Reaping fruits of going smart

In this day and age when it’s critical how wemanage our resources, whether or not we arein an economic slump, the key is efficiency. Buthow do we ensure efficient processes particularlyin networks? The answer is by going smart.

In Washington, D.C., a smart grid pilot projectinvolving smart meters, smart thermostats, dynamicpricing, and enhanced energy information deliveredsignificant results with a reduction in peak demandas high as 51%.

Expected to provide operators the ability toimprove their operational efficiency and to helpthem understand usage behavior in real time, smartgrid is easily becoming the go-to system. Operators need to introduce intelligent sub- ystems to increasetheir visibility to the entire delivery infrastructure andto develop intimate knowledge of consumer usagebehaviour.

However, a number of factors such as availableinfrastructure, geography, frequency of data readsor updates, data volume, information sensitivity andprioritization need to be considered by utilities asthey determine the optimal approach and modelfor smart grid projects. The investments may seemhuge but the rewards are even greater.

The expectations are for the network to bedynamic, secure, mission-critical, and capable ofadapting to support increasing numbers of smartgrid applications. To drive operational decisions, a smart grid communications network needs to reachthe entire grid, collect real time data, deliver datato operations systems, manage the volume of data,and enable data analysis and correlation.

But what abilities do smart grid technologiesshould have to be able to perform tasks such ascommunications transformation, multivendorturnkey integration, and manage services?

o Ability to understand and manage theinterdependencies among various smart gridtechnologies;
o Ability to accommodate existing legacyinfrastructure while adapting to support newadvanced smart grid applications;
o Ability to calculate the risk associated withtransformation and devise mitigation strategies.

In terms of visibility, utilities need to have thesecritical components: network infrastructure toenable real-time communications throughout theentire grid and, secondly, data processing systemscapable of correlating and analyzing a substantialamount of data generated by smart grid subsystems.In addition, management tools with end-toendvisibility and that are capable of understandingand correlating events should be introduced to helpoperators become more proactive in managing thegrid.

Another key component in an integratedsystem for operations and business support areasset management systems. To enable utilitiesto automate work flows and operate moreefficiently in an increasingly complex environment,the asset management system needs to not onlytrack individual assets, maintenance schedulesand warranty information, but should also beintegrated with physical and logical topology, eventmanagement, trouble ticketing, dispatch and workmanagement systems.

To illustrate how the asset management systemcomes into play, here’s an example: In the event of anetwork failure, the integrated system would identifythe root cause of the problem (e.g. communicationscard needs to be replaced), locate the nearest spareequipment, and automatically dispatch the rightpersonnel with the right information to speed therepair process.

With the constant influx of data to networks, it’sessential that they are organized, thus the need forsmart grid initiatives. Organization of data should be such that it can be grouped, filtered or analyzedon any criteria, as well as power consumption,operational, system status and event data. This iswhere meter data management systems are crucial.The meter data management systems must reliablycollect, process and store meter data for the purposeof calculating billing determinants.

In additional to being a critical componentfor meter-to-cash business processes, meterdata management can also be a highly strategiccomponent of smart grid. It enable and encourageconsumer participation in time of use pricing,
demand response, critical peak pricing, rebates anddistributed generation, market settlement, rate planmodeling, rate program design, strategic planningand investment, revenue assurance and operationalefficiency. It enables power consumption data tobe transformed into business-critical informationto manage consumption patterns and increasereliability and efficiency.

After all, aren’t these what we are strivingfor? Increased--eventually optimal-reliability andefficiency are among the fruits to savor of goingsmart.

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