Enterprise data historian supports management of power distribution

-- Control Engineering, 2/14/2008

OSIsoft, a performance management software company, has announced that Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator Inc. (Midwest ISO) has implemented OSIsoft's PI system for monitoring and managing Midwest Energy Market, one of the world’s largest regional bulk power transmission organizations. Midwest ISO ensures the operation of nearly 94,000 miles of interconnected high voltage power lines that support transmission of more than 129,000 MW of energy. The PI system enterprise data historian provides Midwest ISO with real-time data management to enhance grid reliability and scalability, and minimize risk.

“We rely on real-time data to deliver a reliable power system to our customers, so it is critical that our data historian provides us with the utmost performance,” said Jim Schinski, CIO of Midwest ISO. “With its proven ability to handle the complexity of our interconnected system, the OSIsoft PI system provides us with the high availability and scalability that we need to operate in this competitive marketplace.”

Midwest ISO's PI system implementation will monitor 500,000 PI tags (data streams) in a high availability (HA) configuration, interfacing to their Areva SCADA system. Midwest ISO plans to upgrade the system to 600,000 data streams when its ancillary services market (ASM) begins operation in mid-year. At that time, power producers will be able to sell services, such as regulation services, and spinning and non-spinning reserves to provide greater grid stability. 

The HA PI system provides large-scale ISO implementations with high data integrity and security, enabling information to be gathered, stored, and be made available across the organization, even during unplanned maintenance or downtime, said Schinski. Data will be protected with a redundant system and fault-tolerant software that delivers interface failover, buffering, and PI server replication so that customers have the highest available uptime.

J. Patrick Kennedy, CEO and founder of OSIsoft, said, “For the last 25 years, we have established a proven track record of delivering a secure, interoperable data management solution that offers real-time information to drive decision support and continuous improvement. For large systems and ISOs across the globe, successful business operations are based on performance and sustainability. With the HA PI system, large and complex organizations can handle thousands of user requests with confidence, optimizing grid efficiency and ensuring grid reliability.”

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