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ABB's System 800xA on Ice(land)

08/07/2008

Zurich, Switzerland, August 7, -- Reykjavik Energy selected ABB to upgrade and integrate five utility automation systems -- geothermal power plants, district heating, water and wastewater –- into a single state-of-the-art 800xA extended automation system that will be operated from a central control room. Reykjavik Energy is Iceland’s largest utility, providing almost 70 percent of the country’s population –- including the capital, Reykjavik –- with electric power, district heating, hot and cold water and wastewater treatment.

The company operates two geothermal power plants which provide 240 megawatts (MW) of electricity and 700 MW of heat to some 26,000 homes and businesses in 20 communities.

According to Reykjavik Energy, the district heating system is the “largest and most sophisticated in the world.” Hot water is pumped via 2,500 kilometers of pipes to heat buildings and keep pavement and outdoor parking lots free of ice in winter, as well as supply the many outdoor swimming pools and spas with a constant stream of hot geothermal water.

Cold groundwater is distributed to consumers throughout the Greater Reykjavik area, and the region’s sewage is piped to several wastewater treatment plants throughout the area.

ABB supplied the original distributed control systems for the utilities in the late 1990s and has evolved all five systems to its Extended Automation System 800xA in accordance with the advanced and growing requirements of Reykjavik Energy.

Reykjavik Energy is in an expansive phase of development, acquiring and integrating other utilities and extending its geographical reach and customer base. System 800xA enables the customer to easily integrate the control systems, databases and automation hardware of future acquisitions.

The customer’s previous investments in PLCs (programmable logic controllers) supplied by a diverse array of vendors have all been integrated into the System 800xA solution. Some 50,000 I/Os (input/output) data signals are processed by the solution.