ABB To Implement Asset Health Center Solution At American Electric Power

RALEIGH, N.C., Nov. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- ABB (NYSE: ABB), the world's leading power and automation group, announced today that American Electric Power (AEP), one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, will implement the new Asset Health Center solution from ABB to further enhance the performance and reliability of its electric transmission network. The Asset Health Center solution will be applied across all AEP transmission substations system-wide.

The Asset Health Center builds on the AEP-ABB Transmission Technology Alliance, which combines AEP's operational innovation with ABB's research and development depth to deliver unique new capabilities to the transmission industry. In 2007, AEP first outlined the industry benefits of what it termed an "asset health center" concept, and then encouraged the development of a platform that would integrate AEP-provided infrastructure and systems, together with condition models that transform data into practical decision-support information.   

The Asset Health Center solution integrates equipment-based operational technology (OT) from ABB, and enterprise information technology (IT) from Ventyx, ABB's industrial enterprise software group, while also leveraging deep operational and diagnostic expertise contributed by AEP. It is designed to automate what can otherwise be a time-consuming process requiring highly skilled individuals to gain visibility into the condition of critical assets, recognize performance issues, and prioritize maintenance and repair activities. AEP is leveraging existing infrastructure and designs to feed digital equipment history records, online monitoring and operational data to the Asset Health Center.   

"We have been working to automate situational awareness of asset conditions for some time. We now are poised to realize valuable operating and maintenance benefits from those efforts," said Robert W. Bradish, vice president – grid development, AEP. "Integrating this new solution will also help to identify assets requiring replacement as they reach the end of their useful life. The Asset Health Center is an example of the technical innovation we always pursue to achieve the highest standard of safety, efficiency and reliability in our electric transmission system."

Specifically, the Asset Health Center combines ABB's condition-monitoring and performance algorithms – which are an extension of ABB Service's patented Mature Transformer Management Program™ condition-assessment program – with the Ventyx FocalPoint business intelligence solution. At the heart of the solution is its ability to bring together a wide range of disparate asset information, asset algorithms based on deep subject-matter expertise, and smart software solutions into one cohesive system. By leveraging this convergence of OT and IT, leading utilities such as AEP can unlock the true value of their smart grid investments, capture and institutionalize years of employee know-how, and deliver actionable intelligence to key stakeholders across the business.

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