Mobility Practices in Utilities World

The mobile revolution is expanding  in Utilities world,Mobile technology is changing the way we do business in a big way and the benefits are staggering. What are the best practices and the tools available in mobile utilities world

1. Workforce Mangament Software
Day to Day responsiblities like Business , Technical and Histrical data , Scheduling and re-scheduling , connect and disconnect, dispatching, Report generating

2. BYOD ; Bring your own device
Best practice would be providing the mobile devices to work force at the client place, so that there would be good interaction with the customers when and where it is required

3.Cloud Based solutions
Cloud hosting to bridge the gap between the customer , Field service agent and the Utility commpany once WMS is installed
This will save lot of time reducing the paperwork and allloting more time for the next customer . Time saving process

4. Application usage
Mobile device applications
a)Mobile Payment like Paypal integration,
b)GPS Focussed app like google waze  which is beneficiary to the fleet team in accordance to check the weather and traffic conditions . This app is very much useful while communciating with the client or office about whereabouts

5. Security plan
Security abou the data when connected through the mobile workforce Management and fleet services , A security plan shouldbe in place to reduce the risk of stolen , misused , lost data while communcating in cloud based enterprise mobility

6.Social Collobration
Last but not least is the social collobration which is upcoming trend because more and more social events are integrated to the utilities world . Social collobration interfaces facebook with in the network of communcation, if a field agent faces any technical issue he can post it online onsite , and can easily benefit from the expertise with in the network, Photos and videos can also be shared real time

Todays Utilites world is moving towards optimizing daily management activities and Mobile workforce maagement software implementation is the best successful way in doing it with the help of Cloud technologies

Smart Grid 2.0

Smart Grid 2.0 delivers the grid resident and Grid Location  communications to intelligently light up the distribution grid. Contemporary computer systems are equipped with the ability to monitor the status of the computer system itself. These capabilities can be used to remotely control or manage a multiplicity of device and network characteristics. The use of VirtuGrid™ technology allows grid-resident devices to autonomously monitor, report, and react to instantaneous conditions inside the grid infrastructure in much the same way computer systems and networks do today. 

 

Smart Grid 2.0

Maintain existing generation fleet and loads at current levels of cost and service while integrating new variable renewable energy resources with new flexible loads such as electric vehicles, without excessive asset build-out. 

• Through increased smarts, communications, and dynamic controls that can enhance asset utilization without 

compromising system reliability. 

•  the Smart and Controllable Grid is the key to achieving cost-effective energy sustainability by using generation 

assets more effectively, minimizing the build of new transmission and distribution infrastructure, and 

reducing overall cost of energy.

 

Smart Grid Three part series

Smart Grid 1.0

In the early days of smart grid—before the term “smart grid” became popular—one of the most frequent conversations in the industry was how to “futureproof” the implementation of smart meters. In early days smart meters were generally not outfitted with remote disconnect/connect capabilities, and the only operational discussion was in regard to reducing truck rolls. In terms of customers, everyone was focused on how to limit the changes required in utilities’ massive customer information systems, since, instead of having a single meter read per month, metering data would be on a per-minute and in some cases sub-minute basis.. Although at the time it concentrated exclusively on meters given that high capital costs were associated with their implementation, the future-proof discussion in the present context revolves around higher evolutionary phases of smart grid focused primarily on operations and the customer. Indeed, meters constitute only the foundation for the innovation available through smart grid. It is through these operational and customer innovations that the true value of smart grid will be realized.

A Smart Grid is the seamless integration of many parts: an electric grid; a communications network; and hardware and software to monitor, control, and manage the creation, distribution, storage, and consumption of energy. The Smart Grid of the future will be distributed, interactive, self-healing, and capable of reaching every device.

A Smart Grid uses the latest technologies to increase energy dependability and customer service by:

Managing supply and demand

Controlling use

Monitoring outages

It helps operators “see the system” in its entirety. It allows them to avert trouble spots and re-route power as necessary. If sections of the electric system approach overloading, the Smart Grid automatically redirects load to restore balance.

