RUTLAND, Vt. and YORKTOWN, N.Y., Feb.
24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vermont Electric Power Company
(VELCO) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the creation of Utopus
Insights, Inc., based in Valhalla,
NY. Utopus Insights is a new company that will strive to be
a leading provider of the next generation of intelligent energy
solutions.
VELCO, an electric transmission company owned by in-state
electric distribution companies, will be an investor and strategic
partner of Utopus Insights.
Under an agreement between VELCO and IBM Research, IBM
Research's Smarter Energy team, as well as related intellectual
property and technology, will become part of Utopus Insights. IBM
Fellow, Dr. Chandu Visweswariah, has
been named President and CEO of Utopus Insights, which will launch
in the first quarter of 2017.
"The energy industry is at the confluence of disruptive
technological and economic trends like the growth of digitization,
renewables, energy storage and electric vehicles," said Dr.
Visweswariah. "With an experienced and talented team, field-proven
technology, industry partners and a broad patent portfolio, Utopus
Insights is an advantaged start-up. The company will bring to
market a full-featured energy analytics platform, architected for
cloud (SaaS), on-premises and distributed Internet of Things (IoT)
operation. The platform will be built with open APIs that
allow integration of third party tools and will include
applications that enable best-in-class renewable forecasting, grid
asset health and network risk analysis, and Distributed Energy
Resource management."
Through its partnership with VELCO, Utopus Insights will combine
industry experience with deep analytics to convert data into
actionable insights. The goal is to create dependable,
industry-tested software that will be indispensable to the current
and growing customer demand for reliable, clean and cost-effective
energy.
"Increasing extreme weather events coupled with explosive growth
in weather-dependent renewable energy sources led VELCO to look for
new analytical tools to ensure grid reliability," said Tom Dunn, VELCO President and CEO. "When the
solution we needed didn't exist, we reached out to IBM Research and
co-created breakthrough grid management software, including the
most accurate wind and solar generation forecasting tools in the
world."
"Utopus Insights plans to bring these same solutions to other
utilities' ongoing grid transformation work. These
next-generation tools can enable our industry to continue to
deliver increased system reliability and operational performance in
an era of rapid change," Dunn continued. "Utopus Insights will
combine an established team of experts in energy analytics and
optimization, software engineering and deep utility knowledge to
offer new insights, tools and customer savings to grid
customers."
See utopusinsights.com for more information.
Terms and conditions of the agreement were not disclosed.
CONTACTS:
VELCO Contact
Kerrick Johnson
VP, Strategy
and Communications
802-770-6166
kjohnson@velco.com
IBM Contact
Chris Andrews
IBM Media
Relations
914-499-5130
candrews@us.ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM