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Electric Energy T&D - Index

Electric Energy T&D - EE Magazine March / April 2009 - Index

• Developing software and processes to convert completely manual
datasets into the GIS
• Establishing specifications to be issued to external data conversion
companies to provide any combination of the above mentioned
activities
• Developing quality assurance and quality control specifications,
software, and procedures to ensure that the data being produced
(internally or externally) meets requirements
Another necessary activity is to ensure that the interface from the
GIS to the central monitoring and control system (such as a DMS) is
transferring all required device classes, attribution, and relationships
completely and accurately. In the initial stages of testing and
deployment the central system is likely to identify many erroneous or
ambiguous conditions. These need to be corrected in the GIS source
system so that subsequent updates will be more accurate. In addition,
business processes surrounding the GIS update process may need to
be improved to ensure the timely update of the network database with
proposed, energized, and as-built data.
Conclusion
With the advance of utility field automation comes the critical need for
geospatial systems to become a key source and repository for integration
of real-time, location based data from AMI and Smart Grid, substation
Designing and Populating Geospatial Systems to Support Advanced Applications for Field Automation
and distribution automation, and other devices, thus enabling near
real-time analysis and decision-making. The GIS model that can feed
such a system must, therefore, have a complete, accurate, connectivity
model from the substation through to the customer at the individual
phase level.
With these new field automation applications in mind, a utility can
proactively enhance its GIS and related databases to provide the
required data structure and content to support field automation. This
requires a “health and wealth” assessment of the utility’s GIS and
related databases, followed by development of an action plan to define
the work needed to achieve the data organization, content and quality
needed to support the field automation devices and applications.
About the Author
Gene Kindrachuk is a systems design and analysis expert with more
than 25 years of experience in GIS and utility applications. His
expertise includes data conversion and migration; system design,
development, and integration; business process and data analysis;
database design, and development of specifications for hardware,
software, and communications for AM/FM/GIS, WMS, MWFM, OMS,
and related technology solutions. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science
from the University of Alberta.
March-April 2009 Issue I
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