“Smart Grid 1.0” is a meter-centric smart grid, and is the first phase of implementation for the vast majority of utilities implementing smart grid. It’s quite mature from the perspective of the many details and intricacies that had to be discovered and created over the course of an implementation. All of the business cases for Smart Grid 1.0 are remarkably similar across utilities, and the technology has become generally stable and more feature-rich than the earliest implementations. 

AMI Analytics - Future

For many utilities across the world, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) is the first of many initiatives on the path to modernizing the electric grid. According to the differences researches  on AMI Analytics Vendors, Markets and Opportunities, the primary benefit realized by utilities to date has been reduced operating expenses through the automation of meter reading and billing processes, despite the fact that smart meters are capable of monitoring and recording multiple parameters. This data can provide insights into both the status of the distribution grid, as well as the customers that utilities serve. In terms of insolation, however, smart meter data rarely provides measurable benefits. It is only through the implementation of software solutions that provide additional context that the true value of AMI can be realized.

The software analytics market for AMI is one of the most promising opportunities for catalyzing the near-term convergence of IT with operational technology. Nevertheless, the market is still in a period of early adoption, even in geographies where hardware is relatively mature. Accelerating the rate of adoption will be depend upon solving both technological challenges such as systems integration as well as cultural challenges related to change management. Furthermore, both vendors and utilities expressed a common belief that unlocking the true value of AMI data will be dependent upon the adoption of a common utility data model, which ultimately represents a final steady state for more effective data utilization. Until then, most of the benefits resulting from AMI will come from the growing capabilities of meter data management systems.

SAP and Electric Vehicle

Electric Vehicle adoption is becoming a reality worldwide and it is growing at an accelerated pace. Automobile manufacturers across the globe are focusing on developing electric vehicles for mass consumption. The developed nations specifically are seeing this growth which is fueled by numerous factors like:

• Electric vehicles are becoming more and more affordable. Coupled with innovative buying campaigns, it is driving purchasing

• Lower cost of ownership of electric vehicles since these are not dependent of traditional fuels and simpler mechanical technology translates into lesser maintenance and failures

• Increasing cost of fossil fuels since most nations are dependent on imports for such fuels and hence often consumers are opting for their small vehicle as an electric vehicle

• Environmental concerns caused by use of traditional vehicles with some nations having high taxation on these

• Rebates and concessions offered by governments in use of electric vehicles either directly or indirectly

While all this growth of electric vehicles is good for the economy, good for the environment and of course translates into additional revenue stream for automobile manufacturers, electric utilities are really concerned on how they can address the impact to their business, planning and supply of electricity by this increasing use of electric vehicles. 

Charging an Electric Vehicle consumes and demands significant electricity when compared to the overall household consumption and average demand in a billing period. Hence increase in use of electric vehicle creates additional consumption and demand requirements. Some of the challenges that electric utilities are facing with the use of electric vehicles are:

• Utilities are unable to plan additional consumption or demand from use of Electric vehicles  because utilities have no knowledge of number of such vehicles in a particular geography and at what time of the day these will be charged

• Spikes in electricity demand can result due to concurrent charging patterns, sometimes leading to neighborhood blackouts

• Meeting unplanned demand will require increase in financial, operational, field and planning resources

• New services have to be introduced like public charging outlets and may have to be tied back to billing systems

• Extra meters with line infrastructure and field personal may have be deployed to install dedicated meters in garage / parking areas

• Standard household rates may not be valid for Electric Vehicles charging. Higher or different rates for Electric Vehicles may be required by some utilities or regulations

• Changes may be required in bill print to show separate consumption for Electric Vehicles charging from regular household use

While the above are significant challenges posed by growing use of electric vehicles, there are possible solutions for utilities that are running SAP or planning to implement SAP based solutions. 

