Information Technology Trends

InformationWeek published results from its annual survey of 500 executives in its September 17 edition.   In an article titled  “The IT Rules Have Changed”, the first sentence was “Mobile devices, cloud computing, and big data analytics are blowing the old IT rules to pieces.”   So are these trends also prevalent in distribution operations?  In my view,  2 of 3 are top trends in distribution operations.

In distribution operations, I think we’re just starting to see an acceleration in mobile capabilities.   While many organizations have been using mobile systems for tasks such as service orders and outages, and to view maps in some cases, I believe that we are going to see many more types of information flowing both to and from the field.  This includes data related to infrastructure condition and system operations.  And we’re just staring to see applications of social media technologies, which go hand-in-hand with mobile, in distribution operations. 

Cloud computing for distribution operations still doesn’t have wide application in distribution operations yet.  While other parts of the electric utility are using the cloud more often, there are obstacles to overcome in distribution operations – namely, with respect to the high system performance requirements, system reliability, and evolving security measures in distribution operations.  The many interfaces that typical distribution operations systems have, including GIS, CIS, IVR,  and AMI/MDM, may also make it tougher for cloud computing.  Certainly there is a trend, however, in increased use of server virtualization in distribution operations.

Big data analytics is just starting.  In my view, this may be next big thing (or buzz word, if you prefer) in the industry,;  we had  re-engineering, de-regulation, asset management, smart grid, and now big data.   Successful development and application of analytics poses a particular challenge for the industry, since many analytics will require successful teamwork among those with expertise in mathematics/statistics, IT, and distribution equipment/ operations domain expertise.

So are there areas in distribution operations that weren’t covered are these big three?  I believe system integration technologies, coupled with data modeling, will continue to see a very high level of development.  System security will also continue to receive a high amount of attention, as  security regulations continue to evolve, and technologies change with it. 

More Perspectives on Distributed Generation

Back in February of this year, I wrote about an analysis that I had done on the long-term forecast for different types of generation in the US.  I used the most recent data that was available from the US Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook.  Using their forecast of electric generation over the next 25 years, some of my findings were:

1.       The continued impact that natural gas will have on our energy supply is forecast to be very significant.  Of the 196 GW of new generation to be built, it is forecast that natural gas will account for 119 GW (61%).  

2.       Large generation technologies that utilize economies of scale are still dominant.   This is evident by the amount of centralized generation to be added (86%) versus the amount of distributed generation (14%).

3.       If only 14% of new capacity additions will be on the distribution system, does this mean you don’t have to worry about distributed generation on your distribution system? It depends.  Regional policies such as renewable portfolio standards, tax incentives, rebates, grants, etc. will still lead to significant amounts of distributed generation in some locations.  For other locations, the environment won’t be nearly as conducive to strong growth.  Just as higher penetrations of distributed generation are already creating issues for some distribution organizations, there will continue to be significant increases in the amounts of distributed generation in some locations.   As a whole, solar photovoltatics are forecast to increase seven times, and they will be largely connected at distribution level. Technologies are certainly changing, and the amount of investment is still substantial.  Even though the percentage of new capacity additions that will be connected at distribution level is relatively small, they will still have significant impacts on distribution in some locations.

Since this topic interests me quite a bit, I took particular notice of the cover of IEEE Spectrum magazine in July 2012.  On the cover was a title of one of the articles inside.  It said “Commentary - Alternative Energy is a Mirage”.    Contained in the well-respected Spectrum magazine, I had to take a look.

In the article, Vaclav Smil makes various points that the only way that renewable generation, except for hydro and geothermal, has made any headway at all is through government subsidies.   Low capacity factors, high installation and interconnection costs, and new technologies to economically recover natural gas make renewable generation, such as solar and wind, uncompetitive compared to other generation types.   And the tremendous investment and inertia that is built into our existing energy infrastructure means that even if renewable energy reaches economic partity, it will take many, many decades to switch society over to renewables in substantial quantities.

