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SpatialNews.com Press Release
USG ties ESRI GIS System to the Turtle® Automatic Meter Reading System to Display Consumer Outages
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Elk River, Minnesota, July 15, 2003 - United Services Group (USG), Elk River, Minnesota, announced today that they have successfully tied the Barron Electric Cooperative, ESRI GIS system to the Hunt Technologies’ Turtle® automated meter reading System. This tie enables the Cooperative to easily see which members on their distribution system are out of power through their mapping system.
Barron Electric Cooperative (BEC) serves more than 16,000 members, with over 2,800 miles of distribution line in eight different counties in Northwest Wisconsin. The process of using the Turtle System for power outages was started in 2001, when the cooperative was hit by one of the worst storms in Co-op history. As a result of that storm, over 50% of the membership were without power. BEC is now 100% deployed with the Turtle System.
Dallas Sloan, Director of Operations for BEC stated: “We can now call each substation and get a Turtle Power Fail Report. With the tie USG created for us, we import this data into our new ESRI mapping system, project our system map on a wall, and quickly identify which members are without power. We feel this information not only gives us a clearer picture of how large the outage is, but how to better manage our crews. In the future, we hope to get this information out to the crews in the field, so they can see first-hand, where the trouble is and how large of an area is affected.”
The Turtle System to ESRI tie that USG developed for Barron Electric Cooperative is based on information contained in the TurtleWare® OPCenter database. Utilizing this information, we evaluate and manipulate the symbology in ESRI’s ArcMap to visually display customers that are currently "powered down". We have added a parameter to the evaluation to eliminate those customers who are known to be out for other reasons (i.e. seasonal). Additional reporting is also accomplished that provides information that is not readily available in the TurtleWare® software such as transformer, customer and mapping database information.
John Setala, Managing Principal of United Services Group stated, “This project demonstrates the inherent versatility of both the ESRI system and the Turtle System. With minimal additional programming we were able to create a virtual outage analysis system for the cooperative.”
About United Services Group
United Services Group, a department of Great River Energy, headquartered in Elk River, Minnesota, has provided a wide range of engineering and GIS services to cooperatives and municipals in the five state area surrounding Minnesota since 1988. For more information on the services performed by United Services Group, visit us on the web at www.usgweb.com.
About Hunt Technologies, Inc.
Hunt Technologies employs innovative technology to deliver an endpoint information system that increases operational efficiency while optimizing your investment dollar. EPIC™ - End Point Information & Control – provides utilities with a choice of a one-way Turtle® System, a bi-directional TS2 System, or a combination of the two. This allows utilities the flexibility to deploy the system that best meets their objectives. With more than 400 customers worldwide, Hunt is a market leader in the industry. To date, nearly 3 million endpoints have been deployed and are actively collecting information to enhance utility performance. For more information on Hunt Technologies, visit www.turtletech.com.
For Additional Information
United Services Group
John Setala
Managing Principal
Direct (763) 241-3764
Fax (763) 241-3715
www.usgweb.com
www.usgweb.net
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