Leading European Utility Expands Smart Grid Project with Ventyx Asset Health Solution

-- Fortum Studying Benefits of Predictive Maintenance Strategies at Stockholm Royal Seaport with Ventyx Software

ATLANTA, June 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Ventyx, an ABB company, today announced it has signed an agreement with Fortum – the leading provider of sustainable energy in the Nordics, Baltics, Poland and Russia – to study the benefits of predictive maintenance strategies for its transmission and distribution assets using Ventyx Asset Health software. The agreement expands Fortum's partnership with ABB in a joint development project to design and install Europe's first large-scale urban smart grid at the Stockholm Royal Seaport.

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"Fortum is dedicated to a major transformation of the energy system to meet the EU 2020 targets for greenhouse emissions, renewables and energy efficiency. Yet, in today's era of constrained personnel resources and new demands, we must make more efficient and productive use of our existing transmission and distribution assets and workforce to meet these targets," said Göran Hult, Vice President of R&D at Fortum and a keynote speaker at the recent Ventyx World Conference in Barcelona. "The Ventyx Asset Performance Management solution offers promising capabilities in this regard, and we are optimistic that it can help us reach our goals for the Stockholm Royal Seaport."

Ventyx is providing multiple solutions to support the Stockholm Royal Seaport project, including:

• Network Manager DMS for distribution, dispatch & monitoring applications
• Demand Response Management System (DRMS) for the set-up and management of demand response programs including virtual power plants and their dispatch and control
• Business intelligence (BI) solutions to support utility-specific business process monitoring and reporting with prepackaged utility KPIs, dashboards, reports and analysis.

By adding the Ventyx Asset Health solution, Fortum can gain visibility into the condition of critical assets, prioritize maintenance activities and support repair, refurbish and renew decisions across the fleet. To gauge the full potential of the solution, Ventyx will perform a Value Readiness Assessment (VRA) and technical feasibility study of the software, focused on critical grid assets across Fortum's transmission, subtransmission and distribution networks. Performed using Fortum's own data, the VRA will help determine the feasibility and available cost savings, as well as other benefits, from a full deployment of the software across Fortum's fleet.

"We are confident that a real-world analysis of the Asset Health solution will demonstrate the ability to ensure high asset availability, reliability and optimized performance," said Ventyx Senior Vice President and General Manager, Asset Health Solutions, Shawn Lyndon. "Combining the ability to provide a fleet-wide view of grid asset health with ABB and Ventyx's distribution management and control systems will help Fortum move upward toward a higher level of physical and financial asset optimization as an extension of the reliability and environmentally focused concept of the Stockholm Royal Seaport."

About Fortum
Fortum's purpose is to create energy that improves life for present and future generations. Catering to the versatile needs of customers, they generate, distribute and sell electricity and heat, and offer related expert services. Their operations focus on the Nordic and Baltic countries, Russia and Poland. In 2013, Fortum's sales totaled EUR 6.1 billion, and comparable operating profit was EUR 1.6 billion. At the end of March 2014, Fortum employed approximately 8,800 people. Fortum's shares are traded on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. www.fortum.com

About Ventyx
Ventyx, an ABB company, is a world-leading supplier of Industrial Enterprise Software for essential industries such as energy, mining and public infrastructure. Ventyx solutions bridge the gap between information technologies (IT) and operational technologies (OT), enabling clients to make faster, better-informed decisions in both daily operations and long-term planning strategies. Some of the world's largest organizations rely on Ventyx solutions to minimize risk, enhance operational and financial performance, and execute the right strategies for the future. For more details, see www.ventyx.com.