Make better use of Real-Time Energy Information to improve service reliability
Hahn Tram
SchlumbergerSema
6399 South Fiddler’s Green Circle, Suite 600
Greenwood Village, CO 80111
Abstract
This paper focuses on how to improve service reliability and take Outage Management Systems
(OMS)s to the next plateau by leveraging the real-time energy information and technologies
available today. The paper extends OMS beyond existing applications that process circuit
lockout events from Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition/Substation
Automation/Distribution Automation (SCADA/SA/DA) and outage notifications of automated
meter reading systems. It exploits the real-time data network associated with advanced
Automated Meter Reading (AMR) systems to confirm service restorations quickly and without
unnecessary nuisance to the customers and without increased call center or dispatching
resources. It exploits the availability of real-time meter data on customer interruptions, along
with the geospatial information of customers, to lessen the effects of missing or erroneous
customer and network connectivity data. It exploits the real-time data of customer demand along
with circuit loading and distributed generation data for emergency switching analysis to increase
the effectiveness of emergency load transfers. These exploitations converge to form key
elements of a next-generation OMS that is part of the overall real-time energy information
strategy. For completeness, the author also discusses the use of real-time data, and historical
records of it, to better plan and manage maintenance outages, to formulate more cost-effective
asset maintenance plans, and to improve system planning and engineering for reducing the
frequency as well as duration of customer interruptions.
The Business Challenge
Utility deregulation and competition along with increasing customer demand in the digital
economy have forced distribution utilities to improve service quality while reducing costs.
Utilities are pressed on all sides: internal business pressure due to competition and expectations
from merger and acquisition activities, more stress on the bulk power system due to open energy
trading and increasing transmission capacity constraints, higher and quicker customer demands
of power and power quality, and greater regulatory and public demands. Utilities have to respond
to these pressures in a proactive manner and rethink their overall strategy to improving service
reliability (Tram and Engelken, 2000.) Using near real-time energy information that is becoming
available with systems such as advanced. AMR is part of this strategy and is the subject of this
paper.
