EDSA unveiled its patented EDSA® Power Analytics Gateway™ (or EPAG™), said to now be the industry’s leading data integration platform that allows electrical energy monitoring and management systems from major vendors to exchange data. This technology is being deployed in mission-critical applications ranging from datacenters to oil drilling platforms to microgrids around the world.
EPAG is said to solve one of the most vexing problems facing electrical system operators: the lack of networkability between competing vendors’ systems, which prohibits the sharing of data between them. Power equipment and monitoring systems from different manufacturers typically use proprietary, vendor-specific communications protocols that prevent power quality meters, breakers, transformers, generators, and their proprietary monitoring and communications systems from sharing data among one another. The absence of open communications protocols has left operators in the position of having to work with multiple information systems themselves, or manage their operations with incomplete information about the status of the electrical power infrastructure.
"EPAG is an architecture that provides for multiple interconnect standards and protocols from web services to OPC. The optimized structure works with virtually any major building management system (BMS), power management, or data acquisition system bringing Paladin Power Analytics to those customers. This vendor neutral strategy eliminates the need to add another redundant data acquisition system," said Mark A. Ascolese, Chairman and CEO of EDSA. "The result is our users get the benefit of EDSA’s patented, industry-leading Power Analytics and simulation capabilities for almost half the costs – and in one easy-to-use dashboard."
EPAG gives facility and electrical system operators an anything-to-anything networking solution that, when used with EDSA’s Paladin® Live™ or Paladin Smart Grid™ platforms, aggregates all of the real-time data being generated by formerly-proprietary equipment and systems within their infrastructure. Or, put another way, a single, seamless body of information can now be created from industry-leading management systems such as the OSIsoft® PI System®, Square D® SMS®, Siemens® Apogee®, Eaton® Foreseer® , Honeywell® Niagara Framework® , Johnson Controls® Metasys® , Viridity Energy’s Vpower®, Dassault Enovia® and Catia® systems and others or directly from discrete sensors or intelligent devices.
Armed with this virtually limitless supply of power systems data, EPAG enables Paladin Live and Paladin Smart Grid to make highly-accurate predictions about the operational state of power infrastructure, by not only attaining access to real-time data, but by comparing data results back to the original design model; variations between the as-is and as-designed readings allow operators to isolate and preempt potential problems at their earliest stages, and ensure optimal performance and energy efficiency.
By serving as a universal translator for any data acquisition system, BMS, or data-producing component in an electrical network, EPAG ensures that no clue that could point to downstream operational power problems is overlooked.
