IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020 - 34
Investing
for the
Future
By Young Ngo,
Herschel Arant,
Chris Bilby, and
Amy Grice
©ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/ALPHASPIRIT
I
IT IS NO SECRET THAT THE ELECTRIC POWER
distribution industry is in the midst of unparalleled disruption. From the continually evolving development of renewable energy sources to catastrophic storms to an onslaught
of incoming data, utilities are being forced to adapt to
even more change and issues requiring resolution than they
have seen in a century, which include the following:
✔ an escalating number of severe weather events sharpening the focus on increasing resiliency
✔ requirements for greater interoperability between systems and devices due to the rising adoption of distributed energy resources (DERs)
✔ achieving appropriate operational performance and
financial returns for grid modernization initiatives,
including digital transformation.
Municipalities and cooperatives are uniquely impacted by
these forces based on their business and operational models.
Their customers expect the same level of service and uptime
as that provided by larger utilities. They are at the mercy of
the same weather events and under the same pressure to
diversify energy sources to reduce environmental impact.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2019.2947817
Date of current version: 7 January 2020
34
ieee power & energy magazine
Because of their smaller size, however, they have fewer
resources and greater budget constraints impacting their
responses to these pressures.
This is not to say that small utilities are not keeping pace;
rather, they are leveraging various creative options to overcome these challenges using techniques such as the following:
✔ obtaining funding and prioritizing initiatives with the
greatest return
✔ ensuring a consistent knowledge base across stakeholders through documentation, digitization, and
training
✔ automating activities to make small teams more productive
✔ ensuring interoperability between system and operational applications to share data for maximum effectiveness and productivity.
Using three real-life case studies of U.S. cooperatives,
this article illustrates how smaller utilities can overcome
challenges to meet their goals. Each utility profiled is in a
different stage of the advanced distribution management systems (ADMS) journey:
✔ Case Study 1: The co-op utility featured in this case
study has completed its ADMS implementation and has
been running a supervisory control and data acquisition
1540-7977/20©2020IEEE
january/february 2020
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020
Contents
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020 - Cover1
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020 - Cover2
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020 - Contents
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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020 - Cover3
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