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LiveData Teams with InStep Software to Develop and Market Smart Grid Management Solutions [Manufacturing Close - Up]
[January 31, 2013]

LiveData Teams with InStep Software to Develop and Market Smart Grid Management Solutions [Manufacturing Close - Up]


(Manufacturing Close - Up Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) LiveData, Inc. and InStep Software announced a strategic development and marketing partnership that stands to facilitate oversight, reduce costs, and bring more efficiency to operators in the electric power industry's Smart Grid.



InStep Software is a provider of real-time data historian and predictive analytics software solutions. LiveData is a company focusing in real-time smart integration technology.

According to a release, InStep's software technology is used to continuously monitor and record the current conditions of the electric power grid. Access to this high fidelity real-time and historical information enables power providers to reliably operate their transmission and distribution assets. The software provides the data management foundation for many critical power delivery applications including energy management, distribution management, wide area measurement, centralized remedial action schemas, AMI and online asset health monitoring.


LiveData software integrates data from diverse sensors, devices, and systems to deliver one global, real-time system health view of the utility services network. It interfaces with critical components of the Distribution Smart Grid, including AMI (Automated Meter Infrastructure) and DRR (Demand Response Reserve). This is especially important because, while both provide the means to manage power flow and energy on the demand side, neither provides a way to geographically report power or telemetry loss or help on the supply side.

InStep Software and LiveData will integrate their technologies for the joint development of electric power industry solutions for integrating real-time data between measurement and monitors from different manufacturers. The collaboration has already resulted in an integrated solution that has been installed at Basin Electric Power Cooperative in North Dakota, an electric generation and transmission cooperative in the United States. The installation involves passing real-time generation data from LiveData RTI to InStep eDNA historian platform, which will help balance and predict the flow of power, resulting in cost savings and a reduction of excess generation.

"Managing the Smart Grid means having the best-of-breed technologies available, based on standards and strengthened by individual company innovations," said Jeffrey Robbins, CEO of LiveData. "This means smart partnering. Integrating our technology with InStep at Basin Electric has resulted in a world-class solution that increases reliability and controls costs. We look forward to bringing our joint solutions to additional generation, transmission, and distribution companies as they build-out the Smart Grid." "The number of SmartGrid applications in which InStep's technology plays a key role is continually growing. We look forward in collaborating with LiveData to bring new and more integrated solutions to the power industry as a result of this partnership," said John Kalanik, president of InStep Software.

The two companies offer complementary solutions for the next- generation utility services network, commonly known as the Smart Grid. For example, LiveData RTI, the company's real-time integration platform, collects, processes, and sends real-time operations data through a range of industry standard utility protocols such as ICCP, DNP, and UCA, OPC and others. InStep's eDNA historian archives and organizes this operations and asset health related data for interpretation, analysis and decision making.

Similarly, LiveData SmartGrid Manager provides real time visualization of operational, calculated, and event data, while InStep's eDNA provides historical visualization and reporting for that environment. The new LiveData - InStep partnership brings these complementary offerings together.

LiveData's Smart Grid solutions are the trusted real-time platform of choice for hundreds of electric power utilities across the world. The company's products continuously monitor, synthesize, and respond to highly complex multi-faceted processes in real-time, spanning a broad mix of distributed devices, diverse vendors' systems, protocols, and databases. LiveData technology understands the applications that monitor and control operations--SCADA, DCS, DMS, EMS, OMS; and how to flow data to and between them, across all major public and proprietary protocols, such as: ICCP/TASE.2, DNP3, IEC 61850, OPC, Modbus, and others.

InStep's eDNA software suite is an enterprise data historian platform for collecting, archiving, analyzing and reporting upon the real-time operational, asset health, and regulatory related information that is important to the success of most businesses.

More information: http://www.livedata.com ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) (c) 2013 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.

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