Electric Energy T&D - Index

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

feeder and compiling details about each
restoration process – giving both the utility
and its customers an accurate perspective
of their specific outage
• The ability to access information – including
manually entered crew location data – in
real time, which allows MCEC to quickly
direct workers to an outage site in case
of an emergency, increasing crew safety
and efficiency. MCEC is able to access
automatically updated information via
graphical maps and tabular lists. In the
future, MCEC will also be able to incorporate
an Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system
that will directly integrate with the utility’s
network management system and provide
real-time crew location data.
• Integrated existing data. MCEC is able to
integrate data from its CIS, GIS, supervisory
control and data acquisition (SCADA)
system, interactive voice response systems
and mobile systems into a centralized, realtime
database. This guarantees the integrity
of the data from the disparate systems in use
at MCEC. Some of the utility’s older systems
employ the “silos of data” approach, but with
its back-end system-wide integration MCEC
is able to see near real-time concurrent data
across the organization.
Future Plans
In the future, MCEC hopes to better verify
customer information when customers call,
enhancing outage prediction and identifying
nested outages – that is, a smaller outage within
a larger outage – and also have the ability to
more quickly confirm restoration. For example,
if a blown fuse causes an outage in a section of
overhead line, MCEC can identify the problem
and restore that outage, along with any other
outages – such as a transformer outage on the
same section of line – even if they have another
cause.
The utility also plans to utilize the outage
management system’s meter pinging
functionality built into the AMI system along
with the circuit and phase assignment for
each member MCEC generates daily from its
CIS and GIS systems. The end result will allow
MCEC to further build on its existing capability
to qualify customer information by matching a
customer phone number automatically to an
address from the IVR before that information
moves into the outage management system
and, on the restoration side, make sure the
power is back on in all locations before the
crews even leave the area.
Moreover, MCEC hopes to reduce call time in
its service centers by allowing its customer
service representatives to automatically receive
outage status notification information at their
desktops via the outage management system.
With this ability, they will be better equipped
to provide accurate and real-time perspectives
on outages, including information regarding
the cause of a specific outage, work crew
status and estimated restoration time.
Since MCEC’s outage management system
integrates with the IVR system, customer service
representatives will be able to quickly assess the
outage and determine the resources needed for
restoration. Additionally, MCEC plans to publish
near real-time outage data via its Web site for its
customers, further reducing the amount of calls
coming in to the service center.
Beyond that, MCEC plans to offer its customers
the means to access information about current,
in-process outages via the Web and give them
the ability to report outages to the utility
electronically. MCEC also plans to procure
an automatic vehicle location (AVL) system
that the utility can directly integrate with the
outage management system so dispatchers
will have access to real-time positioning of
the crews. This will help improve safety and
customer service because dispatchers will
be able to pinpoint the exact location of its
service vehicles. MCEC will use this data in its
day-to-day operations to predict arrival times
for scheduled and emergency appointments
and also to locate service crews for re-routing
in case of an emergency.
Lessons Learned
MCEC has worked to make its grid smarter for
more than 0 years. From its experience, the
utility offers the following lessons learned for
other cooperatives and electric utilities.
• Evaluate and decide how well your present
technical situation is serving you.
March-April 2009 Issue I
Keeping the Lights on in Central South Carolina
• Do your research, and find a solution that
fits your co-op.
• The technical and non-technical challenges
of installing such a system are significant,
but with persistence and a good plan, the
end result proves to be worth it.
• There will a unique solution for every utility;
therefore, each must understand its own
needs and develop its own solutions.
• As with any major IT project, be sure all
parties have a full understanding of the
goals and expectations. It is important to
get organizational buy-in and leverage the
knowledge base that already exists in the
utility.
Conclusion
As electric utilities look to the future, they
face huge pressure to improve reliability and
customer satisfaction. An outage management
system – integrated with other pertinent
solutions like CIS, GIS, and AMI – can be the
most important component to any electric
utility’s response strategy. When every second
counts, and customers are left in the dark, it
is essential to have the best and most reliable
outage management system available. Utilities
that invest in this technology will reap the
benefits for years to come.
About the Authors
Keith Sturkie is Vice President of Information
Technology for Mid-Carolina Electric
Cooperative. Prior to joining MCEC in 2002,
Sturkie was Principal and co-founder of
Southern Business Services (SBS) from1980
– 2002, a designer and marketer of CIS
and Financial Software Systems for electric
cooperatives in NC, SC, GA, AL and MN.
Lee Ayers is a System Engineer at Mid-
Carolina Electric Cooperative, where he
has been employed since 1986. Ayers
has 27 years experience with integrating
computer and automation systems for electric
cooperative power systems, including OMS,
load management, mapping, SCADA, AMI,
RF communications, wide area fiber optic
networks and all forms of substation and
distribution automation. He holds a BSEE
from Clemson University (1982).
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