We Energies is integrating legacy GIS, computer-aided design (CAD) and outage management systems to more effectively manage its electric distribution assets. In recent years, these three independent systems have created nearly as many problems as they have solved. Not only have they been expensive to maintain, but also the systems usually provide three different, often contradictory, views of what is occurring in the distribution network.

As a result, We Energies (Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.) has had difficulty determining when equipment was operating at maximum efficiency. To gain an accurate, unified perspective of network operations, the utility is integrating the systems in phases to control expenditures and ensure continuity in electric mapping and distribution management functions.

Formed by the merger of Wisconsin Gas LLC and Wisconsin Electric Power Co., We Energies covers an electric and gas territory of 23,465 sq miles (60,774 sq km) in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It serves 1.1 million electric customers through 40,710 miles (65,516 km) of distribution lines. The utility has separate GIS-based mapping and spatial information systems for gas and electric operations.

Prior to initiation of the electric integration in early 2002, We Energies maintained and operated three core systems and supporting databases for the electric network: a full GIS for operations and engineering planning; a traditional CAD package for facilities-level dispatch mapping; and a distribution management system for outage reporting. Much of the spatial and attribute information in the individual databases was identical, and keeping these parallel data sets simultaneously updated was an impossible task that created serious challenges for managers.

A major requirement in operating an electric distribution network is having accurate information. Richard Lange, manager of electric area support for We Energies, found that when there was a problem in the network, the utility often looked at three different pictures of the same area and had difficulty determining what was the correct version of the system.

This inability to gain an accurate view of operations in the network had a negative impact on asset management. We Energies could never be completely certain its infrastructure was operating at maximum efficiency, and the utility found it difficult to determine when equipment should be serviced, upgraded or replaced. Aware of these issues and weary of dealing with contradictory information, utility executives provided funding in 2001 to eliminate the redundancy.

We Energies hired KEMA Inc. (Burlington, Massachusetts, U.S.), an international utility consulting and services firm. The consultants recommended migrating the existing GIS to a newer version that could handle the facilities mapping functions conducted in CAD, thus eventually phasing out the older mapping system.

Another component of the plan was to build a link between the new GIS and the distribution management system that would allow automatic, simultaneous and direct updating of their databases. The evolutionary implementation dictated that both old and new systems would operate simultaneously — at least temporarily — as applications and function are gradually shifted to the newer technology.

Operating Three Systems

Implementing an evolutionary solution was fitting because We Energies' three-system problem evolved over time. In the mid-1990s, the utility purchased ArcInfo 7, a full-function GIS from ESRI Inc. (Redlands, California, U.S.). The original intention was to create a spatial database of the entire distribution network with this product and use it for all mapping needs as a replacement for CableCAD, a CAD package from Enghouse Systems Ltd. (Markham, Ontario, Canada).

The desire was for operations personnel to refer to the digital map to plan maintenance and design engineering changes to accommodate expansion and enhancements in the electric distribution network. The GIS would generate paper maps, which would be given to field crews dispatched to make on-site repairs and installations. Field technicians would red-line the paper drawings with as-built changes and give them to operations for updating the database.

In setting up the GIS representation of the electric network, the utility chose a single-line model that portrayed the network from a facility perspective, not a schematic view. The single-line model represents all primary and secondary circuitry at scale on the same pole line. The drawback to this is that multiple circuits on the same pole are graphically displayed as just one line. Even though the user could query the database to display all line characteristics at any point, the single-line model made it difficult to conduct certain key functions, such as multiple circuit traces to easily identify bridging points, in the GIS.

As a result, personnel who needed the schematic view of facilities favored the CAD and its overall graphics capabilities, while the GIS became the primary tool used for asset reporting applications. Ultimately, We Energies decided to maintain both the GIS and the CAD to satisfy the different user groups. Utility personnel tapped into the programming language of the GIS and wrote more than 1500 programs, collectively referred to as facility maintenance (FM), to manage infrastructure inventory. This ArcInfo FM application is used to update the facility map to reflect as-built changes made in the field.

