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Management of sub-transmission and distribution system in power utilities

Girish Sidana
Hope Technlogies Ltd., New Delhi

Introduction
Electric utilities in India are facing the pressure of reducing costs and improving the quality and reliability of supply. Though the Generation and transmission systems have seen considerable technical development and capital investment, the distribution and to some extent the sub-transmission systems have been neglected and have suffered due to poor operating efficiencies leading to financial losses and cynical customer perception. The distribution systems have suffered mainly from the following maladies:

• Unbalanced Load Flow
• Poor voltage regulation
• High level of Technical (Peak power/Energy losses)
• Conductor Heating / Equipment Damages
• Very high unaccounted energy losses [20-40% against international standards of 8-10%]

Acute need for a consistent and Long lasting solution aimed at Improving & Strengthening of the Power Distribution network with minimum losses in the long run through Integrated planning for Power Distribution system has been felt for a long time now for it to be ignored any longer.

Improving the performance of distribution systems to meet required targets is a matter of selecting the most cost-effective technologies and operating practices. The distribution systems tend to be very extensive with a long life span for conductors and plant. It is not sufficient to analyse how a particular portion of the network may be modified to improve its performance today: it is a matter of determining what would be the optimal solution when allowance has also to be made for the uncertainties in the prediction of the future scenario of customer demand. It is valuable to investigate long-term solutions specially so when the implementation of the solutions will also entail decisions involving large-scale investments.

Integrated software solution for Power distribution
Arising from these issues, the realization by the Utilities and the increasing reliance on having accurate up-to-date information for decisions on increasing revenues, improving customer service and development is now setting in. Thankfully, there is now the awareness that this approach will be driven by modern technology and not merely a continuation of the thumb-rule approach. No doubt, the vast field and organizational experience of the power utilities will continue to provide the required inputs into the total process.


Fig. 1

For fast, accurate and reliable data management, a power distribution software solution based on an integration of dedicated GIS + AM/FM and Engineering analysis (viz., network analysis) solution (See Fig. 1) will provide the right kind of approach for addressing the issues that have been raised above. The advantages of using a dedicated GIS + AM/FM approach are manifold:

• Visualisation: Can visualise the actual network, as it will be laid out on ground.
• Convenience: User friendly and ease of data entry.
• Flexibility: Flexibility of choosing what other systems to share or exchang data with (i.e. Network Analysis, Inventory, Trouble call analysis)
• Better comprehension.

Since the sub-transmission and the distribution network of a power utility have a geographical reference, it will be beneficial to create the network also on the computer in a geographical context. This will provide useful reference for setting up of new facilities, provide necessary information on land use pattern for planning optimum expansion of network and enable more systematic network operation and maintenance.

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