Transmission & Distribution World

Aston Pennsylvania, January 19, 2010 — VSI Meter Services, Inc. announces the introduction of their proprietary AMI Smart Metering Utility Deployment System, powered by Clevest Solutions, Inc., a leading software provider of Smart Grid solutions.

This revolutionary, fully integrated end-to-end mobile workflow and asset management tool was developed specifically for VSI, an acknowledged leader in large scale AMR/AMI deployments and field meter services. Through its partnership with Clevest, the VSI solution addresses the intricacies of the Smart Grid and includes comprehensive tools with advanced customer relations management (CRM) features and specialized reports that provide insight into field operations to help increase efficiency and reduce operating costs.

“We are excited to have partnered with VSI to create the industry’s most advanced deployment solution available,” says Thomas Ligocki, CEO of Clevest Solutions. “It was designed to solve many of the challenges of deploying and supporting the utility industry’s Smart Grid infrastructure.”

Powered by Clevest’s Smart Grid Deployment and Operations Support System software, this advanced product supports utilities with post-deployment maintenance and diagnostics of network nodes. These services help utilities realize the benefits from the vast information offered by the Smart Grid.

“By combining the IT architecture of our own Work Order Management Systems with those from Clevest, we now have a true state-of-the-art deployment tool that puts VSI in front of the technology curve,” says David McGinley, vice president of business development at VSI.

The partnership between VSI and Clevest has enabled both companies to combine their individual strengths to develop a superior deployment tool, which after being fully field tested, was successfully implemented in 2009. In addition to the features offered in Clevest’s Mobile Field Force (MFF) product, such as customized work orders, GPS markers and bar coding, the advanced VSI solution offers real-time reporting capabilities with unparalleled customization features and asset tracking. Many of the special features are safety and security related, and can be custom designed to reflect specific requirements from the utility’s operating and IT cyber security policies to ensure regulatory compliance.

“With the installation of over 6 million end points during the past 20 years, our own IT experts had successfully developed resolutions to any critical issues as we encountered them. However, with the growing complexity of the Smart Grid, we needed to go beyond the next level of MFF,” says Ted Fiala, vice president of operations at VSI. “By linking up the unique skills and deployment knowledge of our own IT group with the extraordinary experience in software design provided by Clevest, we have jointly developed a handheld tool that captures all of the facets of a smart meter deployment, including real-time integration.”

About VSI Meter Services, Inc.

VSI Meter Services, Inc. specializes in large AMR and AMI deployments for electric, natural gas and water utilities and related field meter services including non-compatible meter exchanges, atmospheric corrosion remediation and manual meter reading. With headquarters in Aston, Pennsylvania, VSI has deployment facilities across the United States and parts of Canada. VSI is part of Utilicon Solutions, Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Asplundh Tree Expert Co., the world’s largest supplier of outsourced field services dedicated to solving the manpower needs of utilities. Asplundh is a privately-held company, founded in 1928, which currently employs more than 26,000 people.

For additional information, visit the company Web site at www.vsimeterservices.com .

About Clevest Solutions, Inc.

Clevest Solutions, Inc. is the leading software provider of Smart Grid Deployment and Operations Support System (OSS) solutions and provides the most complete and flexible end-to-end mobile workforce management solutions in the utility industry. Clevest’s application suite provides modular tools that include Dispatch, Scheduling, AVL, In-vehicle Navigation, Mobile, and a patent pending Configuration tool. The company’s award winning applications integrate the latest innovations in software, wireless technologies, and mobile devices to get jobs done faster, smoother, safer, and increase efficiency and reliability. For more information on Clevest Solutions, visit www.clevest.com.

Contact:

David McGinley,

Vice President, Business Development,

VSI Meter Services Inc.

Phone: 800-606-7981, ext. 2485

E-mail: DMcGinley@Asplundh.com

Bill Lee

Marketing Manager

Clevest Solutions Inc.

Phone: 604-214-9700 ext. 245

E-mail: Bill.Lee@Clevest.com

Philadelphia, PA, January 19, 2010 — UtiliCon Solutions, Ltd., a subsidiary of Asplundh Tree Expert Co., announced on December 29, 2009, the purchase of certain assets of Highlines Construction Company, Inc. based in Westwego, Louisiana. Highlines, founded in 1969, provides electric transmission, substation and distribution system construction, maintenance, street lighting and related services in the southern United States.