Of course, common prevailing thought is that we must invest in renewables, or run the possibility of increasing global temperatures due to the emissions of greenhouse gases.  However, if global warming is real, then it is a global problem, and not a national problem.  We share the earth’s atmosphere with all other countries on earth.  And Dr. Smil makes this eye-opening comparison:  Between 2004 and 2009 the US added about 28 GW of wind turbines.  If we account for the low capacity factor of wind, this is comparable to 10 GW of coal-fired capacity.  The US should pat itself on the back and rest assured that it is making a significant contribution to the reduction in global warming, right?  Well, during that same period, China installed 30 times as much coal-fired generating capacity.   Through 2015, it is projected that China will add another 200 GW of coal-fired generation, or another 200 large coal plants.

It begs the question – is the investment in renewable energy really the most-cost effective use of the US’s research and development funding for reducing generation’s environmental impacts?  Or are there other alternatives, such as carbon capture technologies, that should be getting more funding?   You can read Dr. Smil’s commentary in Spectrum here   http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/a-skeptic-looks-at-alternative-energy/0.

FREEDM Center Visit at NC State

I recently had lunch with Dr. David Lubkeman, Research Professor and Instructor at North Carolina State University and the FREEDM.    The FREEDM Systems Center, which is the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery Systems and Management Center, is funded by multiple parties, including the National Science Foundation and industry sponsors.  NC State has a long tradition in electric power systems engineering, with many of today’s power engineers having used the classic textbook Elements of Power System Analysis, authored by the late Dr. William Stevenson of NC State, and later updated by Dr. John Grainger at NC State.  I was fortunate to have worked with Drs. Stevenson, Grainger, and Lubkeman during my graduate studies at NC State, and it is great to see Dave as part of the successful FREEDM Systems Center project - http://www.freedm.ncsu.edu/

The FREEDM center was started in 2008, with an $18.5 million dollar grant from the NSF.  The FREEDM’s center has multiple goals that include the performance of fundamental breakthrough technology in energy storage and power semiconductor devices, developing enabling technologies for subsystem and system demonstrations, and developing a one-megawatt FREEDM green energy hub system to power the Engineering Research Center’s headquarters and other buildings on NC State's Centennial Campus

The FREEDM Center has multiple university partners, including Arizona State University, Florida State University, Florida A&M, and Missouri Science and Technology University.  It also includes universities in Germany, Switzerland, and New Zealand.  ABB, parent company of my employer Ventyx, is an industry partner with the FREEDM Center.

Among the many FREEDM projects and graduate student projects that Dave showed me was the prototype of a power electronic distribution transformer that was being designed and assembled.  Most of the hundreds of millions of distributions transformers in service around the world today are constructed with components such as iron cores, paper insulation, and mineral oil.  The power electronic distribution transformer would replace all these components with solid-state semi-conductors.  Maybe even more interesting, the FREEDM system is working on a distribution transformer that not only converts medium-voltage to the low-voltage ac power that is universal on electric utility secondary systems today, but it would also have a low-voltage DC bus.  This would permit the increasing amounts of dc loads that are present today, such as computing equipment power supplies, renewable energy sources such as solar, and energy storage devices to plug directly into a DC bus,  eliminating their need for their own ac-to-dc power converters.  (On a separate note:  ABB, which has long been the leader in DC power applications, including high-voltage DC (HVDC) for power transmission, is now providing DC data center solutions, which offer the advantages of higher efficiencies, less space, and reduces equipment and installation costs.   http://www.abb.com/cawp/seitp202/187b2f29acaea090c1257a0e0029fb1a.aspx)

The “War of the Currents” was declared by many to be over in the 1890’s, when the ac technology systems supported by Westinghouse and Tesla proved superior to Edison’s dc technology systems.  Low-voltage dc technology may be able to borrow from Mark Twain, who said “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

For electric distribution engineers such as myself, it is wonderful to see such innovative R&D being performed on the electric power distribution system, as the FREEDM center is doing.

