ABB and Tropos Networks Demonstrate Distribution Automation Over Wireless Broadband Mesh Network
Successful interoperability testing provides value to utilities seeking smart grid solutions
Washington, DC, September 23, 2009 - ABB, the leading power and automation technology company, and Tropos Networks, a market leader in wireless IP broadband mesh networks, announced successful completion of interoperability testing for their products used to create smart grid solutions for utilities.
This announcement was made today as part of activities at GridWeek 2009, a major smart grid conference held this week in Washington, DC.
The interoperability testing demonstrates the importance in adoption of industry standards and collaboration between vendors to help utilities build highly reliable, self-healing smart power grids.
"The interoperability between ABB distribution automation products and Tropos' GridCom(TM) is great news for utilities," said Gary Rackliffe, ABB vice president, Smart Grids. "It validates Tropos' wireless broadband mesh as a reliable foundation for building WAN smart grid communications for a wide range of mission critical smart grid applications."
Deployed together, the companies' solutions will provide utilities with a highly reliable, intelligent distribution automation solution, and much more. ABB's Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) -- reclosers, switches and capacitor controllers, remotely located on utility poles, collect critical information such as voltage fluctuations. GridCom connects to ABB IEDs and information is communicated over the GridCom network, back to a local substation where ABB's COM600 gathers and intelligently analyzes the data.
The interoperability testing validates the interoperability and performance of ABB and Tropos GridCom. Smart grid distribution automation applications require a reliable, secure, multi-megabit, and low latency IP communications network which GridCom delivers.
"We are pleased to have been selected to demonstrate our interoperability with ABB's market-leading distribution automation solutions, further validating the importance of industry standards," said Tom Ayers, president and CEO of Tropos. "We look forward to continuing to collaborate with them as we help utilities build smart networks to support a wide range of smart grid applications."
COM600, the station automation device of ABB, is an all-in-one communication gateway, automation platform and user interface solution for utility and industrial distribution substations.
Tropos' GridCom is a standards-based mesh network for smart grid WAN communications, incorporating reliability, security, scalability and multimegabit broadband performance to enable aggregation of multiple smart grid applications over a single cost effective network. GridCom solutions are available in 2.4 GHz and other licensed and unlicensed bands.
ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in around 100 countries and employs about 120,000 people. The company's North American operations, headquartered in Cary, North Carolina, employ about 15,000 people in 20 manufacturing and other major facilities.
For more information, please contact:
ABB Media Relations
Bill Rose
919-807-5743 - phone
919-244-4879 - cell
bill.rose@us.abb.com
Tropos Networks
Denise Barton
408-470-7397
denise.barton@tropos.com
