SAN DIEGO, CA (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- nPhase, a joint venture between Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq:QCOM), announced a series of ongoing pilot Smart Grid programs with ABB Inc., a leader in power and automation technologies, for ABB's utility customers. nPhase is providing real-time wireless network connectivity and services coupled with technology from ABB Inc., which together are enabling program participants to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact.
The pilot programs demonstrated positive results with some of the country's largest electric utilities, such as Con Edison of New York, utilizing ABB's asset monitoring solution for high voltage circuit breakers. ABB's technology provides the utilities with feedback on their current equipment status and forecasted maintenance needs, which in turn may help the utilities comply with future environmental regulations and provides them potential cost savings and a layer of protection from unplanned power outages.
The utility industry is facing an aging grid system that will benefit from the ability to monitor assets efficiently and in real-time. With nPhase solutions, companies like ABB can prevent power outages, provide advanced condition-based maintenance, maintain environmental compliance standards, and reduce costs by wirelessly monitoring dispersed assets such as circuit breakers.
The ABB solution, Circuit Breaker Sentinel (CBS), gathers critical information from the utility asset to determine the health of the electricity transmission equipment. nPhase extracts the crucial data via a secure cellular wireless network and forwards the data to ABB's Asset Insight hosted web platform. This combination of sophisticated monitoring technology, smart services connectivity and complex analytics enables a true smart grid.
"Transmission networks already utilize sophisticated protection and control systems to ensure reliable power flow," said Chris Reinbold, vice president and general manager at ABB. "ABB's Asset Insight solution provides real-time, actionable information to our customers beyond what is available today. nPhase's Smart Services are an important factor in connecting these widely distributed assets. The initial feedback from the pilot applications has been very positive."
"ABB came to us wanting to create an intelligent network that allows monitoring and data analysis without requiring a lot of human intervention," said Steve Pazol, president of nPhase. "The customized solution we created is just one example of how nPhase is leading the evolution of the 'Internet of Things,' which is connecting products, objects, tools and appliances to improve the way people live."
About nPhase
nPhase, a 50/50 joint venture between Qualcomm and Verizon Wireless, provides advanced M2M wireless communications and smart services offerings across a wide variety of market segments, including healthcare, manufacturing, utilities, distribution, and consumer products. This new company leverages the global leadership in advanced connectivity technologies provided by Qualcomm and the 3G network provided by Verizon Wireless to deliver the most reliable end-to-end M2M solutions with the best coverage globally. nPhase headquarters are located at 5355 Mira Sorrento Place, Suite 100, San Diego, CA, 92121.