Be Prepared

I spent a half a week recently at a Boy Scout camp in North Carolina called Camp Raven Knob.  It was a good opportunity to spend time with my two sons, and a chance for some hiking, fresh air, and R&R.   Plus an opportunity to briefly visit Mount Airy, the closest town, and hometown of Andy Griffith, the actor who played Andy Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show”.

The first night we were there, a thunderstorm came barreling through camp just after midnight, with heavy rain and high winds.  Since Raven Knob is a scout camp, none of the scout tents or three-sided shelters called “Adirondacks” officially have electric service, although Scout Masters have been known to run extension cords several hundred feet, for a few necessities and some not-so-necessary necessities for themselves!  However, there are facilities at the camp that make extensive use of electricity – the health center, the dining hall, the trading post, administration and meeting buildings, and the water pumps.  When the storm came through, much of the camp lost power – I heard it was a transformer serving the campground that failed.   It had been extremely hot in the days before the storm, and a friend that works for a utility had just reminded me that it’s not really the heat that often kills a transformer, but the through-fault or voltage surge that happens after the heat wave, when a thunderstorm comes through.  That might have done the trick.

So most of the campground was without service for the next day.  That meant eating breakfast and lunch in the dining hall in the dark, with no air conditioning, lights, fans, stoves, or ovens.  It also meant that everyone was asked to conserve water as much as possible until the power came back on.

So how can such outages be avoided, with minimum cost to develop a solution?  With the camp being in a rather rural area, I’m guessing that it is either at the end of a feeder or close to it, and the nearest substation is at a minimum of 8 – 10 miles.  I’m also speculating that the closest adjacent feeder might be at least that far from the camp.  Also consider that while there is some small amounts of year-round residential load close to the camp entrance, the camp is only heavily populated for about 10 weeks in the summer.   Given these assumptions, could a feeder extension be done economically, to loop the camp feeder with another feeder and provide a back-up path?  Probably not, if it assumed that that 5 miles of feeder are needed, at a cost of $150,000/mile.  How about undergrounding the entire feeder, or parts of the feeder?  Installation costs are going to prevent that.  Could distributed generation be placed economically at the camp, assuming $500/kW, and a 1000 kW load, with additional  fuel and O&M costs?  Maybe, but still not economically justified.  How about a microgrid, complete with solar panels and battery energy storage?  I don’t even have to make cost assumptions there to know that won’t make sense in this particular case (unless there are some government incentive dollars!)

So what are the Boy Scouts to do?  What about all the other electric loads located in rural areas everywhere, that are in the same situation?  What about the millions of customers that were without power for over a week on the East Coast of the US, when a huge line of thunderstorms (a “derecho”) came through?  With all the technology we have, can’t we fix this by investing more in infrastructure, or building the Smart Grid in these areas?

The answer for these electric customers – Be Prepared.  For the foreseeable future, we don’t have a way to economically reach 100% reliable service, or even close to 100% reliable service, for loads such as these.  Certainly there are good engineering practices that distribution organizations universally follow to improve reliability, and it could be economically advantageous in this case to apply some.  But almost universally, until someone invents a wireless way to transmit large amounts of electrical power, then the distribution system will be prone to faults and customers will be prone to interruptions.  And even if wireless power transmission should ever become a reality, there still may not be a way to guarantee 100% service.

So what did the Scouts do?  We saw a couple of portable generators role into camp that morning.  One was being pulled by a truck that had the county’s name and “emergency response” written on it.  One of these generators was connected to the dining hall, to run the refrigerators and freezers.  The camp served cereal for lunch, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch.  If the scouts thought about taking a shower (yeah right), then they would have been discouraged due to the low water pressure.  I’m sure there were other things that were built into the camp contingency plans for a power outage, and that were done in this event.  In short, the scouts had contingency plans for this event.

Bottom line:  yes, there are infrastructure improvements and smart grid technologies that are commonly used to improve reliability.  But for right now, no amount of improvements will get everybody to 100% reliability.  Just like the scouts, the motto “Be Prepared” is something that everyone still needs to heed, with respect to power outages, for the foreseeable future. 

