中國儲能網(wǎng)訊：如今，電網(wǎng)運營和商業(yè)模式正處在真正的轉型期。因此，公用事業(yè)機構面臨著不斷變化的社會、商業(yè)和技術動態(tài)的壓力。
咨詢與系統(tǒng)集成機構BRIDGE能源集團發(fā)布了“2017年公用事業(yè)行業(yè)電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化調查”，這是該公司對電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化工作進行專項調查的第三年，主要調查電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化取得的進展和面臨的挑戰(zhàn)。今年的調查結果顯示，北美地區(qū)公用事業(yè)公司的員工超過2萬名，與2016年的調查結果相比增加了11％，其中公用事業(yè)公司制定了電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化計劃，91％的受訪者表示他們清楚地了解相關收益和目標成果。
“電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化現(xiàn)在是主流，是公用事業(yè)戰(zhàn)略的積極組成部分，推動了監(jiān)管政策和公用事業(yè)商業(yè)模式的廣泛變革，并要求對新的實時技術和基礎設施進行投資?！盉RIDGE集團電網(wǎng)運營實踐副總裁Mike Bianco說?！拔覀兒芨吲d看到，公用事業(yè)戰(zhàn)略目標與所需能力和有利技術的清晰映射，為利益相關者的整合和投資規(guī)劃提供了明確的價值?！?
電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化2017年BRIDGE指數(shù)公用事業(yè)行業(yè)調查還顯示，84％的公用事業(yè)公司正在探索新的商業(yè)模式，而維持或提高可靠性是公用事業(yè)電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化工作的重中之重。
部署高級配電管理系統(tǒng)（ADMS）
BRIDGE集團表示，高級配電管理系統(tǒng)（ADMS）是使分布式能源（DER）集成和控制成為電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化的關鍵能力。ADMS的廣泛采用以及互操作性的標準和監(jiān)管政策的進步將有助于加速電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化?！?
太平洋天然氣和電力公司（PG＆E）在加利福尼亞州圣何塞的示范項目就是一個例子，旨在評估如何通過電網(wǎng)管理技術來控制和協(xié)調用戶使用的太陽能儲能和/或智能逆變器。
PG＆E正在尋求獲得關于高級配電管理系統(tǒng)（ADMS）和分布式能源（DER）如何協(xié)同工作以提供高度分布式能源（DER）使用案例的解決方案的數(shù)據(jù)。
該示范項目的一個主要目標是評估分布式能源管理系統(tǒng)（DERMS）在多大程度上提高電網(wǎng)的穩(wěn)定性和電能質量，以及隨著越來越多的客戶采用太陽能和儲能來優(yōu)化太陽能發(fā)電和電力系統(tǒng)潮流管理。
根據(jù)PG＆E公司的說法，“圣何塞的分布式能源（DER）示范項目是一個代表智能電網(wǎng)的形態(tài)，以及在未來越來越普遍的能源存儲、智能逆變器、太陽能、電動汽車和其他分布式能源的一個縮影。為此，該項目幫助PG＆E了解安全可靠地運行未來電網(wǎng)所需的人員、過程和技術。”
BRIDGE集團的調查也表明，微電網(wǎng)是公用事業(yè)電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化工作的重要組成部分，這有助于提高一組客戶（如饋線或變電站）的可靠性和彈性;整合分布式發(fā)電，以及提高關鍵客戶的可靠性和彈性。
新的業(yè)務模式和電網(wǎng)分析
電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化不僅適用于新技術和資源的整合，也適用于創(chuàng)建新的業(yè)務模式和服務。
“公用事業(yè)公司正在探索各種各樣的新業(yè)務模式。為了做好充分準備，公用事業(yè)公司必須清楚地了解目前能力的全部深度及其戰(zhàn)略目標。”BRIDGE集團說。
公用事業(yè)正在探索的一些新的商業(yè)模式包括：
?提供不受管制的能源服務附屬公司
?考慮創(chuàng)建一個提供不受管制的能源服務的企業(yè)
?試驗分布式能源和/或微電網(wǎng)的實施和所有權
?開發(fā)成為分布式系統(tǒng)平臺供應商或集成平臺的能力
?探索從傳統(tǒng)交付業(yè)務過渡到績效管理
未來的數(shù)字電網(wǎng)將更多地依靠信息來提高電網(wǎng)可靠性、能源可承受性和客戶選擇。
BRIDGE集團指出，分析是發(fā)掘數(shù)字電網(wǎng)潛力的關鍵，并且必須成為任何成功的電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化戰(zhàn)略的一部分。并指出，97％的受訪者預計電網(wǎng)分析將因電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化的計劃而增加。
影響電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化舉措的頂級實施問題
根據(jù)調查的結果，影響計劃和正在進行的電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化舉措主要面臨兩個主要挑戰(zhàn)，即：相關系統(tǒng)/數(shù)據(jù)的整合以及與當前系統(tǒng)/工具的局限性。
BRIDGE集團指出，大多數(shù)公用事業(yè)公司沒有很好地記錄或理解良好的數(shù)據(jù)結構、數(shù)據(jù)流程或數(shù)據(jù)治理。
