Power Systems Operations Announces Software Development Project with Northern California Power Agency

Business Wire, Feb 7, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- Power Systems Operations and Northern California Power Agency have entered into a collaborative effort to architect, build, and implement a California Independent System Operator (CISO) Settlement and Market Clearing (SaMC) compliant settlement system.

The application will process the CISO's newly designed SaMC settlement statement and invoice XML files, validate the data for completeness, and store the data into an Oracle database. The database is designed to be open to allow efficient and transparent export of the data into the local settlement system of record.

The application will utilize Microsoft's .NET Framework and service oriented architecture to align with the CISO's technical strategy. The two companies anticipate additional components to support the CISO's ongoing SaMC project. The SaMC project is a major redesign of the CISO's settlement system and is a component of the CISO's Market Redesign and Technology Upgrade (MRTU) program.

"The SaMC project is an excellent opportunity for our organization to improve our settlement processes and systems," says Tom Breckon, NCPA IT Manager. "Building this application concurrently with the CISO as they develop their system is critical to leveraging the combined knowledge of many market participants. We look forward to working with Power Systems Operations and others in this joint effort."

Power Systems Operations is a consulting company specializing in power scheduling and settlements systems consulting and product development. The principal, Robert Sherick, has over 20 years' experience in energy systems and operations. Mr. Sherick has worked with many of the California market participants including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Southern California Edison, PPM Energy, Pacific Gas and Electric, and the California Department of Water Resources in strategy, systems implementation, and process improvement.

Established in 1968, the Northern California Power Agency (NCPA) is a California Joint Action Agency. NCPA membership is open to municipalities, rural electric cooperatives, irrigation districts and other publicly owned entities interested in the purchase, aggregation, scheduling and management of electrical energy. For nearly three decades, NCPA has successfully provided scale and skill economies devoted to the purchase, generation, transmission, pooling and conservation of electrical energy and capacity for its members.