Influential People in the History of Electric Power

With it being Memorial Day weekend in the US, I had some spare time to review some of my books on the history of electric power.  Here is my list of some of the most influential people in the history of electric power.

Faraday – Michael Faraday was one of the greatest experimental scientists ever.  Among other findings, he discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction , in which a changing magnetic field induces a voltage in a loop of wire.  This led to the eventual development of the ac transformer, generator, and motor that we know today.  The measurement of capacitance, the Farad, was named after him.

Tesla – Nikola Tesla expanded the principles established by Faraday, and performed work in the areas of electromagnetic fields, communications, and radio.  He worked for both Edison and Westinghouse at different points in his career.  His work on rotating magnetic fields led to the eventual development of the induction motor.  Working for George Westinghouse, he developed patents for equipment in the modern polyphase ac power system.  The measurement of magnetic flux density, the tesla, was named in his honor.  Tesla died alone and in poverty in the New York City in 1943.

Edison – The Wizard of Menlo Park, Edison’s inventions of the light bulb and the phonograph were among his 1,093 US patents.  He was the driving force behind the creation of the first investor-owned utility (the Edison Illuminating Company), and the installation of the first central station (Pearl Street) and electric distribution system in 1882.  The systems were dc, and he eventually lost the “War of the Currents” to Westinghouse.

Westinghouse – George Westinghouse led the drive to develop ac systems in the US. He purchased patents from Nikola Tesla, and employed George Stanley, who put in the first practical multi-voltage ac system in the US in Great Barrington, MA in 1886.  He had the vision and began the development of the modern economic ac power system, using large centralized generating stations with high-voltage, long-distance transmission lines.

Steinmetz – Charles Proteus Steinmetz mathematically described the “Law of Hysteresis” in the early 1890’s, and improved the design of electric motors.  He later worked at General Electric with Thomas Edison, and developed methods to reproduce lightning in an electric laboratory. 

Fortescue – Charles Legeyt Fortescue spent his entire career with Westinghouse.  In 1918, he  published a paper on symmetrical component theory, showing that any set of N unbalanced phasors can be expressed as the sum of N balanced phasors.  This facilitated the analysis of unbalanced electric power systems, and symmetrical components are still used today.

Implementation of Advanced Distribution Management Systems

I spent some time at ABB’s Automation and Power World in Houston, Texas last week.

The vast amount of  technology that is within ABB’s businesses was evident from first walking into the exhibit hall.   While there was plenty of hardware – breakers, transformers, switches – the presence of software solutions was also prominent.  There was a dedicated Software Pavilion, where the all the Ventyx software was showcased.

I chaired a session on “Experiences in Implementing Distribution IT/OT, a Key Component of the Smart Grid.”   Walter Bartel of CenterPoint Energy and Charlie Schaeffer of Ameren were presenters at the session.  Both presented on the status of their companies’ projects, in which new SCADA, DMS, and OMS systems are being implemented.

It’s fairly easy to do a presentation on what things might look like in the future.  You just need an awareness of the present state of things and the direction that things are headed.  If you’re reasonably realistic, then it’s difficult for anyone to dispute what you’re saying with any certainty.  After all, it’s the future, and no one can tell exactly what’s going to happen.

It’s also fairly easy to do a general presentation on what has occurred in the past.  Particularly if it’s a subject that you know reasonably well, and or has been covered in the industry before, then it’s pretty easy to find material on the subject and present it.

The most interesting type of presentation for many people is one describing how a complex project has been done.  This is particularly true of projects that involve a great deal of change.  It is quite interesting to see the planning and execution of a project that impacts and involves a great number of people, as well as new IT systems.  At large investor owned utilities, the implementation of new Distribution Management Systems, including SCADA, OMS, and DMS, can be such projects.  It is interesting to see the differences, as well as the commonalities, in how different organizations handle the different elements of the project  -  project planning, change management, project tracking, changes of scope, successes and failures, and assessment of results.

Both Charlie and Walter did excellent jobs describing their project implementations.  Both are leaders in their projects and heavily immersed in them.  They know what it takes to do one of these projects.

