NSF Site Visit at the FREEDM Systems Center

I was able to spend a day over at NC State University, as the FREEDM Systems Center hosted an on-site visit of the National Science Foundation.  The FREEDM (Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management) Systems Center is a NSF-funded Gen-III Engineering Research Center, where work is being performed at eight universities, with NC State being the lead university.  The ten-year project aims to perform fundamental research and science, enabling technology development, systems engineering, and demonstration projects, such as a 1 MW green energy hub.  The goal is develop breakthroughs in the way that renewable electricity is generated and managed.

At the meeting, I was able to see the momentum that has been generated by the FREEDM center.  University research on the projects is strong and industry partners are taking active roles.   Many university students are involved, many of which will later have careers in the smart grid industry.  FREEDM is also extending its reach into high schools and middle schools, with hands-on pre-college education programs that get students and teachers at these education levels involved.

Developing a new paradigm for a new electricity infrastructure takes a long-term, dedicated approach.  Diverse fields including fundamental research into power electronics, system control theory, and energy storage must all be included, and the FREEDM Systems Center is doing a fine job of coordinating all the work.  More information on the FREEDM Systems Center can be found at www.freedm.ncsu.edu.

Customer Service and Outage Management

I spent several days at CS Week in Tampa, FL at the beginning of this month.  This was my first visit there, since historically distribution engineering and operations, which is my area of focus, didn’t have a great deal of involvement with the customer service point of view.  Of course, distribution operations does influence the customer’s experience, particularly from minimizing the number and extent of outages, and ensuring that power quality (including voltage level) is appropriate at the customer service entrance.

But there are many other ways that distribution operations and customer service interact.  And there are increasing business reasons to insure that the fundamental IT systems, such as the OMS, CIS, BI/Analytics, and web portals are integrated to provide the greatest value:

·         The OMS imports basic customer information from the CIS that is needed in outage management, such as customer name, phone numbers, address, account number, service transformer, etc.  This has typically been done with file transfers with an incremental update procedure every day or so.

·         Often the CIS, usually in combination with an Interactive Voice Response IVR system, is used to take calls, such as outage calls, non-outage calls, and non-customer calls.  A two-way interface to the OMS, often a middleware messaging-based interface, in used.  The OMS is fed calls information from the CIS and IVR, and the OMS is able to provide information back such as estimated times to restore (ETR), outage cause and extent, and outage status.   Non-customer calls can come from passersby, public safety officials, or other non-customers calling to report a problem.  Some OMS have a street intersection lookup capability, so if the non-customer can report the closest intersection of the problem, the OMS can find the transformer closest to that street intersection, and the operator can associate the call with the closest transformer. 

·         The OMS can also generate call-ahead lists for Customer Service Representatives (CSRs).  Customers that will be impacted by planned outages can be notified ahead of time about the pending service interruption.

·         AMI/MDM systems are improving the customer experience by assisting with outage management.  Interfaces with the OMS can provide last-gasp outage notifications, and provide capabilities relative to restoration notifications and meter pinging that can be performed by operators or CSRs .  Often a middleware messaging interface is used.

·         More often, customers are demanding that more accurate and more frequent ETR’s during outages be provided, to enable them to make decisions about their business or activities during outages (for example, whether they should send employees home if it will be an extended outage, or whether the outage will be short and power back on shortly.)  Modern OMS have the capability to automatically generate ETR’s, based on the situation of the outage, so the information can be provided to customers via the IVR or customer service representative.  With appropriate interfaces, manual updates to the ETR in the OMS enable the IVR or CIS to provide status updates to customers. 

·         It is common now for distribution organizations to have internal portals, built on top of a BI platform, that pulls information from different sources such as the OMS, mobile workforce management system (MWM), and CIS.  This provides everyone across the organization, including CSR’s, to have the latest information regarding outages, and to be able to drill down and across the information to get further details.  This can greatly improve the restoration process.  Typically an extract, transform, load (ETL) interface can be used for this purpose.

·         Over the last five years or so, more companies have extended the internal web portal capability to external stakeholders.   Customers can now use web sites on their computers or mobile devices to connect with the distribution organization and get the latest outage information available.  Because of security purposes, and to insure the accuracy of the information that is provided, distribution organizations typically limit the type and amount of information available, but it is still enough to be very useful for customers.

·         With the advent of social media over the last several years, customers now have a whole new way to interact with the distribution organization.  More distribution organizations are using Twitter and Facebook to not only communicate outage information and restoration status and efforts to their customers, but they are also using those channels to gather outage information from customers.  This is an area that is sure to see a lot of development in coming years, in terms of how all of this unstructured data can be used in the outage management process.