“公用事業(yè)公司努力在企業(yè)數(shù)據(jù)模型中找到合適的位置，以便將物聯(lián)網(wǎng)數(shù)據(jù)放在合適的位置。市場上只有大約一半的公用事業(yè)已經轉移到面向服務的體系結構（SOA），可以很容易地集成物聯(lián)網(wǎng)設備、服務和數(shù)據(jù)。傳統(tǒng)的點對點和硬連線集成技術不能很好地處理異步。間歇?？勺兏袷降募?。”BRIDGE能源集團表示，“在某些情況下，標準已經到位（IPv6，mDNS，AMQP等），但很多仍在物聯(lián)網(wǎng)領域發(fā)展。目前具有足夠的標準為物聯(lián)網(wǎng)集成提供了良好的基礎，然而，大多數(shù)公用事業(yè)公司在其組織內還沒有定義，采用和實施成熟的標準（IPv6，IEC61850，CIM等）。因此需要實施強有力的標準定義、生命周期和治理流程，以便公用事業(yè)部門的技術社區(qū)能夠就生產的用途、使用的內容以及即將到來的內容達成一致意見?！?
對當前系統(tǒng)/工具的限制
數(shù)據(jù)質量：數(shù)據(jù)質量是隱藏在大多數(shù)傳統(tǒng)系統(tǒng)角落的小秘密。隨著時間的推移和連續(xù)更新、升級和更改，數(shù)據(jù)可能會變得不完整、脫節(jié)和不準確。
企業(yè)很少花時間來開發(fā)和實施數(shù)據(jù)質量、數(shù)據(jù)審查或數(shù)據(jù)清理應用程序/功能，以確保數(shù)據(jù)質量。對下游的影響是，其他傳統(tǒng)系統(tǒng)的數(shù)據(jù)轉發(fā)系統(tǒng)通過傳遞質量差的數(shù)據(jù)加劇了這個問題，并經常附加額外的數(shù)據(jù)。
?物聯(lián)網(wǎng)系統(tǒng)有可能產生與傳統(tǒng)系統(tǒng)相同的數(shù)據(jù)質量問題，但時間要短得多。物聯(lián)網(wǎng)系統(tǒng)傳統(tǒng)上很少由擁有實體，應用程序或供應商管理，因此數(shù)據(jù)有機會容易和頻繁地被錯誤解讀。
?現(xiàn)有的軟件配置和管理工具集具有有限的功能，很難“接觸”物聯(lián)網(wǎng)設備。
這限制了基礎設施和安全人員對物聯(lián)網(wǎng)設備特性和性能的可見性。這也限制了他們管理這些設備及其性能的能力。隨著配置管理工具集（Service Now，SmartFrog等）在這個領域的成熟，這個問題預計將會減少，設備所有者與設備服務的用戶之間的合作協(xié)議將成為主流。
“系統(tǒng)集成和工具限制是阻礙電網(wǎng)現(xiàn)代化項目效益實現(xiàn)的最常見的挑戰(zhàn)。利用與特定實用工具和跨供應商經驗的資源，可以快速克服這些問題，達到預期的業(yè)務目標?！盉RIDGE集團總結說。
Reliability remains top priority in grid modernisation efforts
26 December 2017
The electric grid operations and business model are in a state of genuine transition. As a result, utility organisations are faced with increasing pressure from changing social, business and technological dynamics.
Consulting and systems integration company BRIDGE Energy Group, released its 2017 Utility Industry Grid Modernisation Survey, marking the third year the company has surveyed utilities specifically on grid modernisation efforts, the progress made and the challenges they face. This year’s survey, reaching over 20,000 utility employees throughout North America, reveals an 11% increase over 2016 survey results, of utility companies developing a grid modernisation plan – with 91% of the respondents indicating they clearly understand the associated benefits and targeted outcomes.
“Grid modernisation is now mainstream and an active part of utility strategy driving a broad spectrum of changes in regulatory policy and the utility business model, and requiring investments in new real-time technologies and infrastructure,” said Mike Bianco, VP, Grid Operations Practice at BRIDGE.
“We are encouraged to see that a clear mapping of utility strategic goals to required capabilities and enabling technologies is providing clear value in stakeholder alignment and investment planning.”
The 2017 BRIDGE Index Utility Industry Survey on Grid Modernisation also revealed that 84% of responding utilities are exploring new business models; and that maintaining or improving reliability is a top priority in utility grid modernisation efforts.
