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Ventyx Software to Leverage NASA Earth Science Data for Improved Load Forecasting

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 May 2008, 09:01 CDT

ATLANTA, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Ventyx(TM), the world's largest private software provider to the utility industry, today announced that the company's industry-leading demand and price forecasting system has been selected for an advanced NASA project designed to improve short-term load forecasting for energy utilities.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080318/CLTU015LOGO )

The project, entitled "NASA Products to Enhance Energy Utility Load Forecasting," a NASA Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES) grant award winner, will apply high-resolution weather-related Earth science to optimize the accuracy of Ventyx's short-term forecasting system, NOSTRADAMUS. Using the latest advancements in neural network technology, NOSTRADAMUS learns the relationships among any number of data inputs to automatically produce and disseminate accurate demand and price forecasts. Through the ROSES project, the accuracy of these forecasts can be improved by inputting finer resolution data and model outputs uniquely available from NASA, such as air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed and more obscure items such as ocean temperatures, offshore winds and snow pack levels.

"Ventyx's NOSTRADAMUS is a highly flexible and scalable forecasting system," said Deane S. Price, general manager of Ventyx's Energy Group. "The system can integrate data from a wide variety of sources. Empowered with more and finer-resolution data points, the system can help our clients improve their financial performance by reducing expensive and labor-intensive processes and decreasing imbalance and penalty costs to minimize demand capacity charges and reduce the use of costly peaking resources."

Ventyx partnered with Battelle, the world's largest nonprofit independent research and development organization, to bid for and win the project. According to Christopher Pestak, Battelle's manager of NASA Programs, "Load forecasting systems such as Ventyx's are powerful decision support tools for energy utilities, but we can enhance their performance even further by starting with better data. And, the better the forecast, the less unnecessary and wasted generation. As a result, this work should result in cost savings to residential, commercial and industrial energy users while improving long-term energy conservation."

Clients and Industry Experts Drive Project Goals

The NOSTRADAMUS system is used by electric and gas utilities, system operators and power pools, electric cooperatives, energy marketers and gas pipelines around the world to automatically produce and disseminate accurate demand and price forecasts. Some of these clients will join a customer group formed to guide the project's direction. The group will provide input on load forecasting, address upcoming data needs driven by climate change and help guide the transition of results from the project to the nationwide energy utility community. Included in the group are Avista Utilities, National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative and Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp.

"As an investor-owned utility providing electric and natural gas service to 633,000 customers across more than 30,000 square miles, accurate forecasts are critical to the continued success of Avista Utilities," said Kevin Christie, director, Natural Gas Planning, Avista Utilities. "So, we are excited about the opportunity to participate and help guide the ROSES project. The ability to optimize the accuracy of our load forecasts can help us achieve each of our five strategic priorities: operational excellence, responsible resource mix, customer orientation, environmental stewardship and community partnership."

"National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation sells or transports natural gas to nearly 731,000 customers in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania," said John Polka, General Manager, Gas Supply Administration, National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation. "Our success depends on staying keenly focused on customer service and the safe, reliable and efficient delivery of natural gas. We are pleased to participate in a project that will help us meet these goals, as well as provide similar benefits to the energy utility community as a whole."

The project will also be lead by a team of experts in utility forecasting software. The team will consist of representatives from Avista Utilities, Battelle, NASA Langley Research Center, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, National Fuel Gas Company, Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp. and Ventyx.

For more information on the Ventyx NOSTRADAMUS demand and price forecasting system, please visit our Website: http://www.ventyx.com/operations/nostradamus.asp

About Ventyx

Ventyx is a leading business solutions provider, delivering asset management, mobile workforce management, customer care, energy trading and risk management, energy operations, and energy analytics solutions to more than 900 energy, utility and communications customers, as well as to asset-intensive customers in selected commercial markets. With approximately 1,200 employees in more than 20 locations worldwide, Ventyx delivers best-of-breed business solutions that maximize operational and financial performance, backed by the industry's deepest available industry-specific domain expertise. For more information, visit our Website at http://www.ventyx.com/.

Ventyx is a trademark of Ventyx Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080318/CLTU015LOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

Ventyx

CONTACT: Gary Frazier, Ventyx Corporate Communications, +1-770-989-4188,gary.frazier@ventyx.com

Web site: http://www.ventyx.com/http://www.ventyx.com/operations/nostradamus.asp

Source: PRNewswire

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