The Use of Models in Distribution Operations

Models are often used in engineering and the sciences to be able understand, predict, and control very complex systems.   Generation and transmission control and the optimization of industrial control processes are two very good examples where modeling is used in operations.  Modeling is starting to be used more often in road traffic control.  There are a high number variables in traffic control, some of which are analogous to distribution system control.  The amount of traffic can be compared to load; construction projects can be thought of as planned switching; and road accidents can be thought of outages, to some extent.  The control variables in traffic can be the traffic signal timing, change in the traffic flow direction in certain lanes, and communication to drivers of traffic conditions on particular routes, via electronic signs, mobile devices, or radio, so they can change their routes.

Another very interesting area of complex system modeling is weather prediction.  For example, forecasters rely upon a number of different models to predict the track and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes.  This prediction allows emergency response personnel, government officials, and the public to prepare adequately for the upcoming conditions.  (Weather prediction is an open-loop control system, since there are no control variables to influence the storm.  You can’t do anything about the weather!)

As distribution system operation gets more complex with distributed energy resources, heavier loading, and the need to economically optimize the system, models that can be used for operations increases in value. 

Distribution system models weren’t traditionally used for operational purposes until about twenty years ago.  That was when connectivity models began to be used in outage management systems (OMS).  Models have been used for a longer period of time in distribution planning and engineering, for tasks like load allocation and load flow analysis, short-circuit analysis, and capacitor placement.  So the knowledge of how to model the distribution system is well-known.  The practicality of using that knowledge in operations was not always there.

Now with model-based distribution management systems (DMS), models are increasing being used not only for outage management purposes, but also for switching management and for electrical analysis and optimization applications.

With the growing complexity of distribution operations, there are three technology drivers that are leading to the increasing use and sophistication of distribution models, and their use in the operations environment:

1.    More distribution organizations have good models in their geographic information systems (GIS). 

2.    The capabilities of the IT infrastructure for modeling and distribution system, and for performing system analysis, continues to increase relative to cost.  This includes memory and CPU, which are important for handling the large-scale model in distribution

3.    More IED’s (intelligent electronic devices) are being installed on distribution systems, that can provide the data to the operational model to keep it up to date with the state and conditions of the actual system.

Using a model of the distribution system has particular advantages:

• Increased awareness of system state / conditions.  Most distribution system are highly unobservable.   While the number of IED’s is increasing, the large percentage of a distribution system is still unmonitored.  A computer model provides the opportunity to use analysis such as load flow and state estimation, in order to calculate the conditions on the unobservable part of the system, and provide operators with improved situational awareness.
• Mathematical optimization of controllable parameters – Methods such as mixed integer non-linear programming can be used in conjunction with the model and the engineering analysis, such as load flow, to estimate the optimal state of control variables on the system, including load tap changers (LTC’s), voltage regulator taps, shunt capacitor switch positions, in-line switch positions, var contribution from large distributed energy resources, and optimal levels of demand response.
• Deal with frequent change on the system – A distribution system is highly dynamic, with large amounts of change occurring on it every day.  This includes planned load transfers, distributed generation contributions, maintenance switching, and outages.  During outages, switching occurs, and frequently line cuts, jumpers, and temporary generators are used.  A model permits explicit representation of these changes on the system, so that a true as-operated model is always available to the operators and to the analysis and optimization applications.
• “What-If” Scenarios – A model permits the performance of “what if” scenarios by operators and support engineers.  These can include prediction of future system conditions, and other off-line simulations / studies.  Scenario analyses can be used for anticipated loading changes, switch plans, contingency analysis, and changes in renewable generation production.

Models allow for improved observability, control, and prediction of distribution system behavior under a large number of operating conditions.

DistribuTECH 2013

I spent the last week in January at DistribuTECH 2013 in San Diego.  There were nearly 10,000 attendees at the annual conference and exhibition that focuses on the technologies being applied to distribution systems, but it also includes other areas such as transmission, water utilities, and power products.   If you haven’t been, I would recommend you check it out next year (www.distributech.com).   It is very well run, and includes a large exhibit hall, conference sessions, and educational courses.   And the networking opportunities are outstanding.

I think it’s notable that we are now starting to see more reports of the Smart Grid projects that were partially funded with ARRA stimulus funds back in 2009 – 2010.  This was true for quite a few of the presentations at DistribuTECH.  It’s important for the industry that the benefits and lessons learned from these projects are communicated and discussed at length.

