Efacec Advanced Control Systems has delivered an upgrade to a Moore Systems MPS-9000S substation remote terminal unit (RTU) for Seattle City Light, making it the 600th second-source RTU upgrade Efacec ACS has completed for utilities nationwide.
The 600 delivered units include upgrades to more than 26 other makes and models of RTUs, using Efacec ACS proprietary upgrade kits. Efacec ACS has manufactured and delivered more than 18,000 remote terminal units, data concentrators, and substation controllers over its 36-year history, including thousands of upgrades for its own RTU models.
Efacec ACS CEO Jose Barbosa says the company has seen retrofit solutions gaining traction over the old 'rip and replace' approach. "The sheer numbers of delivered units and the additional orders we continue to receive speak to the advantages of this innovative approach. Our data shows a typical savings of around $35,000 for every substation. Those numbers are compelling for utilities looking to recover costs, update functions, and extend the life of their assets."
The Efacec ACS approach to legacy RTU retrofits involves replacing the intelligent "controller" of the RTU with Efacec ACS' advanced Connex series substation system technology, while leaving I/O components and terminations from the previous hardware in place. This results in project cost savings of up to 60 percent, reducing many labor-intensive tasks such as re-wiring, drawing revisions and point-to-point checkout.
