PPL Electric Utilities Taps Advanced Control Systems For Distribution Smart Grid Program

ATLANTA, GA, January 9, 2008 -- Advanced Control Systems, Inc. (ACS) announced today that it has successfully installed the first phase of its distribution reliability smart grid program for PPL Electric Utilities.  ACS completed installation at PPL of the first network portions of a self-healing smart grid automation program that ACS has branded FASTapps™.

FASTapps is an open, powerful substation platform which supports innovative smart grid real-time feeder and substation automation applications. These applications provide the utility industry its first network model-based self healing electric grid solutions for distributed applications.

PPL is working to increase the reliability of its feeders through the application of ACS smart grid technology.  FASTapps incorporates an adaptive, model-based approach designed to detect feeder faults resulting in outages to provide isolation and automatic restoration of un-faulted feeder sections.  

ACS Smart Grid Solutions Improve:

• Reliability through 'self healing' networks incorporating fault detection, isolation and restoration.
• Power quality applying loss minimization to improve power factor.
• Distribution grid efficiency with distribution network load balancing.
• Economics through applications such as Volt Var control to minimize voltage on the feeder network.

PPL Supervising Engineer Howard Slugocki said, “We are pleased to work with ACS on this important smart grid project that is expected to improve the reliability and service we provide our customers.”

Howard Slugocki will present a paper related to the deployment at the upcoming DistribuTECH conference entitled “An Innovative Approach to Distribution Automation.” Slugocki will participate in the session “Innovative Integration of Protection and Automation For Feeder Restoration” that will be held Tuesday, January 22 at 3PM.

ACS CEO Jose Barbosa concluded, “PPL has been a great company to partner with in deploying and perfecting these new smart grid solutions. FASTapps employs distributed intelligence and automated control to deliver new levels of distribution reliability and customer service.”

About Advanced Control Systems
Advanced Control Systems, an EFACEC company, is a provider of smart grid solutions to the global electric power industry. The ACS software suite provides integrated distribution and outage management, simulation, optimization, and enterprise business intelligence. ACS automation products include a wide range of flexible and cost-effective substation, distribution, and feeder automation solutions. ACS is powering the utility of the future – today. For more information, visit www.acsatlanta.com.

CONTACTS:
ACS Media Relations:
The McDonnell Group, Inc.
Don McDonnell
ACSPR@themcdonnellgroup.com
Tel: (404) 583-0003