Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, today announced that Essent Local Energy Solutions (ELES) has successfully implemented a new utility geographical information system (GIS) for the design, management, and operation of its growing district heating network with the help of Bentley sisNET. ELES has determined that Bentley sisNET not only is more cost-effective than its previous system, but that its built-in data model specific to district heating makes documentation of the network more accurate and reliable.
This powerful software allows all types of utility networks to be documented and accessed within a single user interface using a single data store. Driving the project was new Dutch government legislation requiring energy utilities to split or unbundle their network, production, and trade operations. This made it essential that ELES replace its GE-Smallworld GIS from Enexis (Essent’s former grid company) and migrate all existing data to a new system.
Koen Albers, ELES team manager of Project Support, commented, “Our recent efforts started with clear project goals and scope, resulting in a successful implementation with which I’m quite happy. Indeed, Bentley sisNET has fulfilled our needs and met or exceeded our expectations. We wanted a cost-effective application that didn’t need customization, and we wanted all the functionality we had in our previous system but with necessary improvements. The entire Bentley sisNET system, including complete data migration, has been implemented on time and within budget. Another benefit is that the Bentley community in the Netherlands is growing with two more implementations of Bentley sisNET – in the electricity transmission and distribution industry.”
Richard Zambuni, Bentley global marketing director, said “ELES has emerged as a leader in sustainable district heating solutions, so we were very excited to work with them to implement Bentley sisNET, with a complete migration of their existing data in a very tight timeframe. The Bentley team worked closely with the ELES project team to define the requirements to ensure the timely delivery of a fully functioning solution. We were even able to offer new capabilities to automate compliance with new ‘call-before-you-dig’ legislation to provide below-ground asset information to mobile workers, replacing a slow and expensive manual process.”
Bentley sisNET was a natural choice for ELES because it interoperates with the utility’s existing Bentley sisHYD network analysis and thermal-hydraulic calculation software. The new system enables data to be instantly available to the Bentley sisHYD network modeling and analysis application for hydraulic and thermal calculations, which are necessary to optimize the piping in the district heating networks.
For more information about Bentley sisNET, visitwww.bentley.com/districtheatingandcooling.
