Project of npower, a leading UK renewable energy company, will unify and centralize operations of the company's offshore and onshore wind farms, and support future expansion.WATERTOWN, CONN (April 9, 2007) -- Emerson Process Management announced today that it has been awarded a contract by npower renewables, one of the UK's leading renewable energy companies, to provide a wide area data gathering system to connect 19 active wind farms to their corporate headquarters, operations center, and regional centers, all in various locations within the UK.The wide area data gathering solution will utilize Emerson's Bristol OpenEnterprise software and will provide process efficiency with access to real-time operational data and historical information for all of the turbines throughout the network.
The npower operations personnel and asset management and corporate users will all be connected through this wide area network. The system will also provide cost savings by replacing labor-intensive site visits with control capability to remotely start/stop and reset turbines, and remote security features such as security cameras and access monitoring.The OpenEnterprise database is recognized as an ideal platform for expansion to include data from the current hydro electric portfolio and future wind farms in the UK and Europe. Preserving npower renewables' investment in existing assets, OpenEnterprise uses open-architecture technologies to communicate with multiple brands of controllers and remote systems.
The wide area network (WAN), which links the wind farms to the operational and corporate data centers, will use a combination of technologies that range from 64K ISDN to 2MB ADSL communication networks. OpenEnterprise software features Object Mapping, which homogenizes data structures and reduces processing at data centers. Object Mapping also allows the communications throughput npower requires to provide real-time information to corporate users.Redundant servers will be installed at the npower IT center at Kingswinford.This data center will provide real time and historical data to the corporate headquarters at Swindon, the operations center at Dolgarrog, and regional centers in Wales and Scotland.
Using a broad variety of open communications, webservers, and technologies including ActiveX, JDBC, OLEDB, .Net, ODBC, OPC, OPC XML, and SQL, corporate users are kept fully appraised of operations.Installation and commissioning will be completed August 2008.
About npower renewable
npower renewables is one of the UK's leading renewable energy companies, dedicated to generating electricity using sustainable, environmentally-friendly resources. It has a wide ranging portfolio that includes both onshore and offshore wind farms, hydro plant and co-firing biomass operated through its parent company, RWE npower. Utilizing these natural resources provides significant sources of power for the UK's present and future electricity needs.The npower portfolio comprises 19 wind farms and hydro projects at 15 sites throughout the U.K.
About Emerson Process Management
Emerson Process Management, an Emerson business, is a leader in helping businesses automate their production, processing and distribution in the water and wastewater treatment, chemical, oil and gas, refining, power, pulp and paper, food and beverage, pharmaceutical and other industries. Remote Automation Solutions, a division of Emerson, is a worldwide leader in the supply and commissioning of products services, and engineered systems to the oil, gas, water, wastewater treatment and process industries. Remote Automation Solutions' products, systems and solutions are an example of Emerson's combining of superior products and technology with industry-specific engineering, consulting, project management and maintenance services.
Emerson brands include PlantWeb, Bristol, Daniel, Brooks, Fisher, Micro Motion, Rosemount, Mobrey, DeltaV, Ovation, and AMS Suite.
About Emerson
Emerson (NYSE: EMR), based in St. Louis, is a global leader in bringing technology and engineering together to provide innovative solutions to customers through its network power, process management, industrial automation, climate technologies, and appliance and tools businesses. Sales in fiscal 2006 were $20.1 billion.
