Electric Utility Network Service Territory purpose and size

Question

We are in the early stages of a UN implementation project for an electric build and have questions about the service territory feature.    I understand that this cannot be modified without losing history and versions - Utility Network Technical FAQ .

One of the key questions outstanding is what is the purpose of the Service territory?

Our current scope is all of QLD (1.5 million km sq) which is considerably larger than the asset package (151 km sq).  We do have a possible need to consider limited specific assets anywhere within the Oceania area (8.5 million km sq or almost all of america).

Is there performance issues associated with creating a too large of a ST?

Remi_Myers · Accepted Answer

The reason behind the service area was to create the optimal indexing structures for the utility network. These structures include the index on the dirty feature class and the future spatial partitioning of the network index.  So creating a service area that is bigger than needed will have a potential negative side effect in that the spatial index is not going to be optimal but it will still function.  The actual  performance impact varies based upon the size of your network and the number of users;  the development team has spent a few cycles optimizing performance so the margins should not be too great.  I would caution that spatial accuracies vary based upon projection systems, so building a service territory that exceeds the projection system could create accuracy issues.