In 1997, just as the utility was sorting out the GIS and CAD applications, it purchased CADOPS, an outage and distribution management system, from ABB Ltd. (Zurich, Switzerland). CADOPS provided the utility with much greater accuracy in tracing the cause of an outage to a faulty component and determining which customers are impacted by the event. This system also offered real-time geographical and schematic displays of the distribution network for connectivity analysis.

Ideally, CADOPS would have operated directly off of the GIS database because the network's spatial and attribute elements already resided there. However, there was no practical way to do this, especially since the GIS used the single-line model, and CADOPS required a multi-line schematic model. Rather than build a database from scratch, the utility extracted the geometry and connectivity data from the GIS database and created a new dataset for the outage system. Technicians then manually reviewed the GIS data and separated the lines, essentially building a multi-line model from the original files. In addition, the technicians input details of all operating voltages in a specific format called for by the new package.

The customization and tweaking were completed by 2000, and We Energies was operating the GIS, CAD and CADOPS in parallel. Although these systems worked fine individually, inconsistencies in output among them began surfacing.

The best illustration of this problem involves transformer location tags that link customers with the equipment serving them. Originally, a tag number was assigned to each transformer in the GIS database and then linked with appropriate records in the customer information system (CIS). These tags migrated from the GIS to CADOPS when its database was created. Unfortunately, relationships between customers and transformers changed periodically as new construction occurred and the network was enhanced.

Even though We Energies attempted to update the GIS and CADOPS, the transformer location tags easily got out of sync, making it difficult for the utility to accurately pinpoint outage causes and assess its impact across the service territory. Such inaccurate and inconsistent information not only presented challenges in managing the infrastructure assets, but also made good customer service an elusive goal to achieve.

Planning Migration and Integration

In devising a solution, KEMA and We Energies agreed that integration of the systems was best carried out in phases, which now seems to be the predominant trend among utilities contemplating similar projects. Spreading the cost over several years is a major advantage of this approach, and it also makes sense for other reasons.

“A phased execution minimizes risk by allowing the utility to develop system requirements, implement them and then refine them in the subsequent phases,” according to Mark Rytilahti, KEMA senior consultant. “This also enables We Energies to get the new system running to make sure it works properly before phasing out a legacy system.”

The central component of the integration plan included installing ArcGIS (ArcInfo 8), a newer and more advanced version of the existing GIS software. Among its advantages are more sophisticated graphical capabilities, which will eventually replace the CAD and a more robust Oracle spatial database. Ultimately, this will replace the Sybase relational database now running under ArcInfo 7 and will be linked directly with the CADOPS database.

The decision to build the integration around the GIS database was easy because it contains more data than the CADOPS database, which is really a “skinny” subset of the GIS. The GIS database is “fatter” because it receives all of the asset updates from the field, and it also coupled to a work management system (WMS) installed in 2003. Details of facility expansion and repair projects have been archived exclusively in the GIS database, making it the more inclusive data repository.

The conversion to the new GIS database meant that all existing ArcInfo 7 data would have to be migrated to Oracle. To take advantage of the multi-line schematic representation capabilities in ArcGIS and to link with CADOPS, the migration would have to involve reconfiguration of the single-line data. KEMA wrote a migration routine, called a multi-line offset tool, in Visual Basic within the ArcGIS environment to accomplish this.

This semi-automated routine separated the routes in the single-line data to offset lines representing individual circuits. The tool does this by accessing circuit attributes as it traces each line. It essentially walks the distribution network identifying which lines represent more than one circuit. A technician supplies the offset distances and decides how offsets should be handled at intersections.

In its project requirements, We Energies had requested that CADOPS and the ArcInfo FM program be incorporated into the integrated design. Both represent significant investments in time and money that the utility did not want to abandon. The utility has no plans to replace the distribution management program any time soon, although it eventually will create a new FM program in ArcGIS after the GIS is fully operational.

While data migration was underway, KEMA developed the two linking tools. The first, written in Arc Objects and Visual Basic, examines data transactions in the editing environment of the maintenance program in ArcInfo 7 and translates them into updates in the ArcGIS database. Therefore, when as-built electric network changes are entered into the program, this routine passes those updates along to the Oracle database.

