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Empresa Nacional de Energia Electrica (ENEE) has inaugurated Elster’s EnergyAxis System. President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras participated in an inauguration ceremony to commemorate the implementation of the EnergyAxis System in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, on May 11, 2007. The ceremony celebrated the opening of a dedicated facility where ENEE will use the EnergyAxis System to analyze meter data and actively pursue reductions in non-technical losses.
During the ceremony, President Zelaya personally operated the EnergyAxis System to remotely disconnect more than 10 customers who were confirmed to be tampering with their electrical service. Since launching the system on May 11, ENEE has remotely performed 1,500 service disconnections and 1,459 service connections resulting in a savings of $14,000 in personnel and vehicle costs. Revenue losses from tampering have already been reduced by $2,000,000 in San Pedro Sula.
ENEE began system installation in December 2006 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ second largest city. ENEE installed 21,000 REX meters with an optional service control switch that allows the company to remotely disconnect and reconnect a customer’s electricity without having to visit the meter. San Pedro Sula accounts for approximately 60 percent of the electricity sold by the utility and 70 percent of its revenue. Additional REX meters were installed in other smaller urban areas in Honduras, and there are plans to install meters in some of the other main cities in the country.
ENEE expects to realize the full benefits of their AMI project upon implementing prepayment functionality by the end of 2007.
R. W. Beck has acquired technology and management consulting firm Plexus Research Inc., adding AMI & AMR applications, load management, premises automation, telecommunications, customer communications and demand response to Beck’s consulting areas.
ABB will supply the Xi’an XD Transformer Company, one of China’s largest power engineering contractors, with eleven 1,100-kV bushings, key components of transformers and circuit breakers that increase the stability of high-voltage power transmission systems. The products will be installed on China’s first 1,000-kV AC power line, a pilot project in a larger program to deliver electricity generated in the north and southwest of China to power-hungry regions in the east.
The 654-km power line, connecting Jindongnan in Shanxi province and Jingmen in Hubei province, is scheduled to start operations in 2008. The order is worth about $2.6 million to ABB.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) found six “Examples of Excellence” when examining the real-time operations of the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator Inc. (Midwest ISO). Examples of Excellence are unique practices that NERC finds extremely effective in maintaining the reliability of the interconnected bulk electric system.
“NERC’s findings illustrate the Midwest ISO’s commitment to exceptional operations, advanced technologies and comprehensive staff training,” said Roger Harszy, Midwest ISO’s vice president of real-time operations. “The Midwest ISO is proud to be a leader in ensuring the reliable and efficient transmission of power.”
The Midwest ISO’s Examples of Excellence recognized by NERC are: - Using a dispatcher training simulator for multiple purposes.
- Establishing critical application and support system functionality, monitoring, and response activities.
- Developing custom tools that are independent of network applications.
- Developing an operational scorecard to review and improve reliability functions on a daily basis.
- Conducting power system restoration drills throughout the region.
- Performing voltage security analysis as an integral part of next-day and current-day security analysis studies.
“The economics of the program helped to significantly offset our costs of opening a new facility in Kansas City. This is definitely a program other businesses should look at and consider.” -Kenneth Burgess, owner of Midwest Scrap, about his participation in KCP&L’s MPower C&I summer demand response program
• A new report by independent market analyst Datamonitor titled “Smart metering in the energy and utilities sector,” predicts the penetration of smart metering will grow to an estimated 41 percent in Europe by 2012. The EU’s Energy Services Directive in 2006 encouraged smart metering at a pan-European level. However, only 6 percent of households in Europe currently have a smart meter. Penetration in Europe is expected to be slower than in the U.S. because of concerns over the more competitive market effectively “stranding” assets when customers want to switch providers. In North America, by contrast, customer churn is less of an issue and many utilities have already started a program of replacing existing meters with smart meters, Datamonitor reported.
• Echelon Corp. recently announced that Stadtwerke Feldkirch, the municipal utility for the city of Feldkirch, Austria, has chosen Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) system for an advanced metering project. NES value-added reseller SITRONICS Telecom Solutions will provide the advanced metering solution, including its NES based UTILIS real-time meter management system, to provide better customer service at lower cost and provide a path to enable Stadtwerke Feldkirch to fulfill obligations under European Energy directives to provide customers with information that enables more efficient energy use. Following a successful 330 household pilot project started last June, this new award increases the project scope to an additional 3,000 customers.