• Identifying additional demand and consumption requirements due to Electric vehicle use is important. Utilities can reach out to customers to understand their interest in Electric Vehicles and whether they are planning to purchase an electric vehicle in near future. The earlier the customers notify the utility, the more effective demand planning would be possible. This solution can be achieved in SAP in multiple ways:

1. This communication can be created as a campaign in SAP Customer Relationship Management with a preselected target group. Based on the response the campaign effectiveness can be analyzed and reported. Further campaigns can then be modified accordingly.
2. Bill Inserts via SAP Print Workbench or SAP certified products like StreamServe can help reach out to customers to gauge their interest in Electric Vehicles
3. With SAP UCES, customer feedback can be recorded when the customer logs into the online portal

• Utilities can tie up with Electric Vehicle dealers/sellers in their geography to notify the utility on sale of Electric Vehicles per geography. Using SAP, an Idoc based integration can be achieved with the Electric Vehicles dealer/Seller sending out a message with details of customer who has purchased the vehicle and his address . The same customer's details can be updated with relevant information in the SAP Master Data if it is also the utility's end customer.

• Some utilities may want to have differential rates and tariff for Electric Vehicle charging. Using SAP's IS-Utilities Billing module will allow to setup differential tariff for such cases. SAP IS-Utilities Work Management and Device Management modules will allow a separate meter installation and dedicated meter reading management. Utilities may recover the costs involved in additional meter installation from the customer. This cost can be integrated into the regular periodic bill by using SAP's Sales and Distribution Module and IS-Utilities Invoicing.

• Customer awareness campaigns can be executed to educate customers on charging their Electric Vehicles at off-peak hours. This can again be achieved using SAP CRM Campaign Management, Bill Inserts via SAP Print Workbench or StreamServe and SAP UCES.

• Electric Vehicles can also be integrated into the Smart Grid. With this integration, utilities will have the ability to remotely disconnect Electric Vehicle charging to reduce peak load on the local distribution infrastructure. This solution can be achieved with SAP IS-Utilities AMI integration pack of AMI where remote disconnection services are provided.

• Increasing outlets for public charging of electric vehicles will allow utilities to closely track and monitor growth and usage of electric vehicles in a geography. With SAP's Enterprise Asset Management modules, utilities can perform the entire blueprint to construction to maintenance of such charging outlets.

• A customer using a charging outlet can input his Customer or Account Number prior to charging. With SAP Mobility solutions these charging outlets can be integrated to SAP IS-Utilities Device Management modules to capture consumption and the same can be billed and included in the periodic bill of that customer.

• SAP Print Workbench and StreamServe can be used to enhance customer bill print by showing separate consumption and billing line items for electric vehicle usage.

• SAP BI can be used to generate business reporting for electric vehicles. Some of relevant reports can provide insights into revenue by EV consumption, penetration of Electric Vehicles, forecast in growth of Electric Vehicles, Charging station utilization etc.

While Electric Vehicle challenges will continue to grow, with SAP based solutions, utilities should be able to address these challenges in a more effective and organized way and for a much longer term without having to incur significant significantly or bringing in 3rd party solutions.

Top ten Information technologies in Energy and Utilities

Social Media and Web 2.0
social media can be used to acquire and retain customers, to drive customer participation in energy efficiency programs and for crowdsourcing distributed energy resources coordination. “Social media for outage communications is also rising in importance and value for utilities and customers experiencing outages,”

Big Data
Smart grid development will increase data quantity by several orders of magnitude, driven by a host of edge devices, as well as new applications such as advanced metering infrastructure synchrophasors (devices for measuring the waveform of the alternating current in the electricity grid), smart appliances, microgrids, advanced distribution management, remote asset monitoring, event avoidance and self-healing networks., “In addition to significantly impacting data volume, smart grid initiatives will produce a different variety of data, such as temporal, spatial, transactional, streaming, structured and unstructured.”

