Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. (MDU) has selected Open Systems International (OSI) to upgrade and replace its legacy supervisory control and data acquisition/energy management system (SCADA/EMS) system with OSI's monarch (Multi-platform Open Network ARCHitecture) platform. MDU's primary motivations for switching to the OSI technology has been the desire for improved usability, interoperability, support and overall lower cost of maintenance and enhanced ability to meet regulatory requirements.

MDU's monarch-based OSI SCADA/EMS system is intended to serve MDU's interconnected electric generation and transmission infrastructure, which currently serves about 125,000 residential, commercial, industrial and municipal customers within portions of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. MDU's electric system spans 3,000 miles and 4,600 miles (4,828 km and 7,402 km) of transmission and distribution lines, respectively, and consists of nine electric generating facilities.

The new SCADA/EMS system will be based on OSI's next-generation Microsoft .NET based Graphical User Interface and will include: SCADA; Historical Recording System; Data Engineering and Maintenance Subsystem; Real-time and Historical Trending; Alarm Management; Calculations Subsystem; Disturbance Data Collection; Historical Information System and Data Archiving; Load Shed and Restoration; Inter-Control Center Communications Protocol; Automatic Generation Control and Dispatch; Transmission Network Security Analysis Suite; Equipment Outage Scheduler; Operator Training Simulator; Transaction Management System and Switching Order Management software products.

For more information, visit www.montana-dakota.com or www.osii.com.