Deployment of ADMS
Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADMS), says BRIDGE, are “enabling distributed energy resource (DER) integration and control, a key capability of grid modernisation. Broad adoption of ADMS, as well as advancements in interoperability standards and regulatory policy will help accelerate grid modernisation.”
An example is Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) demonstration project in San Jose, California, aimed at evaluating how energy storage and/ or smart inverters used with customer-sited solar can be controlled and coordinated through grid management technology.
PG&E is seeking to obtain data on how DERMS and the DERs can work together to provide solutions for high DER penetration use cases.
One major goal of the demonstration is to evaluate to what extent distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) technology enhances the stability and power quality of the grid as well as optimizes solar generation and power-flow management as more customers adopt solar and energy storage.
According to PG&E, “ The distributed energy resource (DER) demonstration projects in San Jose represents a microcosm of what the smart grid will look like and how it will operate in the future when energy storage, smart inverters, solar, electric vehicles and other distributed energy resources will become increasingly prevalent and seemingly ubiquitous.
“To that end this project helps PG&E learn about the people, processes and technologies required to safely and reliably operate the grid of the future.” Reponses to the BRIDGE survey also indicated that microgrids form a key part of utility grid modernisation efforts, which assists in 1) improving reliability and resilience for a group of customers (e.g. a feeder or substation); 2) integrating distributed generation and 3) improving reliability and resilience for critical customers.
New business models and grid analytics
Grid modernisation not only lends itself toward the integration of new technologies and resources, but also toward the creation of new business models and services.
“Utilities are clearly exploring new business models across a diverse range of options.
To adequately prepare, utilities must clearly understand the full depths of their current capabilities as well as their strategic goals,” says BRIDGE.
Some of the new business models being explored by utilities include:
? Affiliate company providing unregulated energy services
? Considering creating a business to provide unregulated energy services
? Experimenting with implementation and ownership of distributed energy resources and/or microgrids
? Developing capabilities to become a distributed systems platform provider or Integration Platform
? Exploring a transition to performance based regulation for our traditional delivery business
The digital grid of the future will rely more heavily on information to improve grid reliability, energy affordability and customer choice. Analytics is key to unlocking the potential of the digital grid and must be part of any successful grid modernisation strategy, says BRIDGE, noting that 97% of survey respondents expect an increase in grid analytics from and for their grid modernisation plans.
Top implementation issues impacting grid modernisation initiatives
According to survey’s findings, there are two primary challenges impacting planned and ongoing grid modernisation initiatives, namely: the integration of related systems/data and limitations with current systems/tools.
BRIDGE points out that most utilities do not have well documented or well understood data structures, data processes or data governance in place.
“They [utilities] struggle to identify the appropriate place within the enterprise data model that IoT data should be placed.
“Only about half of the utilities in the market have moved to a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that readily enables integration of IoT devices, services, and data. Legacy point-to-point and hard-wired integration techniques do not handle asynchronous, intermittent, variable format integrations well,” says BRIDGE Energy Group.
“Standards are in some cases in place (IPv6, mDNS, AMQP, etc.) but many are still evolving in the IoT space. There are enough [standards] in place to provide a good foundation for IoT integration; however most utilities have still not defined, adopted and enforced mature standards (IPv6, IEC61850, CIM, etc.) within their organisations. A robust standards definition, lifecycle and governance process needs to be implemented so the technical community within utilities can agree on what’s used for production, what’s used for pilots, and what’s coming on the horizon.”
Limitations with current systems/tools
Data Quality: data quality is the dirty little secret lurking in the corner of most legacy systems. Over time and successive updates, upgrades and changes the data can become incomplete, disjointed and flat out inaccurate.
Rarely is the time spent to develop and implement data quality, data vetting or data scrubbing applications/functions to ensure data quality. The downstream effects are that other systems which relay on data from the legacy system exacerbate the problem by passing on the poor quality data and often attach additional data to it.
? IoT systems have the potential to create the same data quality issues that legacy systems do but in a much shorter timeframe. IoT systems are traditionally ‘less managed’ by an owning entity, application or vendor and therefore the data has the opportunity to be misinterpreted easily and frequently.
? Existing software configuration and management toolsets have limited functionality and ‘reach’ into IoT devices.
This limits the visibility that infrastructure and security personnel may have into IoT device characteristics and performance.
It also limits their ability to manage those devices and their performance. This issue is expected to lessen as configuration management toolsets (Service Now, SmartFrog, etc.) mature in this space and cooperative agreements between deviceowners and device-service-users become mainstream.
“Systems integration and tools limitations are the most common challenges impeding Grid Modernisation project benefits realization.
Leveraging resources with utility-specific and cross-vendor experience can quickly overcome these issues to achieve desired business objectives,” concludes BRIDGE. MI
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