Mobile and Location-Aware Technology
Lowering costs and improving the accuracy and effectiveness of the field force are the main drivers for utilities to deploy mobile and wireless technologies such as ruggedised laptops, PDAs and smartphones and navigation, routing and tracking technologies.

Cloud Computing and SaaS
Security and reliability concerns have limited the take-up of cloud computing by utilities but solutions are beginning to emerge in areas such as smart metering, big data analytics, demand response coordination and GIS. “Early implementers of utility cloud and SaaS include organisations interested in providing common application and data services to multiple utility entities, such as cooperative associations and transmission system operators, smaller municipal and cooperatives without extensive infrastructure or budgets, and investor-owned utilities (IoUs) conducting short-term smart grid pilots interested in quick time-to-market, with minimal impact on production systems,” 

Sensor Technology
Sensors are already used extensively throughout the supply, transmission and distribution domains of utilities but sensor fusion -- the addition of onboard digital signal processing and associated software development capabilities -- is accelerating potential applications, However “Widespread utility adoption is challenged by specific implementation requirements, such as ruggedisation, electromagnetic shielding, temperature extremes, cybersecurity and remote access.”

In-Memory Computing
“Increasing use of in-memory computing (IMC) application infrastructure technologies as enablers inside multiple types of software and hardware products will result in rapid IMC adoption by mainstream, risk-averse IT organisations,”  “The ability of IMC to support high-scale, high-throughput and low-latency use cases will make it possible for IT organisations to implement innovative scenarios, such as those addressing processing of the smart-grid-generated metering and real-time sensor data.”

IT and operational technology Convergence
Virtually all new technology projects in utilities will require a combination of IT and operational technology investment and planning, “More than any industry, the utility sector faces the challenge of the separation between IT and OT management, coupled with the importance of hybrid projects that link IT and OT systems.”

Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)
AMI constitutes a cornerstone of the smart grid by potentially providing a communication backbone for low-latency data aimed at improving distribution asset utilisation failure detection, and facilitating consumer inclusion in energy markets. However: “Different market structures, regulatory drivers and benefit expectations create different ownership models for components of the AMI technology stack, which favour different technology solutions across the globe.”

Communication Technology
The distributed nature of utility assets, combined with the need for more efficient asset management and labour use, makes mobility and supporting communication technologies high investment priority areas for utilities. The smart grid drive toward better observability of the distribution network requires machine-to-machine (M2M) monitoring systems.

Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics has become generally used to describe any approach to data mining with four attributes: an emphasis on prediction, rapid time to insight, an emphasis on the business relevance of the resulting insights and an increasing emphasis on ease of use, thus making the tools accessible to business users.  “Common applications include understanding the future failure patterns of equipment, or the likely load from certain customer groups or regions.”

Meter Data Management and Analytics

Utilities have been using the data from their financial, billing and usage, SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), DMS (Distribution Management System), GIS (Geographic Information System) and OMS (Outage Management System) to produce reports and do analytics for years. with the advent of smart metering and smart grid technologies the follwing options are in front of Utility companies

Real time or near real time data

Much more accurate data

Huge amount of data

Many entities now want the data

Reporting moving out of IT to the client sector

Customer wanting access to the data.

The list goes on and on. But all these changes present a lot of challenges to the utility that have not really been addressed.

DATA CHALLENGES 

Size – In IT for most utilities the largest databases were in the CIS applications. The smart grid databases have tripled and sometimes quadrupled in size. IT struggles to ensure that these databases are monitored and sized properly while trying to put systems and processes in place to do the backup and archiving of this data.

Duplication of data – data is being sent to several applications in the utility and this presents a problem with keeping the data in sync.

Data extracts are being requested from these large databases. We need to identify who handles them, whether they have an effect on the performance of the database and who approves these requests.

Use of extract, transform and load (ETL) tools to extract and transform the data for other sources.

Reporting and ensuring this is not detrimental to the performance of the databases.

Leveraging data experts on the data models and the entity relationships.