Bryan Beadle, former vice president of Highlines, will have operational responsibility for the Highlines porganization and will report to Greg Holman, vice President of UtiliCon Solutions. Beadle said, “I’m looking forward to continuing to provide outstanding service to all Highlines customers and to future growth opportunities with help from the considerable resources that UtiliCon can offer.”

George Graham, President of Utilicon Solutions, said, “We are very pleased to be adding Highlines to the UtiliCon family of companies. With Highlines’ strong operational performance, safety culture, management team and utility experience, they will bolster our existing construction presence in the South. I welcome the Highlines employees who joined our team and look forward to a very successful 2010 and beyond.”

About UtiliCon and Highlines

UtiliCon Solutions, Ltd., an Asplundh company, is a leading national provider of infrastructure services for utilities. UtiliCon safely and efficiently designs, builds and maintains electric, gas, and telecommunications transmission and distribution systems through our experienced network of operating companies. Highlines Construction Company, Inc. is now a Utility Lines Construction Services, Inc. (ULCS) company. ULCS is a subsidiary of UtiliCon Solutions, Ltd.

Visit www.utiliconltd.com for more information.

Minneapolis, MN, January 5, 2010 — Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) and Indian partner, Chemtrols Ltd. have been awarded a comprehensive new contract by The Tata Power Company, Ltd. of Mumbai, India; a multiphase project to upgrade the automation infrastructure that serves the central Mumbai and surrounding areas. The scope of this contract includes the replacement of multiple, nodal SCADA systems that monitor and control district level grids, as well as a new Unified master system and Operator Training Simulator, intended to manage all grid operations from the Central Control Room (CCR) at Tata Power’s headquarters in Mumbai.

Originally founded more than nine decades ago, Tata Power is India’s largest private utility; currently maintaining a Generation Capacity of more than 3000 MW, servicing millions of India consumers; utilizing a variety of generation resources that include thermal, hydro, solar and wind power. Apart from Mumbai and Delhi, Tata Power has generation capacities in Jojobera, Jharkhand and Karnataka; and has undertaken and completed various international projects throughout the region.

Phase One of this project—the replacement and upgrade of three of Tata Power’s seven nodal SCADA systems throughout Mumbai and implementation of a state-of-the-art new Unified SCADA system at Tata Power’s Mumbai CCR—is poised to significantly improve and modernize Tata Power’s Mumbai power transmission and distribution grid operations, through the unification and consolidation of real-time grid monitoring and control; resulting in a dramatic enhancement in operational efficiency, cyber-security and overall system reliability.

To be implemented in close cooperation with OSI’s Indian partner, Chemtrols Ltd., this comprehensive and evolutionary new SCADA project is set to include an advanced distributed and multi-tiered real-time data management system and synchronization between nodal and master stations, also featuring advanced Operator Training Simulator functionality and employing OSI’s state-of-the-art Data Engineering and Maintenance Subsystem; Real-time and Historical Trending; Communications Front-end Processing; Inter-Control Center Communications Protocol (ICCP); Historical Information System and Data Archiving; Real-time Calculations; Alarm Management; Energy Accounting; Common Information Model Interface; Switching Order Management; and Quality of Service Indices products, as well as the enhanced functionality of OSI’s premier Microsoft® .NET based Graphical User Interface.

“Everyone at OSI is extremely excited about this significant new project with Tata Power. Tata Power is a very prestigious company with a near-century long history of providing excellent service to India’s consumers; contributing the necessary energy to support their impressive economic growth and foothold within the global economy. This new project to comprehensively upgrade Tata Power’s Mumbai power infrastructure marks a significant point in the histories of all parties involved. This new implementation of a complex, overarching, securely networked SCADA infrastructure for the service of millions of India citizens is an impressive project by any standard and we are very proud to be supplying the state-of-the-art technology behind its execution. Smarter and more comprehensive grid implementations such as this one are promising to become the industry standard, moving forward; and evidenced by this cooperative effort with Tata Power and our technology partner, Chemtrols Ltd., OSI is proving to be the architects behind the industry’s Smart Grid future,” said Bahman Hoveida, President and CEO of OSI.

About Tata Power

Tata Power (www.tatapower.com) is India’s largest private sector utility, with an installed generation capacity of more than 3000 MW and a presence in all segments of the power sector; Generation (including thermal, hydro, solar and wind) - “Maithon Power Ltd. with Damodar Valley Corporation for a 1050 MW Mega Power Project at Jharkhand”, Transmission - ‘Powerlinks Transmission Ltd.’ with Power Gird Corporation Ltd. for Transmission of Power, and Distribution - “North Delhi Power Limited” with Delhi Vidyut Board for distribution in North Delhi. Tata Power has acquired a 30% stake in Indonesian coal companies and is developing the first 4000 MW Ultra Mega Power Project at Mundra (Gujarat), based on super-critical technology. With a consistent record of technology leadership, customer care and redefinition of the Indian power sector, Tata Power is poised for a fivefold expansion and is committed to ”lighting up lives” for generations to come.

