Xcel Energy Purchases GE Energy’s New Smallworld Software For Pipeline Transmission Companies

ATLANTA, GA. - December 20, 2006 :- Xcel Energy has purchased GE Energy’s new Smallworld Global Transmission Office* software, a spatially-enabled network management suite of applications for the management of the assets in a pipeline transmission network.

GE Energy’s Smallworld Global Transmission Office complements the Smallworld Gas Distribution Office* software announced in October 2006 as one of a series of applications that are components of the new Smallworld Utility Office Suite product line. Smallworld Global Transmission Office provides critical asset management applications including high consequences area analysis, alignment sheet generator, linear referencing, asset inventory reporting and PODS (Pipeline Open Database Standards) interface.

Smallworld Global Transmission Office also includes the Smallworld Office Productivity Pack, with applications that extend functionality for annotation management and manage various processes such as the bulk updating of attributes, business rules support, multimedia viewing, grid plotting and thematic display. With these additional plug and play tools, the product offers functionality unavailable in any other package.

Xcel Energy, based in Minneapolis, Minn., will use GE Energy’s Smallworld Global Transmission Office with its current Smallworld core GIS product. The software is scheduled to be delivered in late December 2006.

“We have been a long-term customer of GE Energy,” said Pete Gomez, manager of information requirements for Xcel Energy. “We were impressed with the Smallworld Global Transmission Office functionality that allowed us to enhance the productivity of our existing data systems.”

GE Energy’s new offering will allow utilities to drastically reduce the time of implementation, enabling them to rapidly recognize the benefits of these advanced applications while reducing the total cost of ownership.

“Our Smallworld Global Transmission Office solution brings together the essential applications that pipeline transmission companies require to manage their networks,” said Dan Heintzelman, general manager of GE Energy’s services business. “The suite of plug and play tools included with this offering makes it a truly unique industry application with unmatched integration off the shelf.”

As a leading combination electricity and natural gas company, Xcel Energy offers a comprehensive portfolio of energy-related products and services to 3.3 million electricity customers and 1.8 million natural gas customers with more than 33,000 miles of natural gas pipelines.
About GE Energy

GE Energy (www.ge.com/energy) is one of the world’s leading suppliers of power generation and energy delivery technologies, with 2005 revenue of $16.5 billion. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, GE Energy works in all areas of the energy industry including coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear energy; renewable resources such as water, wind, solar and biogas; and other alternative fuels. Numerous GE Energy products are certified under ecomagination, GE’s corporate-wide initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that will help customers meet pressing environmental challenges.

* Trademarks of General Electric Company

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Serena Levy

GE Energy

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