build the world's first HVDC-based de-icing and power quality system. During the ice storms that struck Quebec in winter 1998, hundreds of kilometers of high-voltage transmission lines...

ABB completes another gas-insulated substation in Burbank.(NEWS)(ABB Power Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... ABB has completed a $4.5 million installation of a 69-kV gas-insulated substation design build substation project for the Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA). Burbank Water and Power is the host utility for the project, which is...

Cal ISO approves major transmission line in Southern Cal.(NEWS)(California Independent System Operator)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The California Independent System Operator (California ISO) board of governors recently approved a major high-voltage power line that will boost the ability to import power from the Southwest to heavily populated areas of Southern California....

ESRI, Telvent and Miner & Miner to integrate products.(NEWS)
April 1, 2005... Telvent GIT, Miner & Miner and ESRI are moving forward to build an integrated product suite that will enable energy utilities and other enterprises to make better strategic use of real-time and spatial information. Using the framework of the...

J.D. Power recognizes Cinergy for call center excellence.(NEWS)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... J.D. Power and Associates recently announced that it had certified Cinergy's customer service call centers in Indiana and Ohio. Cinergy is the first energy company in the United States to be recognized as a J.D. Power and Associates Certified...

APS installs high-performance 'ACCC' power cable.(NEWS)(Arizona Public Service Company)(Aluminum Conductor Composite Core)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Arizona Public Service Company (APS) has completed an installation of Composite Technology Corp.'s (CTC's) proprietary Aluminum Conductor Composite Core (ACCC) high-performance electrical power cable at its Gavilan Peak Substation in Phoenix....

ABB and ESRI.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(ABB Asea Brown Boveri Ltd.)(Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc.)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... ABB and ESRI have been selected to implement a new outage management system and geographic information system for City Public Service (CPS) of San Antonio, Texas. ABB and ESRI are joined on the project by Miner & Miner (design software) and...

Farmington Electric Utility System.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Farmington Electric Utility System of New Mexico has awarded a contract to Open Systems International (OSI) to implement an upgrade to the utility's existing OSI energy management system. OSI was also recently awarded contracts by Rochelle...

Itron.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Itron has signed a contract with Wasaga Distribution Inc., electricity provider to approximately 10,000 customers in Wasaga Beach, Ontario, Canada, to provide the utility with Itron's fixed network AMR technology and CENTRON meters.

City of Lawrenceville.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... The City of Lawrenceville, Ga., has awarded a multimillion dollar contract to Datamatic for a complete AMR system for gas, water and electric meters.

Kansas City Power & Light.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Kansas City Power & Light has purchased Intergraph's In Service solution for mobile workforce management.

El Paso Electric.(Contract Awards and Extensions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... El Paso Electric has selected Miner & Miner's ArcFM solution together with ESRI's ArcGIS to provide a streamlined system for facility management and design for their T & D unit.

MiniMax Corp.(Alliances, Mergers and Acquisitions)
April 1, 2005... MiniMax Corp. of Minnesota and Powel ASA of Norway have merged and formed a North American organization to provide a comprehensive, integrated software solution for utilities. The combined company, Powel-MiniMax, combines field engineering and...

Thomas & Betts Corp.(Alliances, Mergers and Acquisitions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Thomas & Betts Corp. has purchased the assets of Southern Monopole and Utilities Co., which manufactures steel utility poles.

Schneider Electric.(Alliances, Mergers and Acquisitions)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... Subject to regulatory approval Schneider Electric will acquire Power Measurement Inc., a designer, manufacturer and provider of enterprise energy intelligent systems for energy suppliers, service providers and large energy consumers.

Can utilities build the business case for broadband over power lines?(BPL)(Cover Story)
April 1, 2005... Broadband over power line (BPL) technology has matured rapidly over the last half-decade--from technology development, to trial deployments and now, in a select few locations, commercial deployments. The once-daunting challenge of sending data...

AMR communication technologies 101: four ways utilities connect to meters.(AMR COMMUNICATIONS)(Automatic Meter Reading)
April 1, 2005... You might expect meters to be the star of the automatic meter reading (AMR) business, but they actually share top billing with the communication technologies that impact system capabilities. Four of the most commonly used communication options...

Conquering the final frontier: using satellite to collect C & I meter data.(SATELLITE AMR)
April 1, 2005... Reliable access to large customer meter data is a core necessity for running a profitable and stable utility company. In this time of tight margins and energy shortages, reliable meter data is critical for forecasting demand and consumption....

Lightning protection: improving reliability through the use of surge arresters.(LIGHTNING PROTECTION)
April 1, 2005... Atmospheric discharges--better known as lightning--are still among the most common causes of outages on power systems in the world's high lightning regions. As customers demand fewer interruptions and improved reliability, the issue of...

