Big data driving GreenBus scalable energy platform

KEMA has selected Green Energy Corp's GreenBus software platform for operation in the KEMA Smart Grid Interop Lab. GreenBus enables traditional and emerging power providers to become more efficient and reduce operational costs by automating processes, capturing a higher volume of real-time grid operational data and allowing applications to securely share data.

Utilities, microgrids and smart grid laboratories are looking to move away from proprietary vendor 'silos' or 'IT islands' and toward a more open architecture. The industry is moving to better interoperability between applications, and the ability for more applications to utilize collected grid operations and back office data.

"We chose the GreenBus software platform after a careful and exhaustive analysis of its functions and capabilities as compared to like products.  In our lab environment, the GreenBus software allows for the seamless integration of multiple devices under test to create a grid environment that is truly interoperable," Ron Cherba, KEMA Vice President told FierceSmartGrid. "Because the GreenBus has an open architecture and is vendor agnostic, the ability to easily incorporate devices from many different vendors into our test environment is a simple job which does not require custom interfaces or complicated modifications."

Utilities invest in costly and time-consuming trials to prove interoperability.

"When a utility is in the process of testing a smart grid solution with the KEMA Smart Grid Interoperability Lab, the GreenBus software will allow for the creation of various permutations of the smart grid affording the utility an opportunity to easily optimize their smart grid solution in the lab before the implementation of a full pilot program in the field," Roxy Podlogar, Vice President of Product Strategy for Green Energy Corp. told FierceSmartGrid. "The KEMA Smart Grid Interop Lab can emulate the utility's proposed production environment at a fraction of the time and cost of a typical interoperability pilot. Lower expenses to the utility means they can pass the savings on to their residential and commercial customers directly in the form of stabilized or reduced electric power rates."

By implementing GreenBus, utilities will be able to automate many repetitive and mundane processes, reduce human error factors and respond better to customers and outages as they occur, according to Podlogar.

"This technology will assist the utility by increasing their business efficiency while lowering their capital expenditures," Podlogar said. "Some of today's silo software applications can cost millions of dollars."

With the smart grid, there will be a tremendous amount of grid operations data and smart meter data that will need to be managed, stored, archived, secured and accessed in the future.

"Having an open platform for all applications to be able to work together while sharing data is one of the first major steps in realizing the smart grid vision," said Podlogar.

Many utilities around the world are purchasing smart meters and meter data management systems. In addition, utilities are installing a high volume of instrumentation, sensors and probes on the entire grid for data collection.

"This new large data requirement is fueling the need for scalable energy platforms such as the GreenBus," said Podlogar.

For more:
- see this release

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