About Chemtrols Ltd.

Founded in 1975, Chemtrols Ltd. (www.chemtrols.com) is currently the leading solution provider in analytical systems, process instruments, environment monitoring, fire & gas detection, terminal automation, flow metering & custody transfer, SCADA and automation systems. Chemtrols has supplied instrumentation and process control systems to almost all Chemical and Hydrocarbon Processing industries in India. Chemtrols’ SCADA and RTU systems cater to a number of utilities in India. Overseas references cover Asia Pacific, Middle East, Europe, USA and Canada.

About OSI

OSI (www.osii.com) provides open, state-of-the-art and high-performance automation solutions to utilities worldwide. These solutions include Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Network Management Systems (NMS), Energy Management Systems (EMS), Distribution Management Systems (DMS) and Generation management Systems (GMS); as well as individual software and hardware products; and SmartGrid solutions for utility operations. OSI is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

For additional information regarding this news release, please contact news@osii.com

Substation and transformers to ensure efficiency and reliability as part of electrical balance of plant

Zurich, Switzerland, Jan.5, 2010 – ABB, a power and automation technology group, has won an order worth $17 million for the electrification of a gas-based thermal power plant to be built near the Akshabulak oilfield in southern Kazakhstan.The order was booked in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Owned by Crystal Management Ltd, a private investment company, the project supports the government’s initiative to reduce environmental pollution by using natural gas burn-off to generate cleaner electricity.

ABB will be responsible for the engineering and commissioning of the electrical facilities for the power plant. The scope of the project includes a 110/6 kV substation and turnkey electrical Balance of Plant (eBoP) solution. Key products to be supplied include power and distribution transformers, an Extended Automation System 800xA power-plant control system, and a micro SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) for real-time monitoring.The project is expected to be completed by 2011.

“ABB technologies to be deployed at this plant will help improve energy efficiency and contribute to reducing environmental impact, helping to deliver cleaner power to consumers in the region,” said Claudio Facchin, global head of ABB’s substation business, within the company’s Power Systems division. “Energy-efficient generation processes contribute significantly toward optimizing fuel consumption and lowering emissions.”

ABB has previously executed several power projects in the region aimed at improving power supply, enhancing grid reliability and boosting energy efficiency.

About ABB

ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 120,000 people.

For help with any technical terms in this release, please go to: www.abb.com/glossary

Contact:

Head of Communications

ABB Power Products & Power Systems

Harmeet Bawa

Tel: +41 43 317 6480

Fax: +41 43 317 6482

harmeet.bawa@ch.abb.com

Karen Strong

Communications Manager Medium Voltage Products Globally, Marketing Communications Manager Power Products and Systems UK

ABB Limited

Oulton Road

ST15 0RS, Stone, Staffordshire, UNITED KINGDOM

Phone: +44 1785 825144

e-mail: karen.strong@gb.abb.com

MOUNT AIRY, N.C., Dec. 21, 2009 — Pike Electric Corporation a national energy solutions provider, was awarded the “Silver Safety Award” by Liberty Mutual Group on December 17, 2009. Jimmy R. Hicks, the Senior Vice President of Engineering and Substation Construction, received the award on behalf of the Engineering and Substation team and stated, “All the credit goes to the employees.”

The requirements for Liberty’s Safety Award are based on the DART rates as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Companies who apply for the award must have completed greater than 200,000 work hours with a DART rate that is 60% better than their industry average. Between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2008, Pike’s Engineering and Substation Team completed 1,091,266 work hours with a OSHA DART rate that was 68% better than the industry.

Ken Flechler, Pike’s Vice President of Environmental, Health and Safety, said, “This excellent achievement says a lot about the premium we put on safety and our commitment on maintaining safety on our jobsites. We continue to spread our message about safety in an increasingly engaging manner and look forward to even greater reduction in our work place injuries.”

Foxborough, MA, December 15, 2009 — The Simple Logger® II Model L404 is a four channel event data logger. It is a cost effective, advance design data logger incorporating features and functions not found in data loggers costing two to three times its price. Event data is stored only as the event occurs. It works with dry contact closure or 0-3 and 0-5VDC logic levels.

