Grid Information Manager allows making smarter business decisions that improve operational reliability and efficiency through a single view of all of a utility’s grid information management.
GE engineers say, yes, and they have done so with the company’s Intelligent Platforms software. Proficy Grid Manager, a range of tested grid optimization software for local utilities, delivers real-time information and analytics to help utilities improve operational reliability and efficiency, and manage a more intelligent, cost-effective grid.
Offering an approach that’s customizable to align to a utility’s required smart grid vision, the grid manager encompasses four modular capabilities including operations management, lifecycle management, load management, and knowledge management. It uses the latest ideas to help utilities reduce system outages, enhance equipment lifecycles, manage customer loads, and digitize standard operating procedures.
“Proficy Grid Manager is an open and layered architecture that connects with a utility’s current systems and applications while providing the flexibility to implement value-added capabilities right on top,” said Bill Pezalla, Global Energy Industry Manager for GE Intelligent Platforms. “It’s also Microsoft-based for easier support and training, cost-effectiveness, and integrated security.”
The company says key portions of Proficy Grid Manager include the:
- Operations Management Dashboard to provide a remote-monitoring capability that lets utilities respond to outages, analyze, and prioritize alarms, and leverage advanced and causal analysis. It delivers actionable information that increases system reliability and decreases restoration time.
- Lifecycle Management delivers alarms and quick diagnosis to events on transmission and distribution equipment, providing information that can reduce downtime caused by equipment failures.
- Load Management provides analytics that leverage next-generation technologies to more effectively predict and balance customer loads—minimizing the impact of peak loads on customer productivity and costs, and limiting utility spending on wholesale supply or new generation resources.
- Knowledge Management improves consistency and ensures that best practices become standard operating procedures. This is an industry-unique offering that electronically manages a utility’s work processes and provides an audit trail for compliance.
To help utilities get started, the developer works with each utility to develop a complimentary customized “Smart Grid Roadmap” — a unique list from other solution providers. The roadmap provides a step-by-step strategy, tailoring the grid manager to meet business needs and achieve each utility’s own vision for its distribution system.
“A key advantage is that a utility can jump straight in at any step and progress from that point,” said Pezalla. “Depending on what smart grid technologies are already in place, the roadmap lets users focus on the areas that provide the best operational performance and cost effectiveness for its utility today while providing a strategic, forward-looking path for the future.”
GE Wind Energy
http://www.ge-ip.com/electric_utilities
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