Summary
Our client is a leading regional utility company serving over 6.7 million customers. The company invests in renewable energy and energy efficiency programs to meet its customers’ evolving needs and promote environmental stewardship. The company embarked on a strategic initiative to modernize grid operations by implementing an OSII Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS), which provides a shared network model for monitoring and controlling assets across the grid while optimizing and securing grid operations. The ADMS also receives and publishes data from external systems such as weather forecast information, information to and from the regulatory entity, social media and the energy market. The utility tapped HCLTech to develop and implement the ADMS interfaces.
The Challenge
Complex grid infrastructure, high reliability requirements and regulatory compliance require interfaces between ADMS and existing utility systems
The utility operates a vast, complex grid infrastructure composed of substations, distribution feeders, switches and other network components spread across a wide geographical area.
With millions of customers relying on the utility for energy, ensuring high reliability and minimal downtime is paramount. In addition, the utility must comply with stringent regulatory requirements and standards governing grid operations and reliability.
When embarking on a strategic initiative to modernize its grid operations by implementing OSII ADMS, the utility’s primary challenge was to develop interfaces required for seamless integration between the ADMS platform and existing utility systems, including SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), the GIS (geographic information system), the OMS (outage management system) and CIS (customer information systems).
The Objective
Seamless integration between ADMS and existing utility systems
In collaboration with the client, the HCLTech team set out to define specifications, timelines and quality standards for developing, testing and implementing customized interfaces that would enable seamless integration between the ADMS platform and existing utility systems. The interfaces would improve grid operations, enhance the grid’s reliability, facilitate efficient incident response and ensure real-time data exchange, event notification and command execution.
The Solution
Customized interfaces to integrate the ADMS platform with existing utility systems
First, the HCLTech project team conducted extensive stakeholder consultations and requirements gathering sessions to identify data exchange needs, interface requirements and integration points between the ADMS platform and existing utility systems.
Based on the requirements analysis, the team designed interfaces to facilitate bidirectional data exchange between the ADMS platform and other utility systems. The team designed the interfaces to support real-time data ingestion, event notification, command execution and data synchronization.
The team then selected the technologies and protocols for implementing the interfaces, considering factors such as data volume, latency requirements, security considerations and compatibility with existing systems. These included SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), RESTful APIs (representational state transfer application programming interfaces), MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) and OPC (Open Platform Communications).
HCLTech’s dedicated team of software developers and integration specialists then collaborated to develop interfaces according to the defined specifications and timelines. The development process involved iterative prototyping and code reviews.
Once the interfaces were developed, the team conducted comprehensive integration testing to validate the functionality, performance and interoperability of the interfaces with the ADMS platform and other utility systems. The testing process included functional testing, performance testing, security testing and end-to-end system testing.
After successful testing and validation, we deployed the interfaces to the production environment and integrated the ADMS platform with existing utility systems. The go-live process involved coordination with various stakeholders, user training and post-implementation support to ensure a smooth transition to the new system.
The Impact
Positive business outcomes
The ADMS platform interfaces enabled our client to achieve many positive business outcomes:
- Automated grid visibility, analytics and management of distributed energy resources led to enhanced reliability and efficiency in grid operations.
- Real-time data exchange and event notification facilitated faster incident detection, diagnosis and response, enabling our client to minimize downtime, enhance service reliability and notify customers with accurate, timely information during service disruptions, all of which improve customer satisfaction.
- The interfaces facilitated bidirectional data exchange between disparate systems, ensuring data consistency, accuracy and integrity across the organization. This improved data quality enabled more informed decision-making and analysis for grid planning and optimization.
- The robust ADMS solution and comprehensive testing demonstrate compliance with regulatory standards and requirements governing grid reliability and resiliency.
- The modular, scalable architecture of the interfaces allowed our client to easily adapt to changing business requirements, technology advancements and regulatory mandates. This flexibility ensures that the ADMS platform will evolve and grow with the organization's needs over time.
- By streamlining data integration and eliminating manual data entry and reconciliation processes, our client realized cost savings and operational efficiencies, enabling the utility to allocate resources more effectively and invest in strategic initiatives for future growth.
HCLTech’s interfaces for the ADMS platform played a crucial role in enabling our client to modernize its grid operations, improve reliability and enhance customer satisfaction. With customized interfaces tailored to the utility's specific requirements, our client has laid the foundation for a more resilient, efficient and sustainable grid infrastructure.
