Migration - Exchanging engine during the flight
Rodrigo Mendonca Queiroga
GIS Division Senior Analyst
ESCELSA – Espírito Santo Centrais Elétricas S/A
BR 101 Norte, Km 9,5 – Carapina – Serra – E.S.
ZIP Code: 29.161-500 – Brazil
Abstract
Our enterprise GIS enables us to provide efficient power distribution, cable TV, and internet
services, while minimizing costs in keeping these networks operational. Through our enterprise
GIS we are able to manage distribution outage with minimum cable TV signal interruption.
Escelsa is a multi-utility company located in Southeast Brazil that was privatized in 1995. Since
then we are dedicated to improving the quality of our services and reducing operation costs.
Therefore, one of the first decisions taken was to acquire an enterprise GIS that could serve the
multiple goals of the company. Now we are facing the new challenge to move forward in terms
of technology. Our 7 year-old GIS became a legacy system and we need to upgrade. What
technology migration strategy should be adopted in order to move on and also keep up with all
the company requirements? What are the issues we are addressing? Check the internal and
external facts that influence the path that is to be adopted. What are the possible consequences of
the migration?
Introduction - A little bit of our history
Our IT division provides solutions for two companies, Escelsa and Enersul. Escelsa was the first
Power Distribution Company to be privatized in Brazil, back in 1995. It has about 1 (one)
million customers in Espírito Santo State. Enersul is also a Power Distribution Company and was
bought by the Escelsa stakeholders in 1999. It attends to half a million customer at the Mato
Grosso do Sul State. The main business line is Power Distribution, but there are some businesses,
like Cable TV and Internet Service Provider, that showed some synergy. Therefore these other
lines of business were than started. Obviously, all three lines of business somehow depend on
geographic location of its resources and can easily take advantage of GIS.
The selection of the GIS technology we use today was based on some very meaningful criteria
for us. It should: attend to the entire corporation, be open and easy to integrate, reduce operation
costs, have applications ready to use to minimize effort of deployment, have good performance,
be able to present the same information in various different shapes according to the user group,
and certainly be at a reasonable total cost.
Background
In 1996 we have selected and acquired the applications for Power Distribution Network
Management implemented over VISION*. GIS Platform. It had all the main features we
required and the project was a complete success by 1998 with 75% of the data acquisition done
and 80% of the customers already geo referenced.
The first step was to deploy the data entry and maintenance module. This was a big operation
once we had in place a Natural/Adabas legacy system running for about 18 years. The good thing
about it was that, since the beginning, there were people concerned about locating poles and
network devices with its UTM coordinates. This means 13 digit coordinates were typed in a
green old screen. That was of great help to moving into the GIS. The deployment caused a huge
work order backlog and the users had a very tough time to finish it. Scrubbing the data was also a
very big effort and ended up with some aerial photos to help data accuracy. In some areas we
were required to contract for field surveys using GPS to review the information. The result is a
database with approximately 99% of customers’ geo referenced and knowledge of the location of
all devices in the field, with very accurate information. The maintenance module is not only able
to maintain the Power Network but also the entire land base.
Following that, as we had planned, we deployed tools for load flow. The load flow also was
based on the parameters from a mainframe legacy system and was developed to finish its use. It
enabled the connection of new customers to be based on electrical evaluation of the circuit “on
the fly”.
At the same time we have deployed a brand new module for data maintenance of the optical and
coaxial networks. The Optical network attends the automation project of the companies as well
as the cable TV company. The coaxial network attends the cable TV company. The synergy of
the two business lines started taking advantage of the same database in order to minimize power
interruption for their customers.
The GIS support for Outage Management System was also acquired and deployed after some
customization. It deactivated a 20 year-old mimic panel and gave to operators of the distribution
network tools for locating and managing devices in all the Escelsa/Enersul areas. It allows
operators to open/close switches and due to the connection to our Customer Information System
it is able to alert in case this operation is about to happen with any special customer like a
Hospital or someone who’s life depended on an electrical device.
The next step was to deploy tools for substation planning. This tool was also acquired and had its
performance enhanced “in-house” from a 14 hour calculation of the projections based on a very
rough distance measurement to a 5 to 7 minute calculation of the projections based on more
accurate distance measurement.
By the year 2000, we started tests on the acquired Network Design Module, which was deployed
only in 2002 due to a big effort to stabilize and customize it. The module allows the versioning
of the elements and after construction the data is automatically updated reducing a lot of effort
on data maintenance. The module is also integrated to our ERP and provides a very powerful
control on budgets for new design orders.
At that point, we also developed a tool for querying and retrieving spatial information of our
distribution network which enabled us to access our GIS database with zero cost. That tool and
the web site were responsible for spreading GIS to the whole company and beyond. Some
contractors were able to locate customers for new connections, re-connections and disconnection
with the guidance of the GIS web site.
Our GIS solution was based on some architecture definitions. These definitions are presented on
the next section.
