TAVA & RW BECK "ELECTRIC UTILITY" VENTURE - HIGHLIGHTS
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RW Beck: Consulting engineering firm with over 1,000 utility clients.
Contract with CMS
High-power utility analyst on Nightly Business Report named CMS as his #1 utility to buy for the deregulation era. Feb 12
Contract with PacifiCorp
Who's PacifiCorp? Message 3424229
Several other Electric Utility proposals outstanding
Expected to close by the end of this month.
Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) - 35+ utilities represented.
Presented as a "designated solution provider".
Western Power Producers Conference - 20+ utilities represented.
Presenting as a "designated solution provider".
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RW Beck is a consulting engineering firm with 500 employees operating from 10 offices across the U.S. The firm specializes in providing engineering services to electric utilities, particularly in the area of risk assessment and planning. Beck's utility client list numbers more than 1,000.
January 29 TAVA signed agreement with RW Beck to form a joint venture to address the market for year 2000 (Y2K) compliance in the process control and embedded system layer in the electric utility industry.
The venture will operate under an exclusive license to apply TAVA's Plant Y2K One(TM) product to the electric utility industry and will modify the product to meet the particular requirements of the industry. Modifications will include extension of TAVA's compliance database to include process automation components commonly applied in power generation, transmission and distribution.
''We believe this venture model may have ready application to some other vertical markets outside the company's immediate experience base, one that we are currently considering is that of Y2K embedded system compliance in hospitals and bio-medical systems.'' John Jenkins - TAVA CEO
biz.yahoo.com
TAVA has a major developing market in electric utility deregulation, which will be at least a 10-year event of mergers, acquisitions and new entrants. TAVA is rapidly gaining recognition among utilities, and while the stock market may be looking past this arena, TAVA management is smartly positioning TAVA as the "go to" company for the special needs facing utilities both in the Y2K era, and in the substantially longer period of adjustment to deregulation we have already entered. This is a major story for long term investors. Karl Drobnic - "VENTURE RETURNS" Newsletter
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Within a typical electric utility, embedded logic control is prevalent in every facet of operation; from load dispatch and remote switchyard breaker control to nuclear power plant safety systems and fossil plant boiler control systems.
Whole generating units (generally, gas turbines) are controlled from miles away by personnel adjusting system loads in response to peak demands. Embedded logic control is the dirty little Y2K secret of all production facilities (manufacturing and utilities) that has the most significant potential to bring whole companies to their knees.
WHY DID TAVA & RW BECK JOIN FORCES?????
Power grid problems. Hawaiian Electric Company ran tests for Year 2000 compliance in a simulator and found that "it simply stopped working". Part of its generation and transmission system would stop, and part would deliver power "at higher frequencies".
cv.nrao.edu Aug '97
Power Plant Failure. Embedded controller test shuts down 500 MW power plant....
techstocks.com
Automated systems are indeed widespread throughout power utilities. Exposure to the industry would in my opinion rate as extreme. At Western Power ...
techstocks.com
Year 2000 computer and embedded controls problem presents the most challenging unreviewed safety questions in the history of nuclear energy.
accsyst.com
Control systems in power plants,T&D, and offices all depend on "embedded software" that might fail at the turn of the century. This "Year 2000 Problem" is quite different from the well-publicized Y2K problem in utility business software applications running on mainframe computers ... impact could potentially be severe and widespread.
epri.com
MORE real life examples of Y2K related issues that have been discovered in the electric utility industry. Some have happened during actual Y2K testing; others areincidental events that have direct correlation to Y2K issues.
techstocks.com
Letter & Questions for Engineers at Power Utilities Who are Dealing With Y2K & Embedded Systems
ourworld.compuserve.com
BASIN ELECTRIC
Dave Anderson, year-2000 expert at Basin Electric, said precautions must be taken before the calendar rolls over to Jan. 1, 2000. At that moment, everything from alarm clocks and automated teller machines to traffic lights and power grid systems could immediately fail.
basinelectric.com
KNOXVILLE UTILITIES BOARD
Knoxville Utilities Board offices will become a computerized time machine next Labor Day weekend ... as time leaps ahead more than 15 months ... That's when KUB will run computer system clocks forward to ensure that the utility is properly ''inoculated'' against a potentially fatal case of the ''millennium bug'' ..... 2 to 4 percent of computers with embedded microchips -- perhaps 2 million devices could fail, adversely affecting everything from telephone systems and fax machines to military messaging systems, automatic lawn sprinklers & medical pacemaker devices.
knoxnews.com
Cheryl |
