Harnessing the Power of Data-driven Analytics and Cloud Applications in Utilities: A Case Study of SMPnet’s Omega Aware

Utilities constantly pursue efficiency and reliability in the ever-evolving energy landscape. In this quest, data analytics and cloud-based applications have emerged as critical infrastructure, paving the way for more streamlined, data-driven, and responsive management. This blog explores the relevance and applicability of these tools, using the case study of SMPnet's collaboration with Spain's Iberdrola Group and the benchmarking of Omega Aware in one of their digital substations.

Omega is an adaptable technological framework for digital power grids. Omega encompasses three families of products relating to adaptive optimisation, coordinated real-time control and powerful data-driven analytics. Through our collaboration with Iberdrola Group, SMPnet has successfully tested all these families of products in various operational setups.

In this blog, we are delving into the latter, Omega Aware. Omega Aware is our data-driven analytics tool that extracts the maximum value from network and asset data. It empowers and assists utilities in maximising the data flowing through their assets, utilising AI and machine learning algorithms packaged in user-friendly, easy-to-access dashboards and reports.

Why do utilities need Data Analytics and Cloud Applications?

Before diving into SMPnet's Omega Aware, it's vital to understand why utilities can benefit from data analytics and cloud-based deployments:

1. Actionable Insights: The energy sector is data-intensive, producing vast volumes of raw data every minute. Data analytics transform data into information, helping utilities understand operational patterns and providing meaningful, actionable insights, enhancing decision-making processes and enabling predictive maintenance.
2. Scalability and Flexibility: Cloud applications provide a flexible, interoperable, and scalable infrastructure, enabling utilities to expand their operations while ensuring high-quality service delivery seamlessly.
3. Real-time Monitoring: Cloud applications enable real-time access to data and analytics, empowering utilities to address issues and enhance operational efficiency proactively.
4. Cost Efficiency: These technologies can substantially reduce operational costs and improve bottom lines by reducing downtime and monitoring costs in real time.
   

SMPnet's Omega Platform: A Game-Changer in the Digital Power Grid

Omega, SMPnet's intelligent solution for digitalised power grids, perfectly capitalises on the power of data analytics and cloud applications in the utility landscape.

1. Data Analytics for Operational Efficiency: Omega Aware leverages sophisticated data analytics to offer multiple data-driven insights. Omega's data analytics have been game-changers, with insights ranging from cost savings to operational efficiency, sustainability, and resilience metrics. It allows utilities to unlock the full potential of their data, informing strategic decision-making and fostering a proactive, data-driven culture.
2. Online Access for Real-time Monitoring: Omega Aware offers online access to a robust data platform, enabling real-time monitoring and data processing. This feature allows stakeholders to keep a constant pulse on their operations, proactively identify and address potential issues, and make data-backed decisions on the fly. It also facilitates efficient resource allocation, improving operational efficiency and service delivery.
3. Automated Reporting for Streamlined Operations: One of the most impressive features of Omega Aware is its fully automated reporting capability. This function eliminates the manual work typically associated with reporting, freeing up valuable time and resources. Moreover, automated reporting minimises the risk of human error, ensuring that decision-makers have reliable, accurate data at their fingertips.

Benchmarking Omega Aware in Iberdola's digital substation

Let's delve into how the Omega Aware and cloud capabilities come to life practically, using the case study of SMPnet's collaboration with Spain's Iberdrola Group.

Renewable Energy Sources (RES) can be unpredictable due to their dependence on natural factors such as sunlight and wind. This unpredictability makes the management of networks with high-RES penetration challenging.

Within Iberdrola's digital substation, the Omega platform employed advanced predictive models specifically designed to handle the stochastic nature of RES by providing forecasts 24 hours ahead and in a rolling-window manner.

For solar generation prediction, Omega Aware leveraged a powerful and flexible forecasting tool designed to work with time-series data featuring patterns on different time scales. It automatically detects trends by selecting the right change points from the data, accommodating seasonality, holidays, and time of day. This made it an excellent choice for forecasting solar power generation, which can vary widely based on the time of year, weather conditions, and more.

