Bentley Systems announces new applications for power utilities and industrial power facilities as a first step in its partnership with Siemens Energy Management Division. These jointly developed applications will aid users by enhancing Bentley’s network management, design, and operations applications with new integrated analysis, design optimization, and Distributed Energy Resource (DER) decision support capabilities, helping to reduce costs, improve reliability, and build-in resilience in response to global marketplace changes.

The partnership will ensure all new capabilities are available in single unified application.

As part of this initiative, Bentley Systems’ OpenUtilities applications will be integrated with Siemens’ Power System Simulation (PSS) suite. Bentley and Siemens will integrate their products so that capabilities are available in a single unified application. The resulting solution will combine Bentley’s expertise in infrastructure design and engineering with Siemens’ solutions for the economical, reliable, and intelligent transmission and distribution of electrical power.

New capabilities include:

• Integrated analysis that leverages geospatial network management to supply a common model to designers, planners, and engineers, significantly reducing errors and eliminating redundancy in current disconnected processes.
• Design optimization for three-phase unbalanced networks, considering the effects of distributed energy resources, allowing designers to create viable, least-cost designs, and avoid costly mistakes and negative impacts on reliability and resilience related to DER / renewable energy sources.
• OpenUtilities distributed energy resources decision support, to be available as a cloud service, to help organizations respond to and manage DER connection requests, improve reliability, and build-in resilience.

Ralf Christian, CEO of Siemens Energy Management division, said, “The energy industry trend toward decentralization represents a significant challenge as well as a great opportunity for power producers and consumers alike, and our strategic alliance with Bentley Systems will help our customers better leverage this changing landscape through the combination of our powerful solutions.”

Vonnie Smith, vice president, Utilities Asset Performance, Bentley Systems, said, “We are excited to provide new value to power utilities and industrial power customers as a result of this strategic partnership with Siemens. Through a connected data environment, these new applications will help utility owners and operators share critical information to realize the potential of their network models for continuous benefit throughout the day-to-day running of their organizations.”

About OpenUtilities
OpenUtilities is for owner-operators who design, construct, manage, and/or operate utility infrastructure. With OpenUtilities, these organizations can integrate geospatial network management and design to manage geospatially dispersed network assets, perform thematic and spatial analysis, create map products, comply with regulations, and plan work.