Provides Enhanced Project Team Collaboration, Ease of Review and Markup, and a More Productive Design Process 

  EXTON, Pa. – 27 July 2010 - Bentley Systems, Incorporated, the leading company dedicated to providing comprehensive software solutions for the infrastructure that sustains our world, today released the V8i (SELECTseries 3) version of Bentley Substation, the first intra-operable software for intelligent electrical and physical substation design. Bentley Substation empowers project teams to design substations 30 percent faster than they typically can with non-integrated applications. The software’s single interface for substation design and the common intelligent information model enable users to design more precisely, generate accurate bills of material, create drawings quickly and efficiently, and rigorously enforce company standards. At the same time, Bentley Substation’s integration with ProjectWise collaboration services provides superior engineering content management and team collaboration that support the entire substation design workflow.

The new release, which has been streamlined for the single purpose of substation design and management, offers:

• expanded integration with ProjectWise, enhancing project team collaboration and increasing productivity;
• broad interoperability and data reuse via new support for i-models (containers for open infrastructure information exchange), facilitating ease of review and markup;
• improved model visualization using dynamic views that enable users to work in 2D or 3D views simultaneously, making the design process much more productive;
• access to an expanded library of 3D objects and industry-standard 2D symbols, speeding design and improving information exchange;
• ease of installation and use, resulting in low start-up and administration costs.

“With this new release of Bentley Substation, we have lowered the cost of ownership significantly while adding substantially more functionality. This extends the software’s appeal to a wider range of utility owner-operators and engineering companies,” said Mike Lambert, Bentley product manager. “In addition, by focusing the tools solely on substation design and management, we have simplified the user interface, enabling users to quickly get up to speed on its capabilities and become more productive.”

Bentley Substation V8i (SELECTseries 3) leverages Bentley’s technology platform, a comprehensive set of drawing, modeling, and data services that provides a robust environment for 2D and 3D design. Because the platform can produce drawings in both DGN and DWG file formats, Bentley Substation’s many advantages have now been extended to substation design departments employing AutoCAD.

The expanded integration of Bentley Substation with ProjectWise:

• saves design teams significant time and further increases productivity by supporting the creation of substation projects from within ProjectWise Explorer;
• reduces errors and fosters more collaborative workflows by facilitating the synchronization of project files and project databases;
• provides faster access to data about parts used in a design through the software’s support of the ProjectWise component tree;
• helps users quickly find the right data in the right version by enabling report outputs and project backups to be stored in ProjectWise;
• provides enhanced flexibility by allowing users to rename or delete projects, as well as rename, delete, copy and paste, or move pages in ProjectWise Explorer.

The software’s new ability to generate i-models, which combine 2D and 3D geometry and other design data in a single lightweight container, further facilitates open information exchange. Every i-model includes provenance – that is, knowledge of its origin and evolution, or change management history – and is self-describing, which means source application logic isn’t required to display or describe the data stored within them. Because i-models are widely reusable, they enable project teams to easily reference, repurpose, and republish content for broad information access. For example, substation design teams can now use Bentley’s Navigator V8i dynamic collaboration software, which leverages the rich information stored inside i-models, to explore complex designs, query business data, and provide markup comments.

Finally, the addition of dynamic views to Bentley Substation V8i gives users the ability to slice and filter 3D models, remove clutter from the working view, and drop and drag plans and sections to create documentation. Dynamic views also automate 2D updates for full drawing package coordination, saving time spent on coordinating plan sets, improving the quality of deliverables, and simplifying the 3D modeling experience.

A growing number of users around the world are taking advantage of Bentley Substation’s many benefits. Among them are CPS Energy; ENMAX; ETSA Utilities; Iberdrola; Northwest Electrical Power Design Institute, a division of China Power Engineering Consulting Group; State Nuclear Electrical Power Planning Design and Research Institute, a division of the State Nuclear Power Technology Corporation, Ltd.; and TransGrid.

For additional information about Bentley Substation V8i (SELECTseries 3), visit www.bentley.com/substation.

About Bentley Systems, Incorporated

Bentley is the global leader dedicated to providing architects, engineers, constructors, and owner-operators with comprehensive software solutions for sustaining infrastructure. Founded in 1984, Bentley has nearly 3,000 colleagues in more than 45 countries, $500 million in annual revenues, and, since 1999, has invested more than $1 billion in research, development, and acquisitions.

For additional information about Bentley, visit www.bentley.com. To view a copy of Bentley’s May 2010 Annual Report, visit www.bentley.com/annualreport. To subscribe to an RSS feed of Bentley press releases and news alerts, visit www.bentley.com/rss/news. To view a searchable collection of innovative infrastructure projects from the annual Be Inspired Awards, visit www.bentley.com/yearininfrastructure. For information about Be Communities, a professional networking site that enables members of the infrastructure community to connect, communicate, and learn from each other, visit http://communities.bentley.com.

# # #

Bentley PR
Ron Kuhfeld
Public Relations Manager
610-321-6493
Email Contact

Bentley, the “B” Bentley logo, Be, ProjectWise, and SELECT are either registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Bentley Systems, Incorporated or one of its direct or indirect wholly owned subsidiaries. Other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.