OATI Awarded East River Electric Power Cooperative DERMS Contract

OATI webSmartEnergy^® DERMS will optimize load management for Co-op Members

Minneapolis, MN (December 21, 2022) – Open Access Technology International, Inc. (OATI) proudly announces that East River Electric Power Cooperative, Inc. (EREPC), a leading generation and transmission utility, has selected OATI’s webSmartEnergy^® solution to optimize demand management, reduce costs and improve grid reliability and resiliency for its members. The ten-year contract award will see OATI’s webSmartEnergy^® DERMS provide a future-ready platform to support East River’s members today, and the ability to optimize future Distributed Energy Resource (DER) assets as they proliferate throughout its members’ service territories.

“East River has been a leader in demand side management since the 1980s, and this new partnership with OATI will continue to put East River ahead of the curve in helping our members save on wholesale power costs,” said Jeff May, East River’s Chief Information Officer. “Since implementing our legacy load management system in 1984, East River’s members have saved nearly $300 million in wholesale power costs. We’re looking forward to the capabilities this new system will provide to be more predictive and accurate in our demand management and take advantage of new technologies as we move into the future.”

East River serves twenty-four rural electric cooperatives and one municipally-owned electric system in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota. The deployment will be in two stages.  Phase I will focus on integrating OATI’s webSmartEnergy^® DERMS into legacy platforms to send control signals to current devices in the field. During Phase II, East River will expand the DERMS platform to include control of additional DER assets and to provide forecasting through OATI’s webSmartForecast module.

“East River was seeking a better way to optimize its existing load-management program, comprising more than 70,000 load-management switches, to improve both immediate and long-term efficiencies and services,” says Sasan Mokhtari, Ph.D., OATI President and CEO. “In choosing OATI, East River has identified the best available DERMS solution to integrate with current enterprise systems and achieve multiple future objectives.”

In addition to its webSmartEnergy technology, OATI offers several other industry-leading energy management solutions, including  GridMind™, the industry’s premier microgrid management system, which is pre-integrated to its DERMS solution, OATI AMIoT™, a low-cost, wireless, intelligent data network to facilitate green energy distributed resources, and OATI EVolution™, a complete Smart EV charging management solution, that creates a superior EV charging experience for EV drivers, while providing utilities and other entities full observability and control of charging assets..

To learn more, contact sales@oati.net.

About East River Electric Power Cooperative
East River is a not-for-profit generation and transmission cooperative that delivers wholesale power to twenty-four rural electric distribution cooperatives and one municipally-owned electric system in eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota. Their members in turn power the homes, farms, schools, and businesses of the member-owners in their service territories.

About OATI
OATI provides innovative solutions that simplify, streamline, and empower the operational tasks required in today’s energy commerce and Smart Grid. Serving more than 2,500 customers in North America, OATI successfully deploys and hosts diverse mission-critical solutions committed to next generation technology and stringent security guidelines.

OATI (www.oati.com) is a leading provider of Smart Grid, Energy Trading and Risk Management, Transmission Scheduling, Congestion Management, Distribution, and Market Management products and services. OATI is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with offices in California and India. For more information, please contact sales@oati.net.