NEPSI Presents at ABB OEM Days

Northeast Power Systems, Inc. (NEPSI) was honored to be selected as a guest speaker at ABB’s OEM Days conference in Prague, held between November 19-21, 2018. As an “ABB customer voice,” NEPSI’s cofounder, Paul Steciuk spoke of the many years of support it has received from ABB and how their product offerings and support have contributed to NEPSI’s 23 years of growth and success.

Steciuk discussed how it innovates to strategically use ABB’s OEM components to grow and leverage their product offering, which includes medium-voltage metal-enclosed capacitor banks, harmonic filter banks, and fast switching actiVARTM system. In fact, ABB’s OEM component content in NEPSI’s equipment can sometimes reach near 70%.

The ABB OEM components often used include: medium-voltage breakers (VD4, HD4, AMVAC, and ADVAC), air-disconnect switches (VersuRupter and Ground Switches), current transformers, potential transformers, control power transformers, vacuum switches (PS15 and PS25), DS1 and DS1-M capacitor switches for transient free capacitor switching, and ABB’s ultra-fast earthing switch (UFES) for arc flash protection. 

He thanked both past and current members of the ABB OEM team and product specialists, which include Ian Rice, Matteo Rota, Konstantinos Papapaschalis, Gabriel Persichilli, Jennifer Stoner, Thomas Gburek, amongst many others, whose support facilitates NEPSI’s continued use of ABB components. A special thanks to Ian Rice who accompanied Mr. Steciuk to the event, and who was instrumental in setting up important meetings with product specialist as well as other ABB managers in Europe. It is support like this that NEPSI has grown accustomed to and relies upon for their continued growth and success.

While in the Czech Republic, Mr. Steciuk visited ABB’s factory in Brno, where he was introduced to ABB’s manufacturing instrument transformers, sensors, and primary switchgear. Current and voltage sensors and relays that use them are not widely used throughout the United States, but they offer many advantages when compared with traditional iron-core based CT’s and PT’s. NEPSI will look to further innovate these components into their products. The trip to the factory included a chartered train which took a special route through Czech Republic’s beautiful countryside. 

The day ended with a gala at Prague’s National Technical Museum, where NEPSI was surprised and honored to receive ABB’s 2018 OEM Products Innovation Award, which acknowledges NEPSI’s innovation in applying ABB OEM components in unique ways to solve power quality and other power system related problems. “It’s an award that points to the dedication and hard work of NEPSI’s employees. They are the ones who design and build innovation into our product to meet customer challenges and power quality solutions,” says Steciuk. 

Hats off to ABB’s event coordinators who put this event together (Nicole Koeppen and Lucas Poncza amongst others). With nearly 300 people attending and near 150 companies represented, their planning and coordination where spot on. Nice Job!