• UTInnovation sent out an invitation to PowerGrid Europe 2007 attendees for its three-day seminar “Introduction to IEC 61850” from September 3 to 5 in Frankfurt, Germany. For more details and registration, please see their special seminars website: seminars.utinnovation.com. For more information on POWEGRID Europe 2007 and its coverage of IEC 61850, see the feature article starting on page 16.
Distribution Control Systems Inc. (DCSI), a subsidiary of ESCO Technologies Inc., is on track to meet Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) September 2007 target for its SmartMeter deployment.
• DCSI is providing equipment, software and services for hourly-automated meter reading in support of the electric portion of PG&E’s advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) project.
• The program with PG&E runs over a five-year period, projected to end in late 2011.
• An initial paced deployment began in Bakersfield, Calif., in November 2006.
• The SmartMeter program will provide capabilities to PG&E including outage detection and assessment, and remote connect/disconnect for electric customers. It will enable the introduction of demand-response and time-of-use rates for residential and small business customers as early as summer, 2007.
• Installation of SmartMeter electric meters and gas modules began in early November 2006.
“Mandatory [reliability] standards have led to the identification of a number of opportunities for people to get out there and improve and sharpen what they were doing. That’s happening, and we believe it is improving the reliability of the system overall.” -Richard P. Sergel, President and CEO of NERC, in an appearance on “Money and Politics with Peter Cook”
Enspiria Solutions, a provider of consulting and systems integration services to the utility industry, and OSIsoft Inc., which provides the PI System, have partnered to provide PI System integration services as part of Enspiria’s overall offering related to asset management and business intelligent solutions.
The alliance leverages the PI System with the business domain and system integration expertise of Enspiria Solutions. The alliance will provide the following systems integration and consulting services: - Reliability and risk management;
- Asset management;
- Operational data management for AMI;
- Energy efficiency;
- Key performance indicators (KPI) analysis; and,
- Enterprise integration.
Electric utility PPL Corp. completed the sale of its Bolivian electricity delivery business and a related construction company to a group organized by the management team and local labor unions.
PPL recorded an after-tax charge of $22 million, or 6 cents per share, in the first quarter on the sale of Empressa de Luz y Fuerza Electrica Cochabamba SA and Empresa de Ingenieria y Servicios Integrales Cochabamba SA, which have about 280,000 customers in Bolivia.
PPL earlier this year said it intends to sell all of its regulated electricity delivery businesses in Chile, El Salvador and Bolivia. In May, the company completed the $180 million sale of its El Salvadoran business to Ashmore Energy International.
PPL also is proceeding with the auction for its Chilean business, the largest of the three in Latin America, and expects those assets will be sold later this year.
In July, The Newton-Evans Research Company published a study of topics related to the use of, and plans for, broadband over power lines (BPL) and power line carrier communications technologies (PLC). The study was conducted during the first quarter of 2007. Some of the findings include the stats below.
In July, Siemens Power Transmission & Distribution Inc. commissioned a new high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission link between Sayreville, N.J., and Long Island, N.Y. In July 2005, Siemens was awarded the contract to build the interconnection by Neptune Regional Transmission System LLC of Fairfield, Conn.
After commissioning, Neptune RTS, owner and operator of the transmission system, will place the power link at the disposal of the local utility, Long Island Power Authority (LIPA).
Starting at the end of June, 660 MW at a DC voltage of 500 kV can flow via the HVDC submarine cable interconnection. The project was constructed by a consortium of Siemens and Prysmian Cables and Systems of Milan, Italy.
The total equipment and construction contract value was approximately $400 million; the Siemens share equaled $200 million.
Siemens, as the consortium manager, designed, manufactured, supplied, installed, and commissioned the two HVDC converter stations on a turnkey basis. The Siemens equipment included converter valves, converter transformers, smoothing reactors, high-voltage switchgear as well as communication and control equipment.
The consortium partner, Prysmian, supplied and installed a total of 105 km (65 miles) of submarine and subterranean cable.
Utility Automation & Engineering T&D August, 2007
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