Jun 8, 2009
Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) has been awarded a contract by Black Hills Corporation (BHC) to supply common, state-of-the-art SCADA, EMS and Distribution Management System platforms serving three of its subsidiaries, Black Hills Power, Black Hills Energy and Cheyenne Light Fuel & Power.
BHC is an investor-owned energy utility based in Rapid City, S.D. that provides electric and gas services to approximately 759,000 customers across South Dakota, Colorado, Montana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming.
To increase its operational efficiency, Black Hills Corporation will implement and utilize networked Systems from OSI at its two reliability centers in Rapid City, SD and Pueblo, CO. Benefits of all subsidiary utilities employing common OSI technology include reduced maintenance and support costs, reduced regulatory compliance efforts and costs, simplified training, shared emergency backup operations facilities and the option for shared resources.
OSI's monarch™ (Multi-platform Open Network ARCHitecture) technology is replacing EFACEC/Advanced Control Systems legacy master control system at Black Hills Power. In addition, Black Hills Energy's current OSI system is being updated to the latest revision of the OSI monarch platform.
Standard capabilities of the modern monarch architecture will be employed so that each system may serve as a Backup Control Center for the other.
The proposed systems are based on OSI's innovative monarch distributed open architecture and include Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, Historical Information, Calculation and Trending subsystems, Automatic Generation Control, Disturbance Data Collection, Distribution Mapping and Dispatch operations (interfaced to OATI Scheduler and Smallworld GIS), Advanced Transmission Applications (Topology Processor, Power Flow, State Estimator and Contingency Analysis) as well as ICCP, DNP and LG8979 communications. The systems will be based on OSIs latest .NET Graphical User Interface technology.
"We are extremely pleased and honored that Black Hills Corporation has selected our monarch technology over platforms offered by other very fine suppliers. We welcome BHC to our family of users and will work extremely hard to deliver to BHC the same level of customer service and experience, as well as the best-in-class technology for which OSI is renowned," said Bahman Hoveida, OSI's President and CEO.
"We are very excited about the opportunity to work with OSI in developing an integrated solution for our electrical operations in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. We look forward to the new opportunities and relationships that this will bring- with particular emphasis on enhancements such as control center backup, transmission security applications, NERC CIP compliance, and real-time electrical mapping solutions," said Kelly Wolfe, BHC SCADA Unification Project Manager.
Black Hills Corporation (www.blackhillscorp.com) a diversified energy company with a tradition of exemplary service and a vision to be the energy partner of choice is based in Rapid City, S.D., with corporate offices in Golden, Colorado, and Omaha, Nebraska. The utility companies serve 759,000 natural gas and electricity customers in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming. The company's non-regulated businesses generate wholesale electricity, produce natural gas, oil and coal, and market energy. Black Hills employees partner to produce results that improve life with energy.
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 Smart Grid solutions for utility operations. OSI is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
For additional information regarding this news release please contact news@osii.com.