Charlie presented Ameren’s project to implement an Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS).  One of the topics that Charlie discussed was “Why a commercial solution?”  If you think about it, one of the strategic decisions that companies make in starting a smart grid project is whether to develop the solutions themselves, perhaps buying parts from various vendors, creating parts of the solution in-house, and performing all the integration themselves, or whether to obtain a commercial offering from a vendor.  The reasons that Ameren decided for a commercial solution were:

•       Completely Integrated Solution required.

•       Applications are complex and still evolving.

•       Desire to receive regular upgrades as Smart Grid evolves.

•       Ameren participate in user groups/product direction.

Another big part of Charlie’s presentation was just how much these projects are not all about new technology.   New technologies are an enabler, but the majority of the tasks require a lot of good old-fashioned project planning, execution, and change management.  Ameren divided their project into two phases:  Phase 1 – Planning/Design, which was completed in 2011, and Phase 2 – Implementation, which is ongoing.  Their Phase 2 is further split into SCADA, Maps/Switching, Outage/Mobile, and Reports.  Charlie explained how Ameren reviewed a PowerPoint slide completely full of business process areas, and identified the system requirements, system changes, process requirements, organization impacts, IT impacts, and implementation tasks. 

Walter presented on the implementation of the Intelligent Grid at CenterPoint Energy.  From a technical standpoint, CenterPoint has doing a tremendous amount of work the last several years:  AMI implementation, communications system installation, ADMS implementation, installation of remote monitoring at approximately 30 substations, and installation of approximately 600 automated field switching and monitoring devices.  But Walter also emphasized the business transformation that is taking place, and particularly discussed that success factors needed:

•       Strong Governance Processes

§  Risk Management, Change Management & Financial Management

§  Project Planning/Scheduling & Metrics/Benefits Reporting

§  Technical Architecture, etc.

•       Integration & Alignment of Project Team, Vendors & Support Functions

•       Product Standardization

•       Installation Standards & Procedures

•       Improved QA Processes

•       Deployment Strategy

•       Monitoring & Exception Management

•       Leveraging of Existing Infrastructure

Both Charlie and Walter are leading in projects that rank with the biggest projects in their careers.  They both know that while the technology plays an important part, the human element of projects is either as important, or more important, than the technology implementation.  It’s not just buying some technologies, installing them, and getting to the Smart Grid – it’s also about having a Smart Project Execution, complete with the human element involved.

Integrating AMI and Distribution Operations in the Smart Grid

Last week I attended an Elster User’s Group Meeting in Pinehurst, NC, and co-presented on the topic of the convergence of distribution automation and AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure).  Elster Group is a leading provider to electric, water, and gas utilities of communications, networking, and software solutions.  They supply AMI meters and systems.  It’s a good time to reflect upon the growing integration, and in some cases the convergence, of distribution operations and AMI in three different areas:

1.       Communications between the control center and feeder devices

2.       Outage detection, prediction, and restoration

3.       Electrical analysis of the network

1.       Communications between the control center and feeder devices

Last year, Elster launched its IP AxisLink platform, for AMI and DA convergence.  The platform consists of the IP AxisLink Router/Gatekeeper/Gateway and the IP AxisLink secure tunnel server.  The concept is that this platform enables a utility to use much of the same infrastructure that it uses for AMI for distribution automation and distribution operations purposes.  The AxisLink Router, which is installed in the field, provides parallel paths for AMI and SCADA operations.  The router can contain an Elster gateway, which is used to provide the path between the meshed network of revenue meters and the WAN communicating back to the Elster head end.  At the same time, the router can provide access to distribution IED’s using IP-based protocols (such as DNP) over the EnergyAxis communications network.  The IP AxisLink secure tunnel server, located at the control center, provides VPN tunneling of the SCADA communications between the SCADA front-end and the router.

