How software tools can help utilities with underground utility design
Steve Kearney
Enghouse Systems USA, Inc.
1301 Fifth Ave., Suite 1400
Seattle, Washington 98101
Topics of Discussion
This paper will cover some of the issues that are a concern for the electric and natural gas
industry, and they are:
-
Deregulation is motivating the software market place to develop automated
underground plat design tools that allow the designer to place equipment (such as
cable, transformers, etc.), conduct engineering analysis on that design, and interface
into AM/FM/GIS and Work Management systems;
-
More and more states (as well as the federal government) will enact deregulation
legislation forcing compatition with utilities in each state as well as regions of the
USA;
-
Distribution functions of utility companies must perform more tasks with less people
and smaller budgets;
-
These software tools should have some type of "fuzzy logic" routines, to ensure that
the underground designs use the least amount of cable and place transformers in the
best location, and guarantee that the design in engineered with the "utility standards".
Automated Plat Design systems allow the utility to achieve a paradox in this industry:
cutting costs while providing better service to their customers. There are two types of
customers that the utility should be responsible to: the Developer of the subdivision that
is being built, and the customer that will be living in the area being developed. The
Developer is usually waiting on the utility company to design the infrastructure for the
development. The Developer needs to know where the electrical and natural gas
equipment will be installed, and if there are any cost associated with placement of those
devices. Usually with Developers, they are also concerned with the "look" of the
development. Providing the placement and the costs associated with automated software
package will ensure customer service and well as performing designs that are engineered
properly. Customers that live in the development will also be assured that outages will be
reduced, as well as any voltage drop problems will be minimized.
Diagram 1 - Electrical Design of a Plat
What are Automated Software Tools for Underground Design?
Automated Plat Design tools are software developed for utility engineering personnel to
design Underground Residential Distribution (URD) applications. This software
combines Geographic Information System (GIS) platform with artificial intelligence (AI)
to help designers to develop the most economic and technically optimal electric and
natural gas distribution system. This software conducts the design process and generated
design solutions from specification values introduced by the utility, during configuration
into that utility's operations. Using the AI of the software, the designer can perform
"What if" analysis by varying different design elements and comparing the results. The
operator can also store different versions of a plat design, giving the designer the
opportunity to compare costs, voltage drop, fault current, cable pulling tension, annual
losses, load balance, natural gas performance (with combination utilities).
The first step in the process is to collect a dgn or dxf file from the Developer of the
subdivision. Since around 90% of the subdivisions in the USA are drawn on AutoCADbased
systems, this file can be easily obtained by the utility. Important information, such
as lot lines and boundaries are collected and assembled, and imported into the design
portion of the software. As the designer creates designs, the software provides immediate
on-screen responses to the design layout, cost analysis, electrical performance, and gas
performance. Several designs can be compared in much less time than it takes to create
one design the old way - manually.
After the designer decides on the best plat, the design is exported into either a work
management system or outputted directly into a staking sheet system. The plat design
software provides the output of the graphics in either a dxf, shape file, dgn (for the
AutoCAD version, or ArcInfo (for the ESRI version). The capable unit, which includes
all of the material and labor of the design, is provided in an ASCII output.
