GIS/OMS project implemenation at peco energy, an exelon company
Valerie L. Carter
Peco Energy
680 Ridge Pike
Plymouth Meeting, PA 19462
Company background
PECO Energy, an Exelon Company, is an established electric & gas utility with
approximately 1.8 million customers. The company has operated in the Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania region for over 100 years.
PECO Energy has four dispatching offices for the electrical and gas, transmission and
distribution systems. There is an office for each (gas and electric) of the transmission
systems. One of the distribution offices handles secondary electrical calls and gas
emergency calls. These calls are high voltage, wire downs, police and fire, single light
out, carbon monoxide, etc. The other office is responsible for the electrical distribution
system from the substation to the distribution transformer. Both distribution offices are
in the same building.
PECO Energy has three regional offices that primarily handle planned work activities.
During large storms, one or more of the regional offices serve as local dispatching
offices.
Table 1- PECO Energy Physical Plant
| Physical Plant Entity |
Parameter |
| Customers |
1.8 million |
| Regions |
3 |
| Circuits |
2,600 |
| Circuit Maps |
3,800 |
| Substations |
450 |
| Dispatch Centers |
2 |
| Territory |
2,100 miles2 |
| Switches |
90,000 |
| Switching Orders |
600 per month |
| Trouble Calls |
2500 per week, non-storm |
| Storm Days |
45 per year |
| Transformers |
160,000 |
| Capacitors |
2,000 |
| Aerial Circuit Miles |
12,600 miles |
| Underground Circuit Miles |
20,750 miles |
| Regulators |
250 |
Project overview
In September 1999, Hurricane Floyd hit our service territory effecting over 500,000
customers. Shortly after the restoration efforts were complete, PECO Energy formed a
team to critique our storm response efforts. One of the items of the critique was the
limitation of our existing mainframe system, the Trouble Management System (TMS).
The existing system has been in service since the late 1970's. The operational
functionality of TMS has degenerated over the years and updating capability is severely
limited. Three separate files contain the connectivity information for customers,
transformers and circuits.
In January 2000, the project team received approval to implement a GIS-based, outage
management system by December 2000. This paper covers some of the lessons
learned by implementing a geographical information system (GIS) concurrent with an
outage management system (OMS).
In March 2000, PECO Energy selected Intergraph as the prime contractor. ASI,
Analytical Surveys, Inc. is the subcontractor performing the data conversion work. The
GIS uses ActiveFramme and OMS uses InService. PECO Energy also uses
Microstation for the other mapping products.
Our project focused on installing a new outage management system. Every decision
point comes to the single question; is this function or piece of data required for OMS?
The GIS model is sparsely populated; we converted only those devices required for
OMS. We did not choose to do mobile data terminals (MDT), automatic vehicle
tracking (AVL), work management interfaces, or GIS based design and estimating tools.
