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Tdworld 2415 Blogolmdistributech01312014 300prmo

UIL Holdings to Implement Outage Lifecycle Management Solution

Nov. 13, 2014
To help reduce the duration and impact of power outages and enhance network efficiency, UIL Holdings, the parent company of The United Illuminating Company (UI), has teamed with Accenture and Structure to implement a new solution from Ventyx, an ABB company.

To help reduce the duration and impact of power outages and enhance network efficiency, UIL Holdings, the parent company of The United Illuminating Co., has teamed with Accenture and Structure to implement a new solution from Ventyx, an ABB company.

The companies will work together to seamlessly integrate the Ventyx Outage Lifecycle Management (OLM) solution with UI’s information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) to improve communications to customers, performance, reliability and grid management. This will enable the utility to better handle outage response during storms while managing crews and resources more efficiently during normal operations.

“At a time when our legacy infrastructure and IT systems are under increasing pressure from adverse weather and new energy sources on the grid, we have initiated an ambitious program to upgrade our transmission and distribution technologies to ensure that our customers continue to receive the highest level of service,” said Joseph Thomas, VP of Electric System Operations at UI. “This initiative will help us to better prepare for major weather events, improve operational efficiencies and provide our customers, maintenance crews and other stakeholders with proactive, timely and accurate information on service delivery and restoration.”

Accenture and Structure will collaborate to provide comprehensive process design, technology deployment and configuration, testing and integration services across the IT and OT solution. Accenture will leverage its market-leading experience in helping to transform utilities’ transmission and distribution capabilities. It will manage the day-to-day operations of the project, from systems integration, business process design and change management through to the implementation of the most recent operations and information technology to drive improvements for UI’s customers, employees and shareholders. Structure will bring its market-leading expertise in real-time transmission and distribution operational control systems by providing business process design, system integration and implementation of the outage management and distribution operation’s components.

The Ventyx solution is designed to transform utilities’ response to planned and unplanned outages by integrating smart equipment with industrial software for distribution management, outage management, SCADA, mobile workforce management and business analytics to support the entire lifecycle of outage management from planning to restoration and continuous improvement of response strategies.

“By integrating vital technologies such as mobile workforce management and advanced analytics with its outage management system, Ventyx OLM software will help UI connect the control room with the grid to provide increased situational awareness,” said Jens Birgersson, head of ABB's Network Management Business Unit. “As a result, UI will be able to more quickly isolate and restore outages, prioritize repair work and increase efficiency by sending the right crews with the right equipment to affected areas, while keeping stakeholders proactively informed about the forecasted impact and restoration time.”

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