IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020 - 52

A key value of the advanced optimization applications like FLISR
and IVVO is that they can control, in an orchestrated manner, a
multitude of distribution automation devices installed in the field.

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investments in model creation and training the personnel who interact with the ADMS.
The vendor should support both transmission energy
management systems (EMSs) and ADMSs with native
interoperability for utilities that wish to implement a
combined and seamless EMS and ADMS or an energy
distribution management system, across their transmission and distribution operations.
A sustainable model management environment must
be available to update the as-built models as new construction and system-hardening activities occur in the
field. It must provide comprehensive validation tools,
default data population, and offline instances of advanced applications to verify that they will run on
the new models being propagated to the production
system. The automated detection of modeling errors
should be a growing area of vendor support, again in
the distribution state estimation space.
A powerful DOTS environment should be available
both for training end users and as a test system for
the incremental rollout of advanced applications and
data acquisition in the field. A DOTS is also useful
for familiarizing utility staff with the functionality of
advanced applications and helping them understand
how those applications interact with other subsystems
of the ADMS.
The vendor should provide tools to help utilities roll
out advanced applications and then monitor, tune, and
maintain those applications in production so that they
continue to earn the expected return on investment.
Vendors should support a phased implementation approach for both advanced application functional groups
(such as topology only, power flow, fault location, FISR,
IVVO, and outage management) and model readiness
or priority, meaning that the utility can incrementally
roll out a function by area, station, or even feeder.
A key value of the advanced optimization applications
like FLISR and IVVO is that they can control, in an
orchestrated manner, a multitude of distribution automation devices installed in the field. The optimization
applications need to be aware of which of the potentially thousands of devices are actually eligible for
control at any given time without human interaction.
A controllable device might be ineligible for control
because it has been issued a "do not operate" tag as
part of a switching safety procedure or it is undergoing maintenance. If the controllability of an individu-

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al device is lost due to a communications problem or
simply a device failure, the system must be able to recognize and automatically flag it in the model as being
ineligible for control. When a device becomes eligible
for optimization control again-as, for example, after
operational tags have been removed or communications restored-the system should automatically flag
it as eligible. The DNOM and optimization applications must automatically adjust to the dynamic eligibility of controllable devices. While this functionality
is not critical for success in a pilot project with only
a few feeders, it is essential for a systemwide deployment of advanced application-driven automation.

DER-Enabled ADMSs
With Advanced Applications
Certainly, the ongoing proliferation of DERs being connected to the distribution grid has been driving the largest
changes in ADMSs and advanced application technology
since the first days of smart grids and AMIs. Even though
regulatory policies and markets for distribution-level DER
services are immature, the uptake of residential and commercial DER installations is significant compared to the overall distribution load. If one considers the need to model and
monitor the impacts of intermittent electric vehicle charging,
the phenomenon is compounded. At this juncture, any utility
considering implementation of an ADMS should be sure that
it is DER enabled for safe and reliable operations.
An ADMS that is DER enabled should be able to perform
at least the same functions that a utility expected from an
ADMS before DERs had any perceptible impact on distribution operations. Application functions, such as network
visualization, connectivity and energization analysis, power
flow and state estimation, short circuit, fault location, FISR,
and IVVO, should all consider DER injections. This implies
that the DNOM must include discrete models of DERs and
where they connect to the distribution network, which further implies that the utility is collecting and managing the
DER asset data in some form.
At the basic level of ADMS visualization and connectivity/energization analysis, being able to see and trace the
locations of connected DERs on circuits undergoing repair
or maintenance is important for the safety of field crews.
At the next level up on the distributions operations functional pyramid (Figure 2), power flow and state estimation
analysis are important to understand the impact of the DER
injections on circuit voltage and "hiding" the actual levels
january/february 2020
IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020

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