Press/Announcements

OATI Completes Smart House Phase I

Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI) finishes Phase I of the OATI Smart House, installing next generation technology to optimize energy usage.

Minneapolis, MN: January 21, 2013 
– Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI) is pleased to announce the completion of Phase I of its Smart House. The OATI Smart House laboratory was designed to test and demonstrate Smart Grid technologies for improved energy efficiency, technology interoperability, enhanced grid reliability, and supply economics.

The OATI Smart House, located on the OATI North Campus in Minneapolis, Minnesota, looks like a typical suburban home from the outside, and even contains common appliances and electrical and mechanical systems found in most modern residential homes. However, it is nothing like the usual suburban home on the inside.

The OATI Smart House is equipped with advanced technologies, including solar photovoltaic generation, battery storage, electric vehicle charger, thermal storage, and a host of instrumentation, sub-metering and controls for continuous monitoring, analysis and control of each equipment and household loads. Test benches are also installed for evaluating various third party products and capabilities, certifying equipment through the OATI Smart House Program, benchmarking, interoperability, and cyber security tests.

The next phase of the project, already underway, is to integrate the equipment with OATI webDistribute, OATI webDispatch, OATI webMeter, and OATI webTrader software solutions to demonstrate a comprehensive set of capabilities to manage and optimize energy usage and coordinate the control of the capabilities with distribution grid conditions and wholesale energy market prices. The OATI Smart House laboratory includes the opportunity to evaluate various technologies and operating strategies, e.g., net-Zero operation, Micro-Grids, supply of energy and ancillary services from demand-side resources, and the overall integration of these capabilities with bulk power operations.

“We are at an important juncture in substantially modernizing the electric system,” said Sasan Mokhtari, OATI President and CEO. “Demand-side, distributed and renewable resources, as well as automation and software applications, will play an important role in this modernization. The OATI Smart House will play an important role in developing these new technologies and proving their viability in the marketplace.”

OATI provides innovative software solutions that simplify, streamline, and empower the operational tasks required in today’s energy commerce and Smart Grid. With 1,200 customers across North America, OATI successfully deploys large, complicated and diverse mission-critical applications committed to industry standards and stringent NERC CIP guidelines. OATI is the leading provider of Smart Grid, Energy Trading and Risk Management, Transmission Scheduling, Congestion Management, and Market Management products and services, with headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota and an office in Redwood City, California. For more information, please contact sales@oati.net.