On the other hand, to predict wind speed, which is a crucial factor in wind energy production, the platform used Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models. LSTM is a recurrent neural network to remember past information in prediction tasks. Its capability to learn long-term dependencies makes it ideal for wind speed prediction, which past weather conditions can influence.

These features showcase potential improvements in terms of network management, contributing to energy efficiency and sustainability. By leveraging advanced data analytics, the platform could predict the amount of renewable energy likely to be available and adjust the distribution strategy accordingly.

Real-Time Visualisation of Omega's Optimisation-based Schedule

One of the standout features of SMPnet's Omega Aware is its real-time visualisation capability. This functionality facilitated real-time visualisation of optimisation setpoints dispatch and intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) from Iberdrola's digital substation.

The benchmarking was tailored to give the network operator instantaneous insights into their operations, enabling them to respond promptly to changes and maintain optimal energy distribution.

Data Exchange with Cloud

Omega platform's cloud-hosted deployment options are crucial for the interface with third-party platforms that operators such as Iberdrola utilise. Omega's cloud-based deployment facilitated seamless data exchange, improving communication and availability.

At the heart of this mechanism, SMPnet employed Flask applications in Amazon's AWS resources to receive IED status via edge intelligence residing in Iberdrola's digital substation.

Amazon ECS Fargate, a serverless computing engine for containers that eliminate the user's need to manage servers or clusters, was utilised for the specific deployment. It provides automatic scaling, load balancing, and high availability, making it an ideal environment for deploying applications. Using ECS Fargate brings numerous benefits, such as ensuring that the operator's decisions are optimised and streamlined, allowing it to handle large amounts of data without any bottlenecks or delays, and ensuring a cyber secure data exchange, ensuring Iberdrola's privacy policies.

This function ensured that key decision-makers at Iberdrola had access to the most recent and accurate data, enhancing decision-making and operational efficiency.

Automated Reporting

Automated reporting was another major advantage demonstrated through Omega Aware in multiple case studies, including our recent digital substation benchmarking with Iberdrola. By leveraging cloud technology's capabilities, reports can be generated at any moment, either in a scheduled or on-demand manner. This ensured up-to-date information was always available for review in a user-friendly PDF format, contributing to enhanced decision-making and improved operational efficiency.

One of the key components of the report was the report on dispatch signals stemming from Omega's optimisation algorithms. These points provided a detailed overview of how resources were being allocated and used in real-time, offering a granular understanding of the performance of the optimisation process.

Omega Aware alleviated the time-consuming and error-prone manual reporting process by automating the reporting process. This feature allows utilities to focus on using the insights from the reports rather than spending valuable time generating them. It ensured that the right information was always in hand, facilitating proactive decision-making and driving operational efficiency.

Conclusion

In conclusion, employing data-driven analytics provided by Omega Aware presents utilities with an invaluable toolset for enhancing their operations. By leveraging this technology, utilities can accurately forecast renewable energy usage, continuously monitor their networks in real-time, seamlessly exchange data via the cloud, and automate reporting processes. This capability demonstrates the immense potential of data analytics and cloud technology to revolutionise the system operator's landscape.

Utilities can proactively prepare to tackle present and future challenges by embracing these advanced technologies. This proactive approach contributes to developing a more resilient and sustainable energy future. The comprehensive insights gained through Omega Aware's advanced features, such as energy forecasting, CO2 projections, and renewables projections, enable utilities to make informed decisions and optimise their network performance.

To fully unlock the potential of their networks without technical limitations, utilities can rely on the expert team at Omega Aware. This team offers a wide range of optimisation services, including cost minimisation, carbon emissions minimisation, peak management, congestion management, and wide-area voltage optimisation. These services empower network operators with the necessary tools to maximise network efficiency while adhering to technical constraints.

In light of these advancements, we strongly encourage utilities to embrace data-driven analytics and cloud technology offered by Omega Aware. Doing so can propel their operations towards a more sustainable, efficient, and resilient energy future.

Please contact our expert team today to explore how Omega Aware can help optimise your network and unlock its full potential.