GRIDview

Visibility, as shown on the pyramid structure, is achieved by running a power flow estimation analysis on the system model. At present only a small percentage of utilities have visibility into a very small part of their distribution system. Power flows and other information from the rest of the system are not available unless there are measuring devices installed in these parts of the systems. Sufficient numbers of these devices are required to provide visibility into the system and to support analysis. Installing measurement devices throughout the system is generally not economical, so cannot be cost justified. However, with the advent of interval metering and advanced metering systems such as AMI and AMR systems, very accurate interval demand measurements are available at the customer premises. Using the GRIDfast analysis core, a detailed system model and these measurements, power flows, voltages and other parameters can be calculated. Once these are calculated either off-line, or in near real-time (using SCADA data and calculated demand), full visibility into the system is achieved without installing a large number of measuring devices in the network. Additional measurement devices will only increase the accuracy of the calculations. All these calculations and the system model are stored in a data warehouse that can be accessed any time for historical information.

Once the basic flow and voltage parameters are calculated, the results can be presented using various kinds of user interfaces including web based graphs and reports. The power flows and other parameters are calculated periodically with the frequency established by the utility. Some of the benefits of such visibility are:

• Better understanding of equipment loading. This information helps reduce operating costs by rightsizing of the system.
• Understanding component loading also increases system reliability since overloading equipments can lead to equipment failure. In addition system operation can be planned around overloaded and prematurely aged equipment.
• Understanding system voltage profile and reactive power flows can help with system planning and hence reduce system losses and also improve power quality.

This also provides a large number of historical system records, called GRIDrecords, that can be used for better analysis, expansion planning and operational planning. This visibility also facilitates training of new personnel.