In the last year, some news media have reported isolated cases of dissatisfaction and concerns over AMI and smart grid.  Often, AMI is associated one-to-one with smart grid in people’s minds, even though there are many aspects of smart grid that are not AMI-related.  it is important that an unemotional, fact-based presentation and discussion of the results of projects be performed.  The education of all the stakeholders, of the costs and benefits of smart grid projects, will enable an open evaluation of the investments that are made in smart grid.

Solid business cases are even more important, given the tough economic times that we are still experiencing.   Electricity growth in the US has been negative three of the last four years.  If the revenue of power delivery organizations is similarly reduced, one can bet that more scrutiny will be placed on investments of any kind.   The application of many smart grid technologies is still relatively new, making it even more important that a continuous education effort take place.

Regulators are still supporting smart grid initiatives.  In November 2012, NARUC (National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners) passed “EL-2/ERE-3 Resolution Supporting the Rapid Deployment of Voltage Optimization Technologies”,   The resolution “…encourages State public service commissions to evaluate the energy efficiency and demand reduction opportunities that can be achieved with the deployment of Volt-Var Optimization (VVO) technologies and other electric utility grid modernization technologies and activities, and use of appropriate measurement and verification tools to ensure that such technologies provide the projected savings.”  Volt-Var Optimization has a very strong business case, and it appears that this message has been increasingly communicated in the industry.

Now it is up to everyone working on Smart Grid projects to continue to communicate the benefits of projects that have been undertaken.   Industry forums like DistribuTECH give everyone the opportunity to participate in detailed discussions along those lines.

Electricity Growth Slows In US

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicts that electricity growth will average 0.7% per year through 2040.

If this winds up to be true, this will be quite an historic long-range trend for the electric industry.  Historically, electricity growth in a country had strong correlation with economic growth, typically measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  In the 1950’s and 1960’s, while the US economy experienced high growth, it wasn’t uncommon to electricity usage increases of 6 – 8%.

Such days of high growth may not be seen again in the next thirty years, if the EIA is correct.  In fact, in 3 out of the last 4 years, electricity growth was negative.  The poor economy certainly had a major influence on this.

But there are other longer-term drivers behind this trend.  The investments that have been in the energy efficiency sector, but public and private, are having a real impact.  Everything from more efficient appliance standards, to increasing penetration of technologies such as adjustable speed drives and compact fluorescent lighting (with more efficient LED’s on the way), to building automation and control systems are reducing electricity’s growth rate.  Also, the decrease in the nation’s manufacturing base continues to reduce electricity growth.  This was felt as early as the 80’s and 90’s in locations like the Midwest, and its reach has continued to other areas of the country.

The impact on the electric distribution industry can be substantial.  Smaller increases in electricity usage means smaller top-line revenue for distribution  organizations.  As with all other organizations, if new sources of revenue compensate for the slow growth, then organization’s management looks to make the cost base consistent with the revenue base.  Cost-cutting and productivity measures become important in these environments.

No doubt, there are other reasons why a distribution organizations cost basis may grow in such in an environment.  Two of the largest are the need to re-invest in system infrastructure, as the system ages and reliability needs to be maintained, and de-coupling ratemaking mechanisms, which can provide distribution organizations a financial incentive for reducing electricity usage.

Despite these mitigating factors, for some distribution organizations in the US, we can expect to see:

·         Reduced capital expenditures and operating expenditures

·         Productivity initiatives throughout an organization, leveraging growing organizational technologies such as consolidation of IT and OT systems, mobile solutions, and analytics projects

·         Distribution system efficiency improvements, such as volt/VAR optimization

Electric Service Continuity in Major Events

With the latest super storm hitting the Northeast  in October, the discussions began anew on how electric distribution systems can be made robust to withstand storms.  At its core, this type of event is not new – it’s been repeated time and time again, since the first distribution systems went into service in the 18880’s.  Is there anything new to discuss?

One topic that always receives more discussion after major events is undergrounding the system.  One does not have to look far to see many studies and analyses that have been done, showing the high expense in undergrounding distribution facilities en masse.  Undergrounding isn’t without its faults as well – higher O&M costs, its susceptibility to events such as flooding, and longer restoration times in some cases all have to be considered.  Underground entire systems just isn’t practical.

