Smart Grid (SG) integration from utility’s prospective

The listed functional systems below (and others that are not listed) need to be integrated into one SG system. Today, the functional systems provide very limited exchange of information between them, often with conflicting outcomes. Integration of these functional systems needs to be prioritised from utility prospective and written in “Utility’s SG roadmap”.


• GIS (Geographical Information System) – including Global Positioning System (GPS), assets spatial locations, asset ID# with description..;

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – including CIS (customer information system), AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) or MDM (Meter Data Management), TOU (Time Of Use) rate, CPP (Critical Peak Pricing);

• OMS (Outage Management System) – including FLISR (Fault Location Isolation and Supply Restoration) or SA (Substation Assistant) - cost reduction, minimize downtime, predict fault location, estimate size of outages, duration of outages, prioritizing restoration efforts, broadcasting info on extent of outage, and estimation of restoration times; WFM (Work Force Management) or WMS (Work Management System) or MWM (Mobile Workforce Management) - maintenance optimization, management of crews assisting in restoration, calculation of crews required for restoration...;

• EMS (Energy Management System) – including DR (demand response), EV (electrical vehicle - storage management), usage balancing, cost optimization...;

• AMS (Asset Management System) – including CMS (Condition Monitoring System), and CBM (Condition Based Maintenance) - asset life cycle management, development of new capacities, specific asset performance monitoring, replacement of obsolete assets, operational and non-operational data analysis, maintenance optimization, response time improvement, predictive maintenance, better planning...

• DOC (Document management systems) – technical data base for operations/ maintenance management, financial data base management...;

• ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) or BMS (Business Management System) - assets inventory, purchasing, HR, maintenance...;

• SA (Substation Automation), including SCADA (System Control And Data Acquisition) – operational data management...,

• DMS (Distribution Management System), including DCS (Distributed Control System) or DA (Distribution Automation), FA (Feeder Automation), VVO (Volt/Var Optimization)

The Smart Grid in Ontario – avoiding high-tech bubble

On Jan 22, 2010, Ontario government signed a $7-billion Smart Grid deal with a consortium led by Samsung Group that should bring 16,000 jobs for this province. The deal includes equipment for power generation from solar sources, wind sources and hi-tech solutions to link these renewable sources into electrical grid.


One of the main questions is how single vendor will assure Smart Grid interoperability of the high-tech equipment. If Smart Grid interoperability (For example: Specifying testing and certification requirements necessary to assess the interoperability smart grid-related equipment, software, and services) is not satisfied, the new equipment will be obsolete in 2-3 years.