From DistribuTECH 2000: Harris Energy Control Systems, LLC Awarded 20 MM Contract by National Grid Company

National Grid Company plc (NGC) has awarded GE Harris Energy Control Systems, LLC a contract for an Integrated XA/21 Energy Management System, valued at approximately $US20 Million. GE Harris Energy Control Systems, LLC, owned by GE Power Systems and Harris Corporation, is a leading provider of innovative, real-time, information technology solutions that meet the evolving needs of the electric utility industry for automation, control, and monitoring of critical operations.

NGC is the largest privately-owned, independent transmission company in the world and one of the top 100 companies in the UK. With this award, GE Harris provides management systems to 9 of the 14 electric utilities in the UK.

"This win for GE Harris is the result of significant collaboration and hard work between our team and the team at NGC. The contract award reconfirms the technical strengths and global viability of our XA/21 EMS System," said Jay Freeland, President and COO of GE Harris.

The XA/21 System will be the primary interface for the real-time management of NGC's power system and the source of data for other computing systems to carry out ancillary functions.

"NGC has been through an extensive tender evaluation and contract reconciliation exercise with the main EMS suppliers, and we are very confident that GE Harris can deliver the system which will meet our current needs and, more importantly, can apply modern technology to allow the system to adapt to our changing future business needs. The decision was based on our confidence in the XA/21 product, the capability of the GE Harris team, and, of course, economics," said Roger Urwin, NGC Group Director Europe.

The system's key operational functions include interfacing data acquisition and control with all NGC RTUs, presenting events and alarms via a variety of modern user interface facilities, providing real-time and historic data to other computer systems, and archiving data for replay and analysis. The system also includes a full complement of advanced real-time and study network analysis tools to assist users in managing the power system, applications to manage various operational safety procedures and related documents, and a dispatcher training simulator.

NGC owns and operates the 400 KV and 275 KV transmission system in England and Wales and is responsible for matching the generation of electricity with demand for the region 24 hours a day. The NGC transmission system comprises 7,000 route kilometers of overhead lines, 650 kilometers of underground cable, and more than 300 substations. NGC also owns and operates interconnections with France and Scotland. Peak demand met to date is over 50,000 MW, which they cleared in December 1999 without issues.

Edited by Stephen Heiser