Header Img
 

News & Information

OSI Expands its Caribbean Presence with an Energy Management System Order from Jamaica Public Service

Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) has been awarded a contract by the Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPS) of Kingston, Jamaica to be the supplier of its next-generation Energy Management System (EMS) technology to be installed in Kingston.

JPS is an integrated electric utility company and sole distributor of electricity for Jamaica. It is engaged in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, and purchases power from a number of Independent Power Producers. JPS owns and operates 28 generating units, 54 substations and approximately 14,000 kilometers of transmission and distribution lines. JPS's main motivation for choosing OSI has been OSI's open and modern technology, unsurpassed customer service and Software assurance program, which allows JPS to maintain and upgrade the hardware and software in Jamaica without reliance on any third party hardware or software supplier. The new system replaces a current RANGER EMS system supplied by ABB.

The proposed system is based on OSI's monarch™ distributed open architecture and includes Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, Automatic Generation Control and Dispatch (AGC), Historical Information System, Transmission Network Analysis, Unit Commitment, Inadvertent Accounting, Transaction Scheduling, Calculation and Trending subsystem, Web-based Graphical User Interface, Disturbance Data Collection, High Capacity Data Historian, Load Shed and Restoration, Short-Term Load Forecast, Operator Training Simulator and DNP and ICCP communications, and will also include the development of a backup/disaster recovery control system to be located in Montego Bay, Jamaica, the country's other major city.

"We welcome JPS to our user community and appreciate their trust in our company and our technology. Our technology is well suited for independent utilities and those located in isolated regions, such as JPS, which desire to maintain and operate the system with minimal reliance on third party hardware and software suppliers. We look forward to a successful project implementation and a world class EMS implementation in record time," said Bahman Hoveida, President & CEO of OSI.

"We are particularly pleased with the direction of the monarch product and the use of modern and open technology, which facilitates future upgrades of hardware and software and lowers the total cost of ownership of the system. The key for us was the near 100% track record of customer satisfaction; this is the best fit for us," said Rick Case, Manager, Operations Planning & IPP Administrator at JPS.

Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (www.jpsco.com) is an integrated electric utility company and the sole distributor of electricity on the island of Jamaica. Its workforce consists of close to 1,600 team members providing service to approximately 570,000 customers. Along with the provision of electricity, JPS strives to be a key partner in national development. Through a vibrant corporate social responsibility portfolio, it makes significant contributions in the areas of education, health and sports.

OSI (www.osii.com) provides open, state-of-the-art, and high-performance automation solutions to utilities worldwide. These solutions include Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Systems, Network Management Systems (NMS), Energy Management Systems (EMS), Distribution Management Systems (DMS) and Generation Management Systems (GMS), as well as individual software and hardware products and e-business solutions for utility operations. OSI is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

For additional information regarding this news release please contact news@osii.com.