The Electric Power Research Institute's (EPRI's) Control Center Application Program Interface (CCAPI) is leading the way to an open application environment for the electric utility industry. This leading-edge initiative is developing "plug compatible" applications in the electric power control center environment and facilitating interoperability among a broad spectrum of utility applications and information systems. CCAPI's main goal is to reduce the effort, schedule and related costs required to add new applications-such as those needed to position a utility for the competitive marketplace; to install application programs on different control center system platforms; and to move an application from one platform to another.

The results of EPRI's CCAPI initiative have been implemented by product and system suppliers and have been incorporated into procurement strategies for control center related computer systems by many utilities. Numerous benefits to the electric power industry have been attributed to the CCAPI including: - Development of a complete real-time system employing a relational database design based on the common information model of CCAPI; - "Opening" of proprietary control center systems and their respective databases for add-on applications written by the utility or a third party. Industry vendors will provide the necessary drivers to interface with their databases, but the end user will interact with the data in user-defined data formats as specified in the CCAPI; - Preparation of EPRI's advanced applications for compliance with CCAPI, which will enable easier and more cost-effective upgrades of existing control center systems with advanced power system applications and will provide a standard interface for the system vendors to integrate these applications into their products; - Integration of the bulk power and distribution management systems with applications and systems operating in other related departments of the utility that require data exchange with the control center system; and - Reduction of the entry barrier for the smaller software boutiques. Several small companies have developed practical and advanced bulk power and distribution applications based on the EPRI CCAPI.

The CCAPI provides a comprehensive information model that offers a common representation of the electric system components (e.g., transformer, capacitor, generator and interchange transaction) for bulk power and distribution management software and systems. This common information model (CIM) includes a definition of attributes, a convention for naming these attributes and the relationships among the different components of the electric system.

The CIM provides a common definition of the electric system data, in object form, that is used by the various power system applications. The current CCAPI efforts are directed toward harmonization of these object representations with other standards groups, such as those for distribution management systems and substation automation. An international (IEC) standard is nearly defined for the CIM. In concert with these efforts, EPRI is leading the initiative, with the help of KEMA Consulting, to define the message bus interface which will serve as a standard interface and data transport mechanism among the various control center applications.

ISO New England Begins Virtual Trading Floor On May 1, 1999, ISO New England, Holyoke, Massachusetts, U.S., began operating a virtual trading floor via the Internet for New England's wholesale electricity market. Up to 130 electricity generators, suppliers, marketers, brokers and load aggregators are now using the Internet to trade for electricity supply and services across six New England states.

ISO New England, Andersen Consulting and ALSTOM ESCA worked jointly over the last two years to create the market systems, operations systems, administrative systems, business processes and technology infrastructure necessary to operate a competitive market for electricity in New England. The systems designed for ISO New England give the independent system operator (ISO) the ability to receive bids and contracts for energy related services from participating organizations, to use these bids to schedule and dispatch energy resources, to support settlements and billing for market services and to publish reports detailing market and participant-specific activities.

"The launch of a restructured wholesale marketplace is critical for supporting retail competition in the region and ultimately for bringing lower generation costs and expanded services to electricity customers throughout New England," said Philip J. Pellegrino, president and CEO of ISO New England.

ISO New England operates the power system in real-time, provides hourly clearing prices and daily settlements and produces monthly invoices.

One of the core components of ISO New England's market systems is the Andersen Consulting Energy eXchange, a software package developed using the firm's object development methodology and the Java development language. Andersen's Energy eXchange is a secure Internet application that supports key business functions, including bid and contract management, meter data submission, billing, settlements and publishing of pricing and trading information. Back-up hardware ensures market participants will have the ability to enter bids and contracts 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

ALSTOM ESCA provided a distributed platform fully integrated with the energy management system (EMS). This platform includes a bids clearing platform based on ALSTOM ESCA's scheduling, pricing and dispatch system. The company also created a Web-based publishing system in which different views of the market systems can be securely presented within different groups of the ISO. In addition to the online system, ALSOM ESCA has developed a markets simulator, which can be used by the ISO or market participants to study the effect of bids and other market parameters on the overall operation of the New England market and power system.

Mexico to Automate Transmission Substations The Comision Federal de Electricidad in Mexico has awarded a US$2.8 million contract to Tasnet Inc., Pinellas Park, Florida, U.S. Tasnet, along with Pacificorp, Portland, Oregon, will complete substation automation systems for 15 transmission substations in the Veracruz District. The systems will integrate Allen-Bradley programmable logic controllers and Tasnet software to communicate to several supervisory control and data acquisition protocols and various manufacturers' intelligent electronic devices.