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Recently, a number of us at Energy Central were discussing the utility industry in broad, sweeping strokes when the discussion turned to information technology and automation. One of the participants asked, “So where’s the utility industry’s iPod™?” Seemed like kind of a strange question at first, but ultimately, a pretty good one. When one looks at the myriad of financial, regulatory, customer, and technology challenges and requirements confronting today’s T&D operations leaders, the question makes even more sense.

The fundamental question is, really, “what is ‘out there’ that can create a big leap ahead for the T&D business; in other words, what is the ‘next big thing’?” This fundamental question opens a Pandora’s Box of technologies, opinions and competing agendas from a chorus of industry leaders. And they might very all be right in their arguments.

So rather than attempt to pick a single “iPod™” for T&D automation, we have looked to some industry leaders for their thoughts on what is “out there” on the horizon for T&D managers, engineers, and staff to look to as they strive to improve their own operations. The following are comments from some industry thought leaders specifically for this article.

Not Your Father’s SCADA

SCADA systems as we have known them may soon become a thing of the past, according to Terry Nielsen, senior director, product management for DMS/OMS at SPL WorldGroup (www.splwg.com). He tells us that the paradigm of how SCADA systems and technology are procured and implemented is changing as we speak.

Nielsen tells us that, “open, high level standards at the device level, the availability of open communications protocols like ‘Internet,’ IEC 61850 and the ability for applications to speak directly to the devices will make SCADA systems obsolete. At a minimum, we will see further commoditization of the market and things like the current open source SCADA system that is being developed as a sign that SCADA, as a ‘system,’ won’t be something that a utility purchases for much longer.” A glimpse into the not-too-distant future can be seen at http://www.osecs.com. And http://www.openscada.org.

Keeping T&D Safe & Secure

In the post-9/11 world, no discussion of future T&D developments would be complete without a look at security, for which we turn to Dick Lord, CEO of The Steadfast Group (www.thesteadfastgroup.com), a leader in helping utilities and others develop comprehensive security programs.

As anyone who has listened to a security briefing or presentation will tell you, the trick about security is that you can be “right” 1,000 times, but you have failed if you are “wrong” on event No. 1,001. Perfect security requires infinite resources, which is not humanly possible, so a compromise is necessary. According to Lord, that’s where comprehensive security policies that interweave physical, cyber and operational security while constituting part of the overall business risk management strategy come in. These define what assets (human, physical, data) are protectied against what forces, ranking both asset importance and threat likelihood.

“Ever been through an ISO-9001 audit? I envision similar NERC/FERC/DOE required security audits where the auditor asks to see the policies, procedures, plans, readiness exercises etc., picks one and follows it through in tedious detail,” Lord says.

Drinking From a Fire Hose

Utility IT systems, for all of their faults, are good at generating data. Lots of data. For someone trying to transform all of that data into usable information for a variety of critical operational and management tasks and functions, it can be not unlike trying to drink from the proverbial fire hose.

In trying to make sense of this data to put it to good use, a good place to start is operational data, according to Ron Brumback, CEO of CertaLogic (www.certalogic.com; the company was formerly known as 4DataLin, but has undergone a recent transformation). Operational data is a key component in delivery business value by contributing to mission-critical tasks such as increasing reliability, reducing costs, improving asset utilization, increasing revenue and improving regulatory outcomes.

Brumback sees the role of the network as being critical for the integration of operations data: “Given the central role that the network plays in the operation of a utility, it is likely that a highly intelligent model of the utility’s network will play a central role in any operations data integration solution. Some organizing element is required and nothing is more central to a distribution utility than its network. All other relevant information of an operating and financial nature can be linked to this network model.

“As a starting point, a requirement for such a network model-based data integration solution would reasonably include a comprehensive master network model that embodies all the laws of physics and company-specific engineering standards that characterize the utility’s network. It must include all the network elements and all the logical and physical connectivity of the network from transmission system/distribution system interconnect to meter.”

“New & Improved” Intelligence

Historically, “intelligence” from T&D networks has meant figuring out what to do with data generated from SCADA and Distribution Automation systems, and there have certainly been strides made in this regard. Ed Finamore, a senior analyst at Sierra Energy Group and founder of ValueTech Solutions (www.valutechsolutions.com), points us to the Electric Power Research Institute’s (www.epri.org) IntelliGrid consortium, which was created to develop a system-wide approach (as opposed to a localized approach) to managing the electricity grid, with a focus on system optimized solutions for distribution and substation automation over electric utility networks. “IntelliGrid takes a holistic approach that is future-oriented, streamlines system interfaces and avoids obsolescence of systems and technologies, reducing large scale replacement costs,” Finamore says.

As this concept takes hold at a growing number of utilities, development of use cases to define system protection and other requirements should increase and will produce new open standards- based solutions that attempt to optimize network performance, balanced against life cycle cost. These solutions will define network requirements first, and then must be translated into equipment functions and specifications that can be supported by the utility automation suppliers with new products and services.

One technology that could be a key enabler of system-wide intelligence is BPL (Broadband Over Powerline). Finamore points out that BPL offers utilities unique opportunities to backhaul large quantities of data related to such things as voltage, current flow, outage status, meter data, transformer loading and power quality.

Bringing it Home

And finally, of course, we need to do a reality check, and there is no one better to provide this for us that one of the more progressive CIOs (Chief Information Officers) that we have come across. Bart Theilbar is the CIO at Northwestern Energy (www.northwestern.com). “The next big thing in T&D automation will not, necessarily, be related to a new technology hitting the market; rather, it will be related to the implementation, integration and utilization of existing technologies. Much of the technology on the market today has the potential to improve customer service while simultaneously improving shareholder returns.

“As a general rule, utilities have been slow adopters of technologies. Many common examples of technologies that are not fully deployed include an integrated GIS and OMS solution, field force automation and CIS. The utilities that excel in the future will, in my opinion, focus on implementation integration and utilization of these technologies.”

So is there an iPod™ in T&D automation’s future? A major breakthrough type of technology that suddenly appears on the landscape and radically changes the way that utilities conduct their T&D operations is very unlikely.

Editor’s Note: Mike Smith can be reached at msmith@energycentral.com