Maritime Electric Upgrading Remote Management of Substations

SUBNET Solutions Inc. has been awarded a contract by Maritime Electric Co. Ltd. to execute a pilot project to automate the electric company's Sherbrook and Bedeque substations.

Maritime Electric, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fortis Inc, currently delivers electricity to 72,800 customers across the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island.

In an effort to maintain their commitment to providing customers with a reliable energy source, Maritime Electric is piloting a project to increase the availability of substation data to company engineers, maintenance personnel and corporate planning departments. SUBNET has been chosen to integrate an intelligent, unified and evolvable substation architecture. Operational and non-operational data will be available to authorized personnel without stranding Maritime Electric's investments in field or IT infrastructure.

Making use of two of SUBNET's flagship products, SubstationSERVER.NET, and Substation Explorer, SUBNET will enable Maritime Electric personnel to safely, securely and remotely view and manage substation operations.

"Most utilities can only access 10% of the data available in a substation" says Travis Jaffray, Senior Systems Specialist at SUBNET. "Accessing 100% of the data enables companies to streamline processes. For example, integrating functions associated with substations and work at the enterprise level empowers the work force to manage assets proactively rather than reactively."

The project is scheduled to be completed by late 2009.