Working with data architects that are constantly tuning the performance of the database.

DATA WAREHOUSES/Business Intelligence

Many utilities have turned to moving data into a data warehouse. This is probably what most utilities will have to do to keep the duplication down and deal with reporting on these large volumes of data. However, this also presents its own set of challenges:

It is important that the utility starts small and works smart. There needs to be strong governance around the data. There must be standards in place that ensure any data moved into the warehouse follow those standards. The data should be moved in manageable chunks, ensuring the presence of complete data. There needs to be a user friendly tool with security to let the clients get to the data. It is important to have statements on reports if they are not going to be official reports. Data analysts or business analysts need to be available that know the data and help users with reporting. Users must be trained on what information is in the warehouse and its benefits. Issues must be addressed one at a time. It is important to learn and adapt.

REPORTING

If reporting is done by the systems of record and those same reports are generated from a data warehouse, it is important to ensure that the results are the same. Otherwise there could be huge regulatory ramifications for the utility.

In most cases the clients that support the individual systems, for example outage, are very familiar with the data. They have canned reports that they run. They know the rules around the reports, and for years they have been what the utility bases its CAIDI and SAIDI on.

The utility could end up with multiple systems with different information with no knowledge on what is counted as an outage or not counted, pulling and publishing reports in the company from different data sources.

All that being said about the struggles with the data, there are many things that the utility can really benefit from by using this data.

INDUSTRY SOLUTIONS. Cloud-based analytics could help solve the ‘big data’  with the use cases for analytics.To name few

eMeter Analytics Foundation

eMeter (Siemens), with its meter data management (MDM) product EnergyIP, has been helping utilities collect, archive, validate, estimate, edit and process meter data for several years. eMeter Analytics Foundation for EnergyIP offers utilities develop insights into usage patterns and other information from raw data. eMeter Analytics Foundation helps leverage the raw data into meaningful charts, graphs and diagnostic reports. It uses ETL tools to retrieve data from the EnergyIP MDM and load it into a special analytics database, which is based on a star schema. This makes it possible to quickly obtain analytic information such as aggregates, means, medians, etc., rather than just obtaining transactional information such as the usage of a particular customer during a particular period of time. The eMeter Analytics Foundation runs in conjunction with the eMeter Reporting Framework, and also provides a collection of standard, ready-to-use reports.

Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics 

Using eight pre-configured dashboards, Oracle Utilities Meter Data Analytics helps utilities improve metering performance and analyze trends in energy consumption. The event dashboard facilitates tamper event monitoring, and helps protect revenue by identifying tamper events that need investigation and rectification. The ability to drill back to Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management allows for the checking of device history for any prior revenue protection issues for this device. Further revenue protection is achieved by helping utilities identify non-functioning or malfunctioning meters, identify common factors, and rectify them. The consumption dashboard also helps utilities protect the revenue by identifying low usage customers, and then drilling back into meter data management to compare current and historical consumption.

SAP Smart Meter Analytics

SAP Smart Meter Analytics addresses the challenges of increasing the effectiveness of demand side management programs, complying with regulatory targets, generating revenue and reducing energy costs, improving accuracy of load forecasting, and reducing churn rates in deregulated markets. Key features include instant aggregation of data and analysis of customer energy usage at any level of granularity, aggregation and dimension, precisely segmenting customers based on consumption patterns, comparing energy usage of customers against peers, using root cause analysis to improve their energy efficiency, and empowering customers with self-service access to energy usage insights.

IBM Smarter Analytics for Utilities

IBM Smarter Analytics for Utilities aims to better manage the large influx of ‘big data’ coming from smart grids and meters, by effectively using past history of weather, loads and environmental factors to predict outages and track demand patterns. Key benefits include improving generation performance, transforming the grid from a rigid analog system to a dynamic and automated energy delivery system, empowering consumers by providing them with near real time, detailed information about their energy usage and meeting greenhouse gas emissions targets while maintaining sufficient cost effective power supply.