Presentation: Distribution Network Visibility for UKPN

The main objective of the UK Power Networks (UKPN) Distribution Network Visibility Project (DNV) is to demonstrate the business benefits of improved collection, utilization and visualization of network data, in the areas of low carbon, asset management, planning, network operations and control. This project is partly funded by the UK Electricity Sector Regulator (OFGEM) and the UK Government Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as part of its Low Carbon Network Fund (LCNF) innovation initiative. The project commenced in 2010 and is due to complete in September 2013.

The project will inform UKPN telemetry and IT strategies to determine optimum levels of reduced network monitoring and frequency of sampling considering specific scenarios and applications for data in the OSIsoft PI System. Visualization tools and reports using third party software have been developed as part of the project. Other data sources presently held by UKPN, such as external temperature data, asset data, fault record data, customer load referral data and connected generation data were included in the project to enhance the business benefits.

The UKPN OSIsoft PI Server was upgraded and a new PI Asset Framework (PI AF) Server and Web server added to the system. The PI AF server was populated initially with a seven-level asset hierarchy holding 200,000 individual PI AF elements.

Because raw data gathered by the PI Server is susceptible to dropouts, spikes, flat lines, etc., UKPN needed to develop specific approaches for analysis and visualization. A daily process identifies and stores Data Quality Profiles (DQPs) of the data, which are then used by a PI AF custom data reference to cleanse the raw data and provide a version for further analysis. Calculations of various summaries of the raw and cleansed data and collation of data methods include grouping data by Day of Week and Time of Day allow "typical" usage patterns to be studied. The visualization of the data was achieved through a custom Web application using MS Silverlight and benefiting from the GIS abilities of Bing Maps and the graphing features of the Visiblox charting tool. Reporting features allow analysis of assets requiring attention and link into other areas of the application.

Benefits achieved by the project include enabling proactive rather than reactive maintenance, saving unnecessary work and reducing the need for emergency work. The DNV project is also reducing the cost of new connections by better analyzing the spare capacity in the existing network.