Use Case

ADMS Integration

Utilities Have Several Million Dollars of Stranded System Benefits Tied Up in Their ADMS Deployments Due to Lack of Adequate Grid Telemetry.

It is estimated that less than 50% of distribution substations in the U.S. are equipped with real-time field telemetry, and even fewer have telemetry installed on the feeders downstream of these substations. The primary obstacles to expanding field measurements are the significant costs and time investments required. Retrofitting substations with modern real-time telemetry or adding midline feeder measurements can be very costly and time-consuming. These high costs have historically made adding telemetry to the grid prohibitively expensive, leaving distribution networks operating without full visibility and reducing the value of the major investments made in Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADMS). Many of the advanced grid analytics applications purchased as part of an ADMS implementation end up inoperable due to lack of sufficient critical metering.

Sentient Energy’s (Sentient) intelligent sensors and advanced analytics solution are designed to quickly and affordably bring critical data and insights into an ADMS, solving this age-old problem. The Sentient solution enables you to fully leverage ADMS functionality, expanding your grid visibility and recouping your huge investment in an advanced DMS project.

Inadequate Telemetry Affects ADMS Application Results

To function properly, an ADMS requires critical real-time field telemetry and an accurate network model — two requirements that are difficult to fully achieve. Insufficient telemetry impacts distribution applications in several ways, including:

Imprecise Power Flow Results: In the absence of real-time telemetry, ADMS uses load estimates from nominal load curves rather than real-time feeder loading.
Delayed Outage Detection: Lack of network device states and downstream telemetry can delay outage awareness, prolonging outage restoration and affecting reliability metrics.
Limited Fault Awareness: Lack of fault indicators or fault current measurements can result in vague fault location results (large area) or missed faults/disturbances altogether.
Limitations on Voltage Applications: Without voltage data or control over voltage profile, Volt/VAR optimization (VVO) and control applications cannot be fully leveraged.

Utilities that deploy an ADMS under the above conditions do not fully realize the benefits of their advanced ADMS applications such as power flow, state estimation, fault location, feeder reconfiguration, or Volt/VAR optimization, and often leave these applications dormant and “turned off.” These ADMS applications simply do not work without an accurate network model and real-time field telemetry. More than 80% of the ADMS’s implemented in the recent years turned out to be nothing more than a Distribution SCADA and at best an Outage Management System, despite several million-dollar investments and projects lasting 4 or 5 years!

Sentient’s Grid-Edge Sensors and Analytics are the Missing Key to Unlock The True Value of Your ADMS

Sentient Energy provides an end-to-end solution (including overhead and underground sensors, Volt/VAR controllers, and an advanced machine learning analytics platform), which enables utilities to quickly and affordably enhance distribution grid visibility. Grid-edge processing reduces bandwidth requirements, minimizing the infrastructure investment required to deploy the system.

Overhead and Underground Line Sensors

Sentient’s sensors provide near real-time telemetry (current, fault, load data) that improves network model accuracy and ADMS application performance. These sensors are installed in less than 15 minutes, on live lines, and offer an affordable solution compared to traditional telemetry solutions.

ADMS systems can leverage power measurements from the sensors at multiple points along the feeders to produce more accurate power flow, state estimation, FLISR (fault location, isolation, & service restoration), feeder reconfiguration, and VVO results.

Fault indication and fault current values are used by FLISR to determine the eligible faulted sections of the network and the specific line span to assign field crews.

Load data supports operators and engineers in switching maneuvers or grid planning. Loss of source indications from sensors can also support network awareness and assist with outage location.

VAR Controllers

Sentient’s VAR controller, installed on the secondary side of a service transformer, can dynamically inject up to 10 kVAR. This maximizes the effect that conservation voltage reduction (CVR) and Volt/VAR Control/Optimization (VVC/VVO) can have on the grid and minimizes wear and tear on the capacitors and LTCs, thereby increasing asset lifespans and reducing replacement costs. Sentient’s underground residential distribution (URD) sensor and VAR controller support measurements for voltage, power factor, kW, and kVAR, which the ADMS can use directly.

Table 1 below summarizes the measurements provided by Sentient sensors and the ADMS applications that benefit from them.

Table 1: Sentient Sensors and ADMS Applications

Advanced Analytics Platform

Sentient’s artificial intelligence (AI)-based analytics engine, Ample™, complements real-time operations with actionable operational insights based on high-granularity, time-synchronized waveforms (synchrowaveforms) gathered by Sentient’s sensors. The precise waveforms enable Ample to provide valuable information to operators and engineers such as disturbance detection, phase identification (ID), and precursor anomalies for outage prediction (e.g., recurring current spikes). Disturbance and outage prediction data can be used to prioritize maintenance and mitigate adverse effects on the grid. Phase ID helps detect sensors with incorrect phasing to ensure network model accuracy. Analytics insights can be leveraged to audit distribution models, mitigate outages, and support grid planning and grid operations.

The Sentient analytics solution is continually being improved using advanced AI techniques, to detect grid anomalies such as potential equipment failure, vegetation encroachment, and wildfire risk to provide a holistic view of grid operations to the distribution and ADMS operators.

Figure 1: Sentient-ADMS Ecosystem

Integration

The Sentient solution is designed to securely complement real-time operations technology (OT) systems and provide value to utilities at every stage in their ADMS journey.

For real-time data, Sentient sensors support native DNP3 integration to SCADA, either through direct connection or an Ample communications gateway. Ample, which can be cloud-hosted (private or public) or installed on-premise, supports standard APIs to share insights with ADMS or other OT systems.

Conclusion

Sentient Energy’s solution is an invaluable addition to any SCADA/ADMS system to unlock the unrealized and stranded value in ADMS deployments.

The visibility and insights provided by the intelligent sensors and advanced analytics lead to more accurate distribution application results and maximize energy savings, all while minimizing cost, infrastructure requirements, and implementation effort.

If you would like to learn more about Sentient ADMS Integration and Sensor products please contact us at
info@sentientenergy.com.