An internal memory allows storing more than 50,000 events; more than enough for most data collection needs. Event measurement scaling is user programmable. Battery operation and compact size allows for installation in tight locations without the need for external power. A series of front panel LEDs provide a quick status of the logger’s

state and memory usage.

DataView® application software is included, providing real-time viewing of measurement data, even while recording. Instrument configuration, data storage and report generation from a pre-defined template or operator custom designed templates are also standard features.

Applications:

• Determine machinery run/down times

• Determine event sequencing

• Count events and records

• Record event duration

• Machine load monitoring

CONTACT:

Kathleen Annis, Marketing Communications Manager

AEMC® Instruments

200 Foxborough Blvd.

Foxborough, MA 02035

Phone: 508-698-2115

Fax: 508-698-2118

marketing@aemc.com

TECHNICAL CONTACT:

Ray Brady, Technical Engineer

techsupport@aemc.com

November 23, 2009, Kearneysville, WV — Schonstedt announces the launch of the FaultMaster, the first Schonstedt ground fault locator. The company has spent three years in research and development and testing on this instrument, and reports that the FaultMaster lives up to the Schonstedt family standards for quality, precision, and durability.

This new locator detects ground faults in direct buried cables when insulation damage causes a “leak” to ground. A transmitter forces a signal into the cable, and the “A-frame” is walked along the cable path until the fault is detected and displayed on the instrument screen. The A-frame is lightweight and very easy to use. The Tx5™ transmitter uses rechargeable batteries, and the A-frame uses 4 AA batteries.

Click here to download a .zip file containing FaultMaster Press Release text and print-ready product images (1.7 Mb)

Click here to download the FaultMaster Product Brochure .pdf file

Click here to go to the Schonstedt Web site featuring the new FaultMaster

Contact:

Bob Ebberson

Director of Business Development

Schonstedt Instrument Company

100 Edmond Rd

Kearneysville, WV 25430

Tel: 800-999-8280 / 304-725-1050 ext. 4754

Fax: 304-725-1095

www.schonstedt.com

Fountain, Colorado — The City of Fountain, Colorado, will receive $2,123,500.00 to help fund its smart grid energy management project. The grant is part of $3.4 billion investment in smart grid technology nationwide. Local matching funds will be leveraged to create jobs and investment.

“This is great news for Fountain and an example of a successful collaboration by four municipalities” states Larry Patterson, City of Fountain Utilities Director. The application for funding request came from Fountain, Fort Collins, Loveland, and Longmont, who teamed up to make a more attractive package for stimulus funding consideration. Fountain received the second largest amount of funding in the project, with Fort Collins receiving the largest amount.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided funding, the majority of which will go toward installing a communications infrastructure system, servers, software and 16,000 smart electric meters. Currently, residents have to wait until they receive their electricity bill to learn how much power their homes consumed in the previous month. Installing the “automated meter infrastructure” will provide better communication on energy use between customers and energy providers. It opens up innovative possibilities, offering customers the choice to have energy use information at their fingertips. This system will enable integration of local renewable energy sources, such as solar panels, and future plug-in electric vehicles.

Customer chooses whether to utilize in-home features to reduce energy consumption and monthly bill

“While every outside meter will be replaced, it’s up to the customer to decide whether to utilize the enhanced features of the in-home display and switches to help cut their energy use to lower their bills” states Mike Vialpando, the Fountain Smart Grid Project Manager. In addition to the voluntary option of choosing enhanced features that enable in-home displays and smart thermostats, other optional features available at the customer’s request include air conditioning and electric water heater control switches.

The grant money will also pay for automated switches for the city’s electrical grid, which will allow Fountain Utilities to continuously optimize the grid.

“The switches allow us to automatically reconfigure our system to operate more efficiently, and reduce outage time” states Mike Vialpando. “Electrical grid security measures will also be paid for with the grant money,” he concludes.

Meter replacements will start in mid 2010 and utility customers will be notified when their replacement is scheduled. For more information about the Smart Grid project, contact Customer Service at 719-322-2010.

About Fountain Utilities

Fountain Utilities, an enterprise of the City of Fountain, delivers electricity and water to the City of Fountain and electricity to Widefield and portions of Security. The Electric Department serves approximately 40,000 residents of the Fountain Valley.