The value provided is that at particular locations, a single box can be installed that will communicate both AMI and SCADA messages over the utility’s WAN.   This avoids the need to install separate hardware for these two purposes, while utilizing the same WAN connection.  In this way, controllers for reclosers, switched capacitors, voltage regulators, and switches can communicate with the SCADA/DMS leveraging the AMI infrastructure.  Elster is not the only AMI supplier with solutions for using AMI for distribution automation.  It is an alternative to traditional SCADA communications that bears evaluation from feeder device communications.

2.       Outage detection, prediction, and restoration

Interfaces between AMI/meter data management (MDM) and the outage management system (OMS) are becoming more common.  Efforts continue to enhance the functionality, but already there are several ways AMI data can improve the outage management process.

First, if the AMI meters and communications contain the capability, the OMS can receive a last-gasp or outage notification message from the meter when it loses voltage, indicating a customer outage event has occurred.   Customer outages are automatically reported to the OMS, even if the customer doesn’t call its supplier.  Receiving outage notification messages is in addition to phone calls from customers reporting outages.  These outage notification messages are particularly useful when no one is at a property where an outage occurred or when people there are asleep. The outage notification message can reduce customer interruption times and result in a more efficient dispatch of repair crews.

Second, with the proper interface between the OMS and AMI system and the right communications infrastructure and meter, a message can be sent from the OMS to query if a meter is in service. This is often referred to as “pinging the meter.” The meter can be pinged directly, assuming the AMI communications permits it, or the MDM can be pinged to determine the status of a meter. The meter can be pinged either by a customer service representative or an operator.

The value in pinging is that many customer outage reports are results of problems on customer sides of meters. Utilities commonly report that 50 to 67 percent of single-customer-call outages are results of problems on the customer side of meters and not the responsibility of distribution organizations. If a meter can pinged to determine it has voltage, despite a customer’s reports of service issues, responding troubleshooters and crews can save labor costs and vehicle miles.

Another value in meter query is in the ability to potentially perform intelligent outage scoping, or define the outage area by pinging select meters. This can lead to a faster definition of the outage area.

A third area in which interfaces between OMSs and AMI systems can provide value is through restoration notifications. They provide confirmation to distribution operators that customers have been restored downstream of a particular protective device. Restoration notification can be done through a restoration notification message transmitted from the restored meter to the OMS or through pinging of meters that presumably have been restored. The value of restoration notifications is that when all customers have not been restored because of a nested outage within the larger outage area, field personnel can be notified of additional problems before they leave the area.

3.       Electrical analysis of the network

The widespread use of AMI data to improve electric operations is frequently discussed, but actual implementations are not yet widespread.  One example is the use of load profile data from individual revenue meters to create distribution transformer load profiles for use in DMS applications.  Instead of having generic customer class type profiles for the loads, each distribution transformer has a set of load profiles that are reflective of the actual customer demands based on the AMI-reported demands.  Having load profiles for each individual distribution transformer provides more accurate calculation of the state of the network, including a better understanding of loading throughout the system.  This improves the accuracy of DMS load flow calculations, allows operators to load equipment closer to its limits, and results in more accurate calculations used in FLISR (fault location, isolation, and service restoration) and volt/VAR applications.

More experience is being gained with the creation of individual load profiles for each distribution transformer using AMI data.  Some distribution organizations are using funds from their ARRA stimulus grants to implement the interface to the meter data management (MDM) and the DMS.  In one case, an  XML interface using middleware messaging is being used to extract data from the MDM and consolidate the data into each distribution transformer load profile.  The load profile will then be used in the DMS applications.

Increasingly often, real-time or near-real-time electrical data from AMI infrastructure will be used in the operation of the network.  This includes both data from both revenue meters and data from feeder IED’s.  While the timeliness of the data from revenue meters must be considered, due to the latency of some AMI networks, an interface between an AMI head-end system and the DMS can be constructed, using web services or messaging.   The data from feeder IED’s can use the AMI communications infrastructure, as described in the first topic, in communications to the control center.   Examples of electrical data that can be transmitted over the AMI communications infrastructure are voltage limit alarms or voltage magnitude analogs.  Such data permits more precise control of the voltage in the network, permitting an organization to more effectively implement voltage conservation reduction.