Contract Awards and Extensions
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has awarded a GIS data conversion project to Apex Data Services, a data conversion provider to the utility and government markets. Apex will build a GFramme spatial database from SMUD’s electric facilities maps and records and collect field data to supplement existing records.
Tampa Electric Co. will enable more than 500,000 of its customers to access, view and pay bills online through an agreement with electronic billing solution provider Derivion. The service should be available to customers by Jan. 2001.
Bermuda Electric Light Co. (BELCO) has chosen CES International’s Centricity software suite to help the island utility provide better service to its 28,000 customers. Centricity will enable BELCO to manage day-to-day network operations and reduce outage restoration time.
Arizona Electric and Orcom Solutions Inc. have signed an application service provider agreement in which Orcom will provide Arizona Electric with customer information, billing and business process management services.
Wisconsin Energy Corp. has chosen M3i Systems Inc.’s PragmaCAD Workforce Management system to address workforce integration resulting from the merger of Wisconsin Gas and Wisconsin Electric.
Austin, Texas, municipal utility Austin Energy will purchase an additional $1.53 million worth of Superstats from Comverge Technologies. This order quadruples Austin’s original March order. The contract for Superstats includes an option for purchasing an additional $4.6 million worth of Superstats over the next three years. The Superstat is a programmable thermostat that can be remotely directed to reduce air conditioning use via a radio signal from the utility.
American Electric Power (AEP) has selected LineSoft Corp.’s line design software, LD-Pro, to automate T&D line design for service regions formed as a result of AEP’s recent merger with Central and South West Corp.
Alliances, Mergers and Acquisitions
Schlumberger and Convergent Group announced execution of a definitive merger agreement in mid-October whereby Schlumberger acquired majority interest in Convergent Group.
ABB Electricity Metering and GDI Global Data Inc. have formed a marketing alliance that will combine Global Data’s data communication technology and telemetry solutions with ABB’s electricity meters and energy information solutions.
Williams Cos. Inc. is joining forces with Invensys to link and deliver communications systems and energy management solutions across commercial, industrial and residential markets. The alliance’s initial focus will be to develop communications networks and energy management systems for schools, healthcare facilities and commercial facilities.
Cooperative ConNEXTions, a service company owned by a number of electric cooperatives, has formed an alliance with X-traWeb Inc. to provide remote monitoring and control technology to its 150 co-op members. X-traWeb provides technology to Web-enable automatic meter reading, energy management, home automation and other applications.
Energy consulting firm XENERGY has joined KEMA Consulting. With the addition of XENERGY, KEMA Consulting now has 400 power industry specialists providing services supporting the generation, transmission and distribution of energy.
Personnel Changes and Promotions
William H. Downey has been appointed executive vice president of Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) and president of KCP&L’s delivery division. Downey will have responsibility for activities including transmission and distribution, customer services, utility sales and marketing.
Two Dominion executives swapped job responsibilities in early October. Thomas A. Hyman Jr. has been named senior vice president of gas distribution, a title formerly held by Jimmy D. Staton, and Staton has been named senior vice president of electric distribution, the position formerly held by Hyman. The job exchange is reportedly part of Dominion’s commitment to integrate its natural gas and electricity distribution networks.