Another topic that is now frequently discussed in whether smart grid investments should be increased to help withstand storms.  Depending on what you call “smart grid”, many of these investments help in system restoration efforts, not as much as in enhancing the robustness of the system.  This particularly includes distribution automation, whose effectiveness, it can be argued, isn’t as nearly as strong when the large amounts of system damage de-energize widespread areas.  Other “smart grid” investments, particularly the IT systems that are used in outage restoration – the outage management system (OMS), mobile workforce management, GIS, distribution operations analytics, and customer communications tools -  improve situational awareness and provide tools for improved coordination of restoration resources, reducing restoration times.

Personally, I think changes in the discussion on service continuity has to flow from the policy and regulatory level.  First, a more comprehensive effort has to be done to look at the value of electric service during major events.  The value of electric service is different for different end users, and it has to be treated as such.  Distribution companies have taken this into account for years – service continuity is more important for critical customers such as hospitals, nursing homes, police and fire stations, and water pumping stations.  Other loads aren’t as critical.  One question to be considered is whether our way of living, and society’s values, have increased the value of electric service to other loads.   Namely, the importance of loads such as gas stations and cell-phone charging were evident when watching the video coming from New England after Hurricane Sandy.  These are just examples – the question is, for what specific loads has the value of service continuity changed, and in particular, increased due to changes in our world?

Second, in line with revisiting the value of service continuity to particular loads, the economic costs of increasing the reliability to those loads needs to be considered. Undergrounding may be a part of this solution, but we are not talking about undergrounding large parts of the system, or the whole system, as many studies have analyzed.  Instead, a focused analysis on the costs of different alternatives for maintaining service continuity to different loads is called for.  Alternatives could be hardened overhead lines, undergrounding in selected locations, mobile generation, and many more, some enabled by new technologies.

Outage Response and Storm Restoration Conference

This month I attended the 12^th Annual Marcus Evans Outage Response and Restoration Management conference in Atlanta, GA.   It was an excellent forum, with 160 attendees focused on finding better ways to prevent and respond to electric system outages.

Typical for this conference, there were engaging and very useful presentations on events that the speakers had worked through:  hurricanes and tropical storms, blizzards, floods, and wild fires.  At times, the presentations turned personal, and the emotional impact on the audience was almost palpable. The speakers had been through the events, and they shared stories, photographs, and videos of the tremendous impact of the events on the people and their communities. 

Certainly there was a lot of sharing of best practices, in terms of continuous storm planning, immediate event preparation, activities during the storm, and post-event restoration. 

It’s particularly interesting to see how technology advancements get adapted for storm preparation and response.  This includes:

Weather forecasts and damage prediction – The sophistication of weather forecasting has grown over the last thirty years, particularly with the advances in computer modeling of meteorology.    More efforts are being made, including my company, to take the weather forecasts and predict the amounts and types of damage that will occur, based on weather forecasts and past records of damage with similar storms.  This feeds directly into forecasts of required resources, materials, and the Estimated Times to Restore, which are so important to customers.

GPS/AVL for tracking resources – GPS and Automatic Vehicle Location, while not new, continues to gain acceptance as a more effective way to track resources over a wide area.

E-mailing of work packages – This is an interesting one, in the sense that it is relatively simple, from a technology standpoint, but saves so much time and effort during storm restoration.   Typically, in a paper-based system, work package materials such as work orders and circuit maps were printed out, assembled, and then driven over in large stacks to the staging area to be given out to the work crews.  This typically would take hours.  With electronic documents and e-mail, if the crews have a mobile device with an e-mail address, the work packages can be e-mailed to them directly, saving time and resources.

Mobility packages, given out to mutual aid crews and contractors - Some utilities assemble mobility packages, which might consist of a laptop computer, GPS,  and other materials in something like a Rubbermaid bin.  This provides the mutual aid crews and contractors with tools to access the utilities’ IT infrastructure. 

But the topic that received the most amount of new discussion was the use of social media in storm events.  Utilities described how they are increasingly devoting more resources to the use of applications such as Facebook and Twitter, as more and more people use them with regularity.  And because of the strong linkage between social media and mobile technologies like smart phones, it means everyone gains an improved awareness of conditions, even during the storm, that is almost instantaneous, distributed throughout a service territory, and not dependent upon having power from the grid (at least until the batteries are discharged in the mobile devices.)   Utilities are already using these tools to collect outage reports, gather photos of damage from customers and employees, and communicate pictures of system damage and restoration efforts to a wide audience.  Challenges remain:  how to separate fact from fiction on the social networks, how to manage “trolls” that want to use social media to make destructive and unhelpful positions on every topic imaginable, and how to make use of all the unstructured data and knowledge that is coming from the social network.   But that will be the subject of much future development, and the topic of a future blog.