Outercurve Foundation Announces Contribution of GADS Project

WAKEFIELD, Mass., Sept. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Outercurve Foundation today announced the acceptance of the GADS open source (GADS/OS) project into the Data, Language and System Interoperability (DLSI) Gallery. The GADS/OS project is the fifth project contributed to the gallery. The project was contributed by the GADS Open Source Project, an independent community of power generating plant engineers and software developers.  The community's mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting plant operating and performance data as required by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

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GADS/OS allows electric generating companies to collect and report validated performance data and event data, including outage, de-rating, non-curtailing and reserve shutdown events, in standard formats required by NERC and all major independent system operators (ISOs.) The GADS/OS project was developed by HBS Solomon Associates and sold as GADS NxL from 2004 through March 2011. Solomon published the GADS NxL source code in April 2011, providing the entire power industry access to the source code. The GADS Open Source Project formed to continue development of the software.

The GADS/OS code base is being used to collect and analyze data on more than 200 companies and 3,800 generating units domestically and internationally, including the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Calpine, Westar Energy, Luminant (TXU), Electricity Supply Board of Ireland, Delta Electricity (Australia), and Comision Federal de Electricidad (Mexico). In addition, both the New York ISO and the ISO New England use the GADS/OS code base.  

All NERC-registered generator owners of conventional electric generating units (i.e., not wind or solar) will be required to report generator performance data through NERC's Generating Availability Data System (GADS) on a mandatory basis beginning January 1, 2012.  This includes generator owners in Canada, the United States, and Mexico.  

"With its broad user base, GADS/OS is a significant, proven project used by generating companies to analyze and manage data to comply with mandatory GADS reporting to NERC and the various ISOs," said Paula Hunter, Executive Director, Outercurve Foundation. "We are fortunate to add the GADS/OS project to the Data, Language and Systems Interoperability Gallery. The GADS/OS project gives electric generating companies the open source tools needed to improve and report on operational performance."

The Outercurve Foundation has three galleries and 15 projects. Galleries include the ASP.NET Open Source Gallery, the Research Accelerators Gallery and the Data, Language and System Interoperability Gallery.

For more information on the GADS/OS project or the Data, Language and System Interoperability Gallery or the Outercurve Foundation please visit www.Outercurve.org.

About The Outercurve Foundation

The Outercurve Foundation is a not-for-profit foundation providing software IP management and project development governance to enable and encourage organizations to develop software collaboratively in open source communities for faster results.  The Outercurve Foundation is the only open source foundation that is platform, technology, and license agnostic. For more information about the Outercurve Foundation contact [email protected].

About The GADS Open Source Project

GADS Open Source Project's mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity for collecting, analyzing, and reporting NERC GADS data. The project community, comprised of a core group of highly experienced plant engineers and software developers with years of experience in reporting GADS for generating companies and in building similar commercial GADS software tools, supports a completely open development process in which anyone can report bugs, request new features, or enhance the software.

SOURCE The Outercurve Foundation