Open Access Technology International Inc. (OATI), a provider of smart grid products and services, and Kansas City, Mo.-based utility KCP&L have announced the successful completion of acceptance testing of webDistribute, OATI's distributed energy resource management (DERM) solution, as part of KCP&L's smart grid demonstration project.
According to the companies, the webDistribute solution passed all acceptance criteria and will allow KCP&L to utilize customer-side resources to deal with distribution grid reliability and economic issues. One of the key objectives of the smart grid project is to show interoperability among various vendors and legacy KCP&L systems.
The webDistribute system interfaces with KCP&L's customer information system, geographical information system, meter data management system and distribution management system to present a full view of customer-side demand response and distributed energy resources to the distribution grid operator, the companies add.
"Our smart grid demonstration project is an opportunity for us to learn about the future application of new and efficient ways of delivering electricity to our customers," says Bill Menge, KCP&L's smart grid director. "We want to take what we’ve learned and develop a blueprint for future applications. OATI's webDistribute has helped us cross an important milestone in that process."
