25 April 2003 - Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions has announced that North-West Sealand Energy Supply Company (NVE A.m.b.a.), Denmark, signed a contract for the implementation of a geofacilities information management system based on Intergraph's G/Electric software.

NVE A.m.b.a. distributes electricity to 117 000 customers throughout 2000 km2 of northwestern Sealand, Denmark's largest and most populous island.

G/Electric is an enabling technology for Geospatial Resource Management (GRM), in which integrated systems help streamline day-to-day activities that provision and maintain a company's service-delivery network. The solution's open architecture will enable integration between NVE A.m.b.a.'s existing electric network and the company's new fibre network, which takes advantage of extra network capacity to offer broadband, cable TV and telephony to subscribers. During a five-year period, NVE A.m.b.a. intends to install optical fibre to reach more than 50 000 customers, constituting Denmark's largest broadband venture.

Stefan Binder, manager of NVE A.m.b.a.'s engineering department said, "G/Electric will increase the efficiency of engineering and maintenance activities across our various service-delivery networks. The functionality
offered by G/Electric will support planning and marketing activities related to our upcoming ambitious 'fibre to the home' fibre distribution project."

G/Electric will help NVE A.m.b.a. efficiently manage and maintain geospatial information about its facility networks from one open geofacilities database, eliminating data redundancy, significantly reducing operating and
administrative costs and enhancing enterprise-wide data access. With G/Electric's Web-based query and viewing tools, NVE A.m.b.a. will provide contractors and subscribers access to facility data via the Internet.

"Many utility companies are focusing on a 'multi-utility strategy,' where the utility supplies existing customers with added services," said Jakob Konig, sales manager, Utilities & Communications Division, Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions, Nordic region. "Because G/Electric delivers an open architecture in an easy-to-adapt, commercial off-the-shelf package, it offers the ideal geospatial solution to address this scenario.

New customer-delivery applications can be integrated into the existing systems without the expense and time associated with proprietary programming."

The project is expected to be complete by the fourth quarter of 2003.