Energy management system architecture

The energy management system (EMS) installed at Castlereagh House Control Centre (Northern Ireland) and at an emergency site is a UNIX-based system using open standards for distributed architecture. The base layered software residing on all servers is a Siemens product called EMPOWER SPECTRUM which provides capabilities for the support of electric utility operations, training of operations personnel and software maintenance and development. High computer performance is achieved by distributing the system tasks over multiple servers and workstations, allowing programs to operate in parallel to a large extent. Time critical supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) tasks run separately from processor-intensive programs such as network analysis or archiving functions while reaction times remain short under both normal and high activity conditions. (7 pages)