Ergon Energy Corporation, Ltd. of Australia and Saskatchewan Power Corp. of Canada have both received the Edison Electric Institute’s (EEI’s) 2015 International Edison Award, the electric power industry’s most prestigious honor. A panel of former electric company chief executives selected both companies for the annual award from a group of distinguished finalists.
Ergon earned the International Edison Award for developing and implementing the innovative ROAMES Virtual World Asset Management System. With a highly dispersed network spanning varying climatic conditions, Ergon was challenged in managing the network’s safe interaction with the surrounding environment, including vegetation, ground levels, buildings and storms. To meet these challenges, Ergon developed the ROAMES Virtual World Asset Management System—a commercially attractive solution around spatial intelligence and automated analytics designed to improve risk management, disaster response and safety performance, while reducing costs and enhancing its customer service and value proposition.
The ROAMES system allows infrastructure managers to investigate and monitor the condition and performance of the network in extremely high fidelity—all without the need to deploy workers in the field. This system improves safety and efficiency and lowers costs, all of which benefit customers.
“Ergon’s ROAMES system offers a cutting-edge solution to many of the challenges of managing the company’s transmission and distribution system, which spans across a vast and geographically harsh area,” said EEI President Tom Kuhn. This innovative technology will benefit customers and has the potential for broad application within and beyond the electric power industry. Ergon is truly deserving of the Edison Award.”
SaskPower earned the award for the company’s pioneering work at its Boundary Dam Integrated Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project, which launched in 2014 as the world’s first CCS process on a coal-based power plant using post-combustion technology. The company has taken a coal unit that was reaching the end of its useful life and rebuilt it with CCS technology so it can bring reliable baseload power to approximately 100,000 homes and businesses while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by one million tonnes annually, which is equivalent to removing 250,000 cars from Saskatchewan roads each year.
“SaskPower’s Boundary Dam CCS Project is a great example of the electric power industry’s commitment to using cutting-edge technologies to provide affordable, reliable and increasingly clean energy to customers,” said Kuhn. “The talented team at SaskPower is deserving of the Edison Award for its groundbreaking work on this innovative project that will benefit customers and reduce emissions.”