The second linking tool is the dynamic interface between ArcGIS and CADOPS. KEMA already had this tool in development prior to the We Energies' contract because it saw an emerging demand for it. Written in Visual Basic and customized for We Energies' requirements in early 2004, this interface serves as a direct conduit between the distribution management system and the GIS so that the databases automatically keep each other updated, finally ending the problem of duplicate, yet out-of-sync data sets.

Ready for New Technology, Better Management

In keeping with the evolutionary project approach, We Energies is rolling the intermediate ArcGIS data to CADOPS in geographic phases. The utility will rigorously test each data set in a variety of applications before completing migration of the next phase.

The same phased-approach has been applied to the GIS mapping functions. Roughly 60% of facility schematics that were previously generated by CableCAD are now being output by the ArcInfo GIS. All mapping functions will be transferred over to the ArcInfo GIS by December 2005.

The link between ArcInfo 7 and ArcGIS has been completed and is now operational so that field transaction updates are automatically fed through to the new database. The interface between the GIS and CADOPS is still undergoing fine-tuning and customization. It should be ready for live operations by April 2005. Once this has been achieved, network status and asset information will be freely shared among existing and future systems and applications.

“Although not fully deployed yet, this design to integrate asset information with operating information is expected to reduce the time needed to manage our resources while providing the most accurate and up-to-date information necessary to improve our outage management,” said Tom Wick, director of electric distribution asset management.

New applications now being considered for implementation at We Energies include a computer-aided dispatch system running off the GIS, which gets data from WMS and outage management. The Engineering Department also has expressed interest in purchasing an off-the-shelf design package to run on top of the GIS. Other new automation technology will be examined thanks to the enhanced system compatibility.

We Energies expects the integration project to pay off in terms of more efficient management of assets. For the first time, the utility will have a complete real-time picture of what assets it owns and where they are located. In addition, the electric utility will have accurate information regarding the performance of the infrastructure and how well it is serving customers.

“The bottom line,” says Lange, “is that we will have a single set of consistent information that we can utilize in our management of the electric network without having to make comparisons with other information to guess what is right and what is wrong.”

William Shaw is the manager of GIS for We Energies. He is responsible for managing electric facilities mapping, dispatch operations mapping and GIS applications for the distribution operations business unit.

william.shaw@we-energies.com

Bart D. Koenig is the president of VELOCITIE Integration Inc., a geospatial implementation and integration consultancy spin off of KEMA. He has 16 years serving the utility and municipal government GIS industry in a number of capacities, including project management, implementation consulting, sales and marketing. He also is a member of GITA and American Water Works Association.

bkoenig@velocitie.com

Rich Inman is a senior consultant with KEMA. He has 12 years in the AM/FM/GIS industry, including more than eight years of data conversion with the balance in GIS service provision. His experience includes project implementations, methodology/work flow development and resource allocation, and he has broad knowledge of Arc/Info, Smallworld GIS, Intergraph FRAMME, MicroStation and other GIS systems.

rinman@kemaconsulting.com

Assuring Data Quality

With the advent of the integrated system, We Energies is implementing two control mechanisms that will verify data has been input correctly. In other words, it will check the connectivity of various components represented in the map to ensure that no mistakes have been made in posting them in the GIS. This step is critical because CADOPS will fail to properly identify an outage if input data is incorrect.

Two data-quality checks have been put into place. The first tool runs in ArcInfo and is integrated into the posting process. Fifteen types of connectivity errors are detected and posting cannot proceed until all errors are addressed. Eventually, We Energies plans to incorporate an even more robust QA toolset as it migrates to ArcFM, which will enable writing a rulebase that will dictate how distribution system components should be connected.

Once the data is posted in ArcGIS, an off-the-shelf product called GeoSentry from Laurel Hills examines the geodatabase to detect disconnected features and attribute domains. This provides for a final check before the data is loaded to CADOPS. If data has passed both of these quality-control measures, it is ready for live application in the OMS.