Outage Management Systems Real-Time Dashboard Assessment Study
Electric distribution companies are faced with increased pressure from customers, the media and regulators to provide accurate outage information that is very timely and essentially in real-time. Distribution owners/operators turn to new technology in the form of Dashboards, Business Intelligence and Outage Management Systems (OMS) to help address these demands. Under ever increasing pressure to improve reliability of electric supply, operations needs to perform restoration faster and more efficiently, driving internal demands for the detailed restoration information to be available in real-time as well. The needs of these internal operational users are typically even more detailed and complex. In addition, regulators are providing financial incentives or penalties based upon reliability goals or Key Performance Indicators (KPI)s. Management is demanding that accurate calculation of progress towards meeting these goals be provided daily or weekly rather than monthly or quarterly. This presentation covers the results of a study into the needs of existing outage management systems users and what they need in a real-time dashboard to meet these new business challenges.
End-to-end integrated power-outage/restoration sensing module
In developing countries, Low Tension (LT) power distribution systems remain essentially open-ended. Hence Utility interventions are primarily reactive, thus leaving millions of customers with little or no options. In order to bring about a transformation, it is essential that the Utility captures “information” and initiates “control” proactively, without being dependent on customer-triggered information following power outages. Therefore, to make the grid “smarter”, without deploying Remote Terminal Units (RTUs)/Field Remote Terminal Units (FRTUs) or smart meters, an outage management module has been conceived, designed and developed, which senses electricity supply outages at strategic “nodes” of the LT distribution network. It relays the information back to the Utility command centre within seconds of occurrence for the Utility to take necessary corrective/preventive measures. Not only does the module match the technical requisites, but also, is economic enough to meet the shoe-string budgets of the ailing utilities.
Design considerations for implementation of large scale automatic meter reading systems
This paper discusses the requirements imposed on the design of a power system automatic meter reading system expected to serve a large (>1 million) customer base spread over a large geographical area. Issues such as system throughput, response time, and multi-application expandability are addressed, all of which are intimately dependent on the underlying communication system infrastructure, the local geography, the customer base, and the regulatory environment. A methodology for analysis, assessment, and design of large systems is presented. For illustration, two communication systems-a low power RF/PLC system and a power frequency carrier system-are analysed and discussed. >