GE Energy Connections to contribute to more efficient energy distribution

An example of the world-leading, fully-connected enterprise network model that GE Energy Connections can provide

The Vietnamese national grid has some specific characteristics that put management in a difficult position. The grid stretches across the country, which results in difficulties in management, installation, and maintenance. It is also high-voltage, which increases the possibility of instability and safety concerns.

GE Energy Connections responds to the world’s need for sustainable, reliable, and affordable electricity to maintain and improve the quality of life.

After acquiring Alstom, GE has doubled down on the energy sector. The GE-Alstom Alliance has created a new global power and technology powerhouse with an unmatched set of offerings for their combined global customer base.

Thanks to the two companies’ combined project management and technology expertise, the alliance offers customers a new, cost-competitive “one-stop shopping” option.

In software, the combination of GE’s asset management and advanced distribution offering with Alstom’s e-terra Transmission and Market management platform has resulted in a leading premier offering for enterprise grid management.

Appropriate technologies for use in the power industry are being planned and selected in Vietnam. The deployment of Smallworld, a suite of software applications that provides geospatial asset management to support electric network planning, design and analysis, as well as maintenance and operations, is the next logical step for the utility company due to its numerous benefits.

First, GE’s Smallworld suite of solutions help in optimising building and designing. As Vietnam expands its electricity transmission and distribution network, the suite provides a Design Manager process for standardising design workflows as new networks are drawn up.

Using workflow support and process control, Smallworld Design Manager enforces standards and ensures accuracy and reliability across operations. Easy-to-use design tools with CAD-based precision placement features will improve designer productivity.

The process also enables robust analysis of alternative design scenarios, facilitating the comparison of various designs for the same project.

All in all, Smallworld Design Manager provides an integrated solution using robust, scalable, and secure services compliant with industry standard, service-oriented architectures, so that planning is integrated with other enterprise systems for finance, warehousing, and equipment.

Second, Smallworld solutions make it easy for anyone to access information about the network in a simple, safe, and secure way.

Utilities like Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) have hundreds, sometimes thousands of users that require access to critical network data. Smallworld Electric Office combined with Smallworld Electric Office Web provides a less expensive yet robust query, view, and print solution that grants employees and managers across the enterprise access to critical asset data.

On the other hand, GE’s Mobile Enterprise Suite makes it easy for people working in the field to get access to the information needed to do their job safely and efficiently. Workers can view and update their plans in the field using tablets running iOS, Android, and Windows operating systems to get the right information to do their job without needing paper maps or return to the office.

Third, an integration of Geospatial Information System (GIS) with enterprise asset management systems and distribution management systems (ADMS) will provide customers with a world-leading fully-connected enterprise network model, essential for a productive, modern utility.

The key benefits of taking this initiative include lower cost of ownership, with up to 30 per cent reduction in integration costs among the GIS, ADMS and outage management system (OMS). In addition, the solution provides a single accurate enterprise-wide view of the electric network, which would eliminate asset data inconsistencies and up to 50 per cent reduction in data synchronisation errors among the nominal GIS, operational ADMS, and OMS. The current and accurate view of the network providing up to 10 per cent reduction in customer outage time and adherence to the International Electrotechnical Commission’s Common Information Model Data Exchange Standards would also greatly benefit customers’ operations.

“Our customers are using our Smallworld technology to remove paper maps in the field using our mobile platform, to reduce the impact of outages on customers by integrating their GIS with their Control Room ADMS, and to optimise their OPEX/CAPEX spend by integrating processes between GIS and Enterprise Asset Management. In the upcoming months and years we will be complementing this with augmented reality and 3D visualisation, building out our grid analytics capability and integrating more real time data into the GIS,” said Bryan Friehauf, Asset Management Product Line leader for Grid Software Solutions Business from GE Energy Connections.

“We hope to accompany Vietnam and customers like EVN on their journey towards more efficient and reliable distribution,” he added.