How are other Electric Utilities Using GIS

[ModernElectric]

Greetings-

    I have spent the past (2) years using ESRI ArcMap to completely redo our electric infrastructure from AutoCAD to GIS. Basically it was a long process of manually going through AutoCAD drawings, notebooks, old hand-drawn
As-built drawings to manually digitize our infrastructure in ArcMap. Now that the system is completely in GIS (being used by our operations, CSR and field crews) for research and decision making - I want to be able to move to
the next step of using GIS. That next step is - How can I use GIS to run analysis on my current infrastructure. What I am wanting to see is what other companies have done with their GIS system to run analysis in order to help their company change/improve things. Any ideas I might be able to use that I could present to my management team would be awesome.

Thanks

[RichardChase]

I wish I had the educational background to write the very long list of how GIS can make life easier for everyone in your organization from bottom to top. I worked line construction starting from grunt to lineman to foreman to safety supervisor to right-of way coordinator over a 30 year span. After retirement I continued work within the same utility working on data installation on a ESRI/ArcFM system. I'm hoping that some of the other members of this forum will contact you with a list of things that can happen when using GIS.

Good luck - it sounds like you've got a great start.

[ModernElectric]

   I wish I had the educational background to write the very long list of how GIS can make life easier for everyone in your organization from bottom to top. I worked line construction starting from grunt to lineman to foreman to safety supervisor to right-of way coordinator over a 30 year span. After retirement I continued work within the same utility working on data installation on a ESRI/ArcFM system. I'm hoping that some of the other members of this forum will contact you with a list of things that can happen when using GIS. 

Good luck - it sounds like you've got a great start.

Thank you for the kind words. It sounds like you would have around the same mind-frame as my linecrew has. I am having a hard time getting our crew to use ArcGIS (Specifically ArcReader) to gain information. Most of them are
"Old School" lineman with answers like - "If I want to know something I look up at the pole/conductor for answers, common knowledge, etc). With you being a retired lineman with many years in the field - what kinds of things from a GIS system helped make your job much easier? I guess other questions is - what information does a lineman, foreman need that he could not get from just looking at the infrastrucutre up close in the field?

Thanks for any information you would like to share.

[RichardChase]

Yeah, I've "been there and done that" for sure.  I've spent the last 15 years working with GIS and trying to encourage linecrews to use it.  For those linemen (and, yes they are the younger men that have been around a computer more) that have started using the applications - they now DEMAND access to them.  Even some of the older guys that I used to work with are beginning to use GIS as they see how much it can help.  If nothing else "a picture is worth a thousand words" seems to work.  I've taken the time to personally draw some of the men aside and show them small thing that they can find and let them know that all they have to do is ask and I'll help them some more.  I reckon it works because they do start understanding what a great tool it is.

One of the results of doing this is that the crew members can return some damn good ideas to the engineers.  Good practical field experience can be displayed on drawings very easily and when that man sees his work on a piece of paper the result is "job pride".  It ain't easy but it is damn sure worth it at the end of the day.

I'll be glad to give you a hand in any way that I can.

[DerekLaw]

Hi Chris,

... Any ideas I might be able to use that I could present to my management team would be awesome.

These might be good places to start:

• Electric & Gas Community Resource Center




• GIS for Electric - Industry resource page

Hope this helps,

[MikeGoggin]

Hi Chris,

I realize this post is over a year old but I like this topic and wanted to push it to the top to see if we can get more people to respond.

Over the last 8 years I was fortunate to work with 30+ utilities here are some solutions I saw.

Vegetation cycle analysis and data management - traditionally utilities manage their cycles by feeder/circuit and by year but some foresters have realized they can leverage spatial analysis and in some cases inventory trees (e.g. danger, species) to have more impact on trim budgets and reliability.

Reliability analysis - there are many factors to reliability analysis including historical outages, vegetation cycles, pole inspections to name a few and each has a spatial component.  Through spatial analysis you can determine where you have reliability problems today and trend where they will be showing up down the road.  This is great information for engineers to fix the problem and for operations to help during storms.

Damage assessment - determining the impact of a storm or event as quickly as possible is important to the restoration process.  Traditionally utilities use a standard paper form filled out in the field and radios/phones to call into dispatch.  What I learned is while this process works, in most cases, there is a lag in the flow of information.  There are many utilities that turned to their ArcGIS platform to automate the field collection process using smart devices and send the damage to the office in near real-time, including pictures and material needed.  This new process has proven to be beneficial in reducing outages, better estimated time of restoration (ETR) numbers, and internal and external communications.

So here is a start hopefully others will chime into the conversation

---

[/HR]
Mike Goggin
RAMTeCH Software Solutions

[ModernElectric]

Mike-

Thank you for posting. Since I started the post, I have done alot with our GIS system that I would like to share so other GIS users in the electric industry might be able to use to assist their company.

