Standardisation of Data and Technology for Smart Grid

Thanks in part to the government stimulus money with mandated time limits, and other "green" incentives, the implementations of facility BMS, EMS, GIS, DGPS Survey for data and smart meter projects are proceeding full speed ahead and damn any standards that get in the way.

There are many diverse aspects to the smart grid but one of the most intriguing is the application of intelligence to the transmission and distribution grid itself, all the way from the long distance transmission lines, to the local substations, distribution lines and ultimately the (smart) meters.  The upgrade of the grid is not so much in the transmission and distribution equipment itself which but rather in the overlaying of an intelligent network that aggregates data from across the grid to enable the utilities to better manage the transmission and distribution functions, localize and isolate faults and integrate renewable power sources while preserving the stability and reliability of the grid.

Data is another area of serious concern.Utilities have either not maintained this data and/ or were not following standards for the maintenance of engineering records. They now look at field surveyors to provide the accurate engg. records (in fact better than elec. engg could do). Surveyors have their own concepts of accuracy and correctness. GIS and GPS technology is applied in a very fashionable /casual way without understanding the business requirements and processes. Most of these initiatives are tailormade to consume a particular product and heavily influenced by the vendors. Once initiated in one country these projects are replicated blindly elsewhere and spread like a disease. Ex. a classic case of vendor agent driven misguided utilities in some Gulf countries: few utilities started countrywide geophysical survey  (GPR and cable tracing) of  buried utilities to map their electrical network for GIS database updation and pilot failed. No lessons learned. Then they went ahead with another project for DGPS survey  (20 cm accuracy) of utilities in open trench condition to create the GIS database of utility network.  An exercise that guarantees CM level accuracy. How will you accommodate this level of accuracy in a complex network of cables in an urban environment? What is the use of such a high accuracy where everyone feels the existing procedure of as-built preparation is more than enough, if followed  properly ? Practice of precision surveys is neither required nor sustainable for any utility where hundreds of changes occur on daily basis. An standardized work flow for the creation of as-built, its submission and entry into GIS would be enough to maintain the sanctity of the engineering records and serve the purpose of O&M staff.

This same issue of interoperability will be critical to the smart grid as it moves out of the realm of isolated pilot programs and demonstration projects to a more ubiquitous presence. As in the case of cellular networks (or any networks), there are going to be a wide variety of equipment providers involved in the smart grid.  Within an individual service area, the utility may choose to work with multiple vendors in order to mitigate both technical and commercial risk.  In order to maximize the value of the smart grid, it will be necessary to enable the utilities to have a homogeneous view of this heterogeneous network.

Standardization of business processes is more important than the technology implementation to justify the RoI. Vendors should never dictate the way things should move. Now we see a lot of RFPs and projects where you can easily see that "Failure " is in-built in the form of vague SoW, no standards for data  and technology and irrational timelines. Technology should be used to facilitate the implementation in a phased manner and thus the standards will be defined by the experts and not by the agents of vendors who are interested only in selling their products.

R-APDRP: GIS & Utilities Business Process Re-engineering

Massive Aggregate Transmission and Commercial (AT&C) losses have long crippled the financial viability of State Distribution Companies. To address this problem a targeted funding mechanism was introduced for the first time in 2003 in the form of the Accelerated Power Development Reforms Programme (APDRP). Its key objectives were to reduce AT&C losses, improve customer satisfaction as well as financial viability of the SDCs, adopt a systems approach and introduce greater transparency.Unfortunately, the benefits under the first APDRP were not linked to well defined objecives, Quality checks, demonstrable performance and it failed glaringly to achieve its goals. In several cases, funds under the first APDRP were utilised without taking cognisance of the need to reduce AT&C losses. To illustrate, in the state of Bihar, significant amounts of money received under the first APDRP were spent on sophisticated equipment for substations, while very little money was spent on procuring meters to measure actual consumption of electricity. In fact, AT&C losses increased in Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh under the first APDRP. It was in this backdrop that the Restructured APDRP (R-APDRP) was conceived in September 2008.


R-APDRP seeks to commence with tackling the problem of un-metered supply and lack of proper data acquisition systems, followed by system up-gradation and modernisation of equipment. Proposals under R-APDRP will be considered in two phases. In the first phase, proposals for establishing reliable and automated systems for the sustained collection of accurate baseline data and IT applications for energy accounting/auditing and IT-based consumer service centres will be considered for funding. In the second phase, proposals for strengthening/upgradation of power distribution will be considered.
Nowdays, We face obvious questions. For ex. how GIS is going to help in solving the problems of "Utilities" which are facing the challenges of reducing the AT&C losses and incresing the profits? How R-APDRP is different from APDRP in terms of implementation?  It seems that just changing the funding mechanism and implementing a GIS will not result in any reengineering and improvement in the performance and profit. Not implementing a GIS will not preclude effective reengineering either. What the GIS can do are:

• Help identify critical information needed for the business process  and decision making (turning data into information)
• Help to rethink organizational issues by bringing to light low value organizational boundary interfaces
• Facilitate process improvement steps by organizing all geographic and facility information in one common data source
• Enable new creative thinking which could lead to dramatic improvements in the policy implmentations and monitoring the performance of the network and utilty staff as well

Assuming that the GIS is open and accessible to all users within the business unit, the GIS will link the customer directly to the product delivery system. In the past, the billing and customer systems probably have not been integrated into the delivery system data. With the GIS, this is changed. Thus rather than looking at process reengineering of a billing or customer system or an engineering system, it becomes possible to look at reengineering a retail electric business system (the broader view). As stated before, nearly all aspects of the retail electric business, from marketing to sales to collection of bad revenue involve a customer base that is spatial. The benefit of reengineering is to dramatically improve several dimensions in the business process, namely:

• Reduction of gaps in the consumer billing data & the revenue realisation
• Cycle Time - the life cycle measured in elapsed time from the beginning of the process to the end.
• Cost - the total cost to maintain the system
• Service - the value of the relationship of the customer to the provider of the product or service.

Cost will be a major factor after the project completion for maintaining the currency of the data and maintenance. The biggest obstacle to reengineering may be in the attitude that improvement in the cycle time dimension involves a degradation in one of the other dimensions.