[July 15, 2011] Harris awarded contract to provide early warning of potential disturbances in regional electric grid Tweet Jul 15, 2011 (TELECOMWORLDWIRE via COMTEX) -- Communications and information technology company Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) has been awarded a five-year contract to provide a wide-area network that will help detect and avert regional electrical system disturbances in a service area that extends from Canada through 14 western US states, Harris announced yesterday. The private network will enable the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), a forum for promoting regional electric service reliability, and other participating entities to take timely actions to avoid widespread system blackouts. The company said that its network is key to the implementation of the Western Interconnection Synchrophasor Programme (WISP), whose goal is to install over 250 new or upgraded Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) across the region. These synchrophasors can identify and analyse system vulnerabilities in real time and can detect evolving disturbances in the region's bulk electric system. In addition, the synchrophasor technology can help companies see and manage intermittent renewable resources. Under the contract, financial details of which were not available, Harris initially will provide the low-latency, Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network between 18 Western power utilities at 29 different sites and two large WECC data centres. Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected] [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]