Infrastructure Inventory Assessment:   
We recently rolled out an infrastructure wide audit of our current electric system. Our GIS model was rebuilt from a stand-alone AutoCAD drawing composed from decades of hand-drawn maps. Since the company has never done an in-depth audit - we needed to determine and verify what we had mapped was correct. Also - tons of data was missing that had never been collected. It was broken out into multiple phases.
        Phase 1: Pole Inspection and Numbering: Had a linesman go to each pole to complete an inspection to determine it's integrity. Since the company has never done a pole by pole inspection - this allowed us to determine which poles were getting past their life span and needed replacement. We also collected addition information on the pole (type, year manufactured, class, and damage) that I was able to run analysis on and put together a map/list of poles to replace over the next couple of years. At the same time - a company number was attached to the pole.
                  How this has helped: This made it easier to catalog our pole inventory ArcGIS. It has also become handy incase of an emergency for fire/police. In the case of a car hit pole/pole top fire, they are able to tell us the number and run a fast query in GIS to zoom to it's location. Also - on street light outage - a customer can tell us what pole the light is on by telling us a simple number - instead if trying to interrupt their explination of it's location.

       Phase 2: Pole Top Assembly & Street Light Audit: Went back through the system and visted each pole and determined what the pole was made-up of. AutoCAD was used to construct every possiable assembly we use in our company. A detail for each assembly was built with the type and number of inventory items that was used to construct it. At the same time - each pole that had a street light attached was checked. We compared what was currently in the GIS model (Type, Arm legth, bulb wattage) with what was really in the field.
                  How this has helped: Once it was complete - our FIS system was updated with the true/current number in units in current use for analysis and accounting purposed. The street light field aduit allowed us to cross reference what was found in the field with our CIS data to make sure the billing was correct.

      Phase 3: Joint Use Audit: Previously - our joint use data was updated by contractor/joint use company's submissions. We wanted to verify what we had in our records was true in the field. Again - each pole was visted to determine which joint use company and type of attachment was on each pole.
                How this has helped: This made sure our Joint Use data was correct and up to date. It made sure we were properly billing the company's that were attached to our pole(s). Also - when a pole was replaced - we were sure the correct companys were notified so they could move to the new pole.

How this was accomplished: ArcMap with ArcPad and a Trimble Nomad "G" Series. Data from a File Geodatabase with Domains (used as drop-down menus in ArcPad) checked-out to the Nomad. Data was collected by a lineman directly into the device (Drop-Downs, barcode scanner and Photos). The data was than imported directly into the working File Geodatabase and used for further analysis and reporting.


Meter Usage & Demand Data:      Previously - our engineering and meter department would either have to go into the CIS/TWACs system to find out the usage and demand on a given meter. In order to determine the demand of that meter and/or the transformer - a hand calculation had to be done. NOW - The data is exported from the CIS system each quarter. After running mutliple ArcGIS tools - the end result is a visual graph (Meter Usage, Meter Demand, Transformer Usage/Demand) is created showing the data over a 2 year period and attached (In the form of a .PDF) to the matching object. Now - instead of searching through different systems and doing hand calculations - our engineers and meter techs can run a query in GIS for a specific meter/transformer bank and visually see the data for making decisions.


CIS/GIS Integration: Data in our Customer and Billing database is constantly changing and being updated by different people and departments. Other GIS Users (Operational Supervisors, Engineering Departments, Meter Department) rely heavily on data related to the infrastructure along with customer account attributes. Instead of cross-referencing back and forth between GIS and CIS - I have integrated data directly into GIS. I have constructed a series of Python Scripts that automatically pull data from the Oracle Database to update specific attributes in the GIS system (Customer information, meter data, billing records, ETC). This happens everynight through a Task Scheduler. This way - the users of GIS have up to date information on one system. This also prevents having to update the same information in different locations/ systems.


I am always looking for additional projects to update our current electric GIS system that other departments within our company can benefit from (Engineering, CIS, Meter Department, ETC).

Hi Chris,

I realize this post is over a year old but I like this topic and wanted to push it to the top to see if we can get more people to respond.

Over the last 8 years I was fortunate to work with 30+ utilities here are some solutions I saw.

Vegetation cycle analysis and data management - traditionally utilities manage their cycles by feeder/circuit and by year but some foresters have realized they can leverage spatial analysis and in some cases inventory trees (e.g. danger, species) to have more impact on trim budgets and reliability.

Reliability analysis - there are many factors to reliability analysis including historical outages, vegetation cycles, pole inspections to name a few and each has a spatial component.  Through spatial analysis you can determine where you have reliability problems today and trend where they will be showing up down the road.  This is great information for engineers to fix the problem and for operations to help during storms.

Damage assessment - determining the impact of a storm or event as quickly as possible is important to the restoration process.  Traditionally utilities use a standard paper form filled out in the field and radios/phones to call into dispatch.  What I learned is while this process works, in most cases, there is a lag in the flow of information.  There are many utilities that turned to their ArcGIS platform to automate the field collection process using smart devices and send the damage to the office in near real-time, including pictures and material needed.  This new process has proven to be beneficial in reducing outages, better estimated time of restoration (ETR) numbers, and internal and external communications.

So here is a start hopefully others will chime into the conversation

---

[/HR]
Mike Goggin
RAMTeCH Software Solutions

[RichardGraves]

We are using Milsoft products for Outage Management, Engineering Analysis, and Mapping (ESRI plug-in). We are very happy with it so far.

http://www.milsoft.com/utility-solutions

[LukeFinch]

AutoCAD is just a start. There are numberless software and other sources found to support electric industry.