Open Systems International, Inc. has been awarded a comprehensive contract by Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO) of Rutland, Vermont, for delivery of OSI’s next-generation Transmission Operations System/Energy Management System (EMS) technology.
VELCO, as manager of VT TRANSCO, operates a transmission system consisting of over 600 miles of transmission lines, including a 200 MW back-to-back HVDC converter. In addition to operating Vermont’s transmission system, the company also provides full SCADA Master services for a Vermont distribution company.
VELCO required a state-of-the-art Transmission Operations System/Energy Management System to facilitate and enhance its operational capabilities to meet reliability requirements, mitigate cyber security measures, and support a seamless disaster recovery mechanism. A key objective of this project was the implementation of a more modern and flexible system based on an “open system architecture,” allowing for systems expansions, upgrades of hardware and software and achieving a lower recurring maintenance cost.
The new system is based on OSI’s Monarch distributed open architecture and includes supervisory control and data acquisition, historical information system, calculation and trending subsystems, transmission network analysis, operator training simulator, Web-based graphical user interface, load shed and restoration, equipment outage scheduling, secure ICCP communications and a backup control center. OSI’s new EMS system replaces an ABB EMS system installed in the late 1990s.
