Eastern Nebraska Public Power District Consortium has selected a communications solution for its smart grid initiative. The ENPPDC consortium comprises Cuming County and Stanton County Public Power Districts.
The ENPPDC project includes procurement of wireless communications, supervisory control and data acquisition software (SCADA), distribution automation software, intelligent reclosers and controls, automated regulator controls and irrigation load control devices. The idea is to connect redundant operation centers to substations and downline devices over a two county, 1000 square mile area, increasing system visibility for customer outages and reducing the time required to restore services.
RuggedCom will supply RuggedMAX standards-based broadband wireless base stations and subscriber units to ENPPDC, making data collection and remote monitoring over large distances possible. The wireless network infrastructure will be connected using RuggedCom's RuggedBackbone and RuggedSwitch product families and managed using the RuggedNMS Network Management Software.
"Stanton and Cuming Counties are committed to advancing our distribution network infrastructure and becoming a smart grid leader," says Elwood Moore, General Manager, Cuming County Public Power District. "We are looking forward to working with RuggedCom and are confident that their products and expertise will make this project a success."