Energy project connects the dots for Project Performance

On the surface, it seems like a "feel good" story for a Virginia company and the Maryland Economic Development Corporation:

Project Performance Co. will work with the economic development corporation on its Utility Infrastructure Project at the University of Maryland at College Park.

The project will pull together data from multiple campus systems into a single data store that will let facilities personnel get a better grip on energy and utility storage and make better decisions.

The value of the two-year project was not disclosed, but beyond that value are two trends that the project illuminates.

The first is the importance of being able to gather data from disparate systems into a single place and use that information for better decisions. After all, what is the use of all that data if you can’t use it somehow?

We are increasingly seeing this requirement from government agencies. There is a collective cry: Wee have this data and what value can we draw from it?

From the Project Performance perspective, the project expands work it has been doing in the utility and energy management arena.

The project also brings together relationships with two technology companies: OSIsoft and Waterfall Security. They are both commercial software companies.

OSIsoft has products that manage data from sensors and systems. Waterfall is a cybersecurity company with what it calls a unidirectional security gateway.

The relationship between OSIsoft and Project Performance started in 2006, the company said. But it has been mostly focused on bringing situational awareness data to emergency response teams.

This project is an expansion into a new area for the partnership.

Waterfall is bringing its security expertise honed in the world of managing utilities, nuclear plants, refineries and manufacturing plants.

“We see the development and integration of Secure Energy Intelligence Solutions as an accelerating, global growth area and at the center of PPC's corporate vision to engineer sustainability solutions," said Paul Strasser, Project Performance CEO and president.

To me, this is another good example of a government contractor developing relationships with companies typically not entrenched in the government market and bringing innovation to address a need. They aren’t trying to build it from scratch but instead are connecting their government expertise to the innovation of a commercial solution.