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Utilities can improve the operations, maintenance, and design of distribution network systems and components by combining and analyzing historical event data, leading to fewer outages and increased reliability.
Fremont, CA: Energy utilities that have engaged in outage management automation have seen their investments pay off by allowing them to increase productivity, improve customer service, and manage system growth more efficiently. Integrating historical real-time data incorporated in these automated systems to maximize asset management has positioned utilities to further leverage their investments by automating operational systems across the board.
Let us look at the three phases of OMS:
Digital Transformation
The installation of computerized systems for managing substations, customer information, work orders, mobile work teams, geographic information, automated metering infrastructure (AMI), and other vital processes is the initial step of utility automation. In addition, the implementation of sophisticated electronic devices such as digital relays and digital fault recorders to send real-time event information through SCADA systems from substations to a control center has been a crucial part of further automation.
Optimizing Workforce
Integrating two or more automated systems has been the focus of the second phase of utility automation. Automation and integration can be done at the same time in many circumstances. This method is motivated by the goal of achieving enterprise-wide access. Utilities can create operational threads that share real-time data and provide information on the overall health of the distribution network by connecting outage management (OMS), customer information (CIS), interactive voice response (IVR), work management (WMS), mobile workforce management (MWM), SCADA, AMI, and geographic information systems (GIS).
Operational Performance Analysis
Employees have been able to schedule and do work more efficiently thanks to enterprise-wide information. Still, they have also been able to better preserve assets by planning equipment updates and extending the lifespan of older components. This shift from improving employee performance to improving asset performance will propel automation into the next stage of development: integrating real-time data archives to support outage trend analysis, power quality issue analysis, and feeder reliability analysis.
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