Press/Announcements

Wake Electric Cooperative Selects OATI to Provide Conservation Voltage Reduction Solution

Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI) to provide CVR solution leveraging the Wake Electric AMI Infrastructure and utilizing voltage regulators and capacitors to achieve power/energy demand reduction.  

Minneapolis, MN: January 07, 2014 – OATI has been selected to provide Wake Electric Membership Corp. (Wake) with a Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR) System, using the OATI webDistribute Demand Response (DR) application. This solution integrates with Wake’s Smart Grid communications infrastructure, built on Sensus USA, Inc. (Sensus) FlexNet™, which provides voltage data acquisition and monitoring and control of grid field devices, in conjunction with Wake’s SCADA System. The OATI solution is highly scalable and will be implemented across all 19 of their substations.

By establishing the topological relation between AMI measured Service Voltages and Voltage Regulating Devices and Capacitors, OATI webDistribute will provide an enormous return on investment for Wake by maximizing energy and demand savings without exceeding voltage guidelines that could impact end consumers.

Driven by a Real-Time modeling and decision-making software system, OATI webDistribute’s CVR functionality will enable Wake to utilize system flexibility to gain economic and reliability benefits by decreasing load consumption through optimal management of voltage and reactive power. It will allow Wake to create dispatchable energy and ancillary service products for both economic and reliability purposes.

OATI’s solution provides Wake with a highly cost-effective method to save its members money, while also reducing Wake’s peak demand requirements. Utilizing Real-Time controls with voltage, load, and power factor feedback mechanisms ensure a safe and reliable solution.

“We are very pleased to have been selected by Wake to provide OATI’s advanced CVR solution to serve its electric needs,” said Sasan Mokhtari, Ph.D., President and CEO of OATI. “This is a great testament to the capabilities and features of OATI’s Smart Energy technology.”

“Wake Electric feels that there is a great opportunity for lowering the utility’s peak demand, and creating savings that will ultimately get passed down to our membership.  OATI is offering one of the most sophisticated ways of using a hosted software solution to leverage and integrate existing Smart Grid technologies for optimal demand response applications,” said Don Bowman, Manager of Engineering at Wake.

About OATI
OATI provides innovative software solutions that simplify, streamline, and empower the operational tasks required in today’s energy commerce and Smart Grid. With more than 1,300 customers in North America, OATI successfully deploys large, complicated, and diverse mission-critical applications committed to industry standards and stringent NERC CIP guidelines.
OATI (www.oati.com) is a leading provider of Smart Grid, Energy Trading and Risk Management, Transmission Scheduling, Congestion Management, and Market Management products and services. OATI is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with an office in Redwood City, California. For more information, please contact sales@oati.net.

About Wake
Wake Electric is a member-owned, rural electric utility located just northeast of Raleigh, North Carolina.  Wake serves approximately 37,000 homes and business, with a load that is nearly 97% residential. Wake’s 3,100 miles of distribution lines serve parts of seven different counties.