About the City of Fountain

The City of Fountain is a full service municipality with its own electric and water utilities. Fountain is one of the fastest growing communities in El Paso County, with a recent 7% average annual growth; translating to about 400 - 500 new home starts a year. Its current population is approximately 21,000, according to 2006 Census Bureau estimates. Founded in 1859 and incorporated in 1903, Fountain remains one of the oldest incorporated towns in the Pikes Peak region. The Mayor and a 6-member City Council governs the city, with advisory boards and commissions such as the Planning Commission, Park and Recreation Board, and the Economic Development Committee. The City Manager administers all the departments. Fountain is a Home Rule City.

The city’s community spirit and commitment to constantly improving the quality of life helped to make Fountain an “All-American City” in 2002. Two years prior, the city was proclaimed the “Millennium City” because the local socioeconomic profile so closely mirrored that of the USA. A brand new library, new city hall and first class school facilities are evidence of the teamwork. For more information, go to www.fountaincolorado.org.

Columbus, Ohio, October 26, 2009 –- Improving Smart Grid and overhead distribution reliability and the emergence of predictive technologies will be the focus of an important utility conference taking place in Columbus, Ohio, February 9-11, 2010.

The Smart Grid & Overhead Distribution Reliability Conference explores the latest reliability measures and technologies being used by utilities to prepare distribution networks for the higher standard required for Smart Grid data transmission lines.

“Run-to-failure reliability strategies are incompatible with Smart Grid requirements,” declares John Lauletta, President and CEO of Exacter, Inc., one of the conference sponsors. “Clean signals for data transmission are the new standard in conjunction with minimizing outage time. I think a lot of people will be surprised at the new technologies and solutions available for eliminating line interference.”

Paul Feldman, Board Chairman of the Midwest ISO and conference speaker, will be sharing insights from his recent paper on improving distribution reliability. “Improving the reliability of our distribution system is perhaps the biggest challenge for implementing Smart Grid,” says Feldman. “More than 80% of all outages are directly attributed to distribution failure, but technologies and approaches now exist to significantly change that.”

Conference speakers will present cutting-edge methods being employed by utilities across the country that are making an impact on distribution reliability. Utility case studies showing how predictive technologies identify equipment in weakened, pre-fail conditions will also be presented.

Professors from The Ohio State University who have done extensive research on why equipment fails will share their insights, and the conference will also explore business case scenarios for addressing SAIFI/SAIDI reduction.

“If you will be deploying Smart Grid technology, if you are looking for new ideas for reducing SAIFI/SAIDI, if you want to see the latest technologies and ideas for improving distribution reliability, this is the one conference in the utility industry you should attend,” concludes Lauletta. “It’s a conference about new ideas and new approaches for addressing the higher-reliability standards Smart Grid demands.”

Conference-goers will receive 1.5 continuing education credits (CEUs) from IEEE for attending. Cost of the conference is $795 for IEEE members before December 9 — $995 for all attendees after December 9. For more conference information: http://www.exacterinc.com/conference.html

CONTACT:

Colleen Groezinger

Exacter, Inc.

cgroezinger@exacterinc.com

614-880-9320

November 3, 2009 — The Simple Logger® II Model ML912 is a two-channel AC current recording device powered by alkaline batteries. It incorporates two user selectable measurement ranges of 0.5 to 100A and 5 to 1000 A. Line tracking is performed such that 64 samples over one line cycle are taken. Frequency tracking is performed over the range of ±2Hz around the nominal line frequency (50 or 60Hz). Harmonic measurements are calculated from these 64 samples (and are only available from the Simple Logger® II Control Panel within the DataView® software).

The Simple Logger® II stores TRMS at user programmable rates of up to eight times per second. TRMS calculations are performed on a single line cycle.

The main advantage of the logger is its ability to perform a variety of recording tasks with easy and intuitive setup from a computer using DataView® software.

Analog information on the input is sampled and converted to a digital signal. This digital signal is processed and stored along with scale and time

information. An optically isolated Universal Serial Bus (USB) port provides for the transfer of data from the instrument’s internal memory to the

computer for analysis.

CONTACT:

Kathleen Annis, Marketing Communications Manager

AEMC® Instruments

200 Foxborough Blvd.

Foxborough, MA 02035

Phone: 508-698-2115

Fax: 508-698-2118

marketing@aemc.com

TECHNICAL CONTACT:

Ray Brady, Technical Engineer

techsupport@aemc.com

Applications:

• Split phase load monitoring

• Neutral and ground current monitoring

• Intermittent problem detection

• Harmonic current monitoring using DataView® software

• Machine load monitoring