Lightning protection: protecting communications equipment in substations.(LIGHTNING PROTECTION)(ground potential rise )
April 1, 2005... There is a lightning storm. Suddenly, the telephone line coming into a substation fails and communications equipment is damaged. What went wrong? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This substation has fallen victim to ground potential rise (GPR)....

Thermal inspections prove effective for substation maintenance, safety.(GETTING EQUIPPED)
April 1, 2005... Utility companies first began performing infrared (IR) camera inspections in substations in the mid to late 1980s. But, it was not until the early '90s, when spatial resolution markedly improved--especially with the increased resolution...

Edge switches.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... New six-port edge switches from GarrettCom Inc. provide high price-to-value ratios and more flexibility in utility substation Ethernet deployments. The Magnum ES42 Edge Switches provide a breakthrough in price-to-value ratio for edge switch...

Wireless communication.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Cirronet Inc. introduces a 900-MHz long-range version of the company's SEM and HopNet products. Cirronet's 900 MHz products have demonstrated a 20-plus-mile range using omni-directional antennas with clear line of sight. The ability to achieve...

DC-to-DC converter.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Designed for critical DC power applications requiring the back-up/redundant features often only provided in larger DC power systems, Wilmore Electronics' 200-watt Series 1721 DC-to-DC converters provide fault-tolerant reliability in a small,...

Transformer Monitor.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Serveron Corp.'s Transformer Monitor offers accurate, repeatable on-line transformer oil dissolved gas analysis (DGA) of all eight critical fault gases, as well as oil temperature, ambient temperature and moisture in oil measurements--all...

Fixed-network AMR.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Using interleave technology that sends both low-power and high-power data transmissions, Landis+Gyr's ForeRunner system delivers a one-two punch in terms of performance and remote meter reads via one of the fastest drive-by speeds available--a...

Voltage potential device.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... On-Line Monitoring Inc.'s new voltage potential device, VPD Live, addresses the growing needs of the utility industry for a low-cost, easy-to-install device to energize modern digital relays. The VPD provides that interface in a convenient,...

Remote automation.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... TBOX-MS, from TelemetrySCADA, is a modular, high-powered and flexible remote automation solution. The TBOX-MS is based on the original TBOX concept that integrates the flexibility of telemetry, the capabilities of PLC automation and the power...

Stray voltage detector.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Sarnoff Corp.'s SVD1000 is a mobile system that quickly and efficiently checks street-level objects such as manhole covers and lamp poles for the stray voltage leaks. The SVD1000 system consists of a proprietary detector mounted in a...

Mobile Data Collection.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... The new MRX920 Mobile Data Collection System from Neptune has balanced two key needs: powerful performance and ease of use. In a new smaller, lighter package, the MRX920 is packed with power. Its 72-channel receiver with noise-filtering...

Geospatial software.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... GE Energy's new geospatial multitranslator software product, the Smallworld Spatial Objects Manager (SOM) for Feature Manipulation Engine (FME) 4 enables users of Smallworld's Core Spatial Technology, Smallworld Spatial Intelligence and...

Multi-drop multiplexer.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... The TC2104, a new 4-channel, self-healing ring multi-drop multiplexer from TC Communications, features Virtual Channel Mapping (VCM). VCM benefits include concurrent multiple networks, cost savings by requiring less channels and faster polling...

Graphic Model Designer.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... The PSI Graphic Model Designer (GMD), from Proactive Systems, enables quick model preparation of electrical distribution feeder and substation data to support real-time operations applications. The GMD is implemented as a Microsoft Visio add-in...

Micro-Ohmmeter.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... The 10A Micro-Ohmmeter Model 6250 from EMC is a rugged, low resistance tester designed for both plant maintenance and field use. Utilizing a four-lead Kelvin method of testing, the Model 6250 has results within 0.05 percent. Resistance...

Voltage monitor.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Telemetric Corp. has added a three-phase, 480Y/277 volt monitor to their line of wireless voltage monitors. The Telemetric Voltage Monitor family products automatically report outages and over or under voltage conditions via web-based...

Wireless serial device server.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Moxa Technologies introduces the new NPort W2004/W2150/W2250 Wireless Serial Device Servers that bring traditional serial devices into the WLAN era. The NPort W2004 is designed for system integrators to connect up to four RS-232/422/485 devices...

Explosionproof systems.(NEW PRODUCTS)
April 1, 2005... Adalet introduces two new explosionproof wireless systems. The new system was designed accept 4 to 20 mA, thermocouple, RTD and pressure transducer signals and transmit them to a receiver unit. Both the transmitter and receiver offer continuous...

Calendar.(Brief Article)(Calendar)
April 1, 2005... DistribuTECH 2006: The utility industry's most comprehensive conference on automation, information technology and T & D engineering Feb. 7-9, 2006. Tampa, Fla. // Phone 918.831.9443 // Fax 918.831.9875 // Website www.distributech.com APRIL...