Time Savings For Field Crews

Evidence and data. Interviewees mentioned multiple ways in which ADMS with embedded DERMS (including Field Client) saved time for their organizations’ field crews, including:

• Reducing the time spent patrolling to locate faulted sections causing outages or identifying problems with devices on the network. The head of operations technology and data said: “There are definitely savings in crew being able to go directly to the faulted section. The FLISR functionality provides more information to the control room so they can pinpoint the faulted section. That section might still be kilometers in length, but you’re not patrolling potentially nine, 10, or 11 kilometers at night. You might only have to patrol two or three.”
  The power system supervising engineer explained: “Our field crews spend less time identifying problems with our capacitors now. That’s about 600 devices we communicate with. Before ADMS, the three or four people who maintain our capacitors had to just drive around looking for a red light that indicated a failed device. Now they can go directly to whichever device we’ve notified them has an issue.”

• Reducing the time needed to access switching plans and other assignments and to start work on those switching plans. The same power system supervising engineer said: “We used to dispatch work over the radio, so we’d have trucks waiting until that radio freed up so they could call into the control room. Now we can send that information electronically using the software, so there’s no more idle time of crews just standing by and waiting to get their assignments. … Our field crews no longer have to deal with a manual process to get a switching plan. Before ADMS with embedded DERMS, a switching plan was created in a spreadsheet that field crews might print or would have to pull up. Now that they have the software in their trucks, everybody just logs in.”
  The head of operations technology and data noted: “Field crews spend less time on the phone with the control room for switching plans since more of that can be digitally messaged. And crews are given the ability to start switching without having to call in. They can just indicate they’re onsite by executing the first step. So, there’s a lot of time savings to be had there.”

• Eliminating manual load checks. The power system supervising engineer explained: “When our operators write switching plans, they use demand state estimation [of ADMS with embedded DERMS] to verify if any devices would be overloaded during that switching. This is a benefit because they used to have to do ‘load checks’ in the peak of summer loading, where they sent field crews to different sites that had devices, such as air switches, and had those personnel record amp measurements at these devices to aid the operations group in estimating load. That manual field work is no longer necessary because operators are relying on the ADMS with embedded DERMS state estimation values for loading.” 

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Because the composite’s field crew members only use the mobile Field Client module for some of their tasks, this benefit is modeled considering only field crew members who use it significantly.

• The composite has 200 field crew members with significant use of Field Client.

• The composite attributes time savings of 30% for field crew members in Year 1 to ADMS with embedded DERMS. As field crew members and the organization overall get more familiar with the software, the composite attributes time savings of 35% in Years 2 through 5 to the solution. 

• The composite’s field crew members reinvest 75% of the time they save toward tasks that provide the organization with greater value.

• The fully burdened hourly compensation (including benefits) for a field crew member is $62.

Risks. These results may not be representative of all experiences because time savings for field crew members can vary based on:

• The extent to which the organization leverages the functionality of ADMS with embedded DERMS.

• The organization’s prior operating processes and software (if any) for field crews.

• The nature and scope of the organization’s service area.

• The number of the organization’s field crew members.

• Prevailing local compensation rates.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a five-year, risk-adjusted total present value (discounted at 10%) of $21.1 million.

Time Savings For Control Room Operators

Evidence and data. Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS reduced the time their organizations’ control room operators spend on the following tasks:   

• Assigning tickets, communicating switching plans, and other ways of interacting with field crews. Field Client gave operators the ability to remotely dispatch incidents to field crews (and thus decrease radio traffic) and provide switching plans within the client. Interviewees said it also allows field crews to be more self-sufficient in determining the as-operated state of a grid and identifying what circuits they are working on instead of having to ask the operators.

• Creating and checking switching plans. Using drag-and-drop capabilities or recording simulated plan actions within an application and having ADMS with embedded DERMS check the resulting plan actions for any potential issues (e.g., equipment overloads, switching plan conflicts or overlaps) allowed operators to create switching plans more quickly than before. They were then able to archive switching plans and readily capture any subsequent changes. Interviewees said none of this was possible when operators previously created switching plans in spreadsheets without any advanced capabilities.
  The power system supervising engineer said: “Instead of spending 2 hours to write a step-by-step switching plan in a spreadsheet and check it, our operators now spend about 30 minutes. They save time because they’re just dragging and dropping to write their steps into a plan. Or they can click through a simulation environment as if they are performing the actions, and the software will record what they’re doing. The other big benefit is that now the software programmatically is checking those actions and seeing if the switching plan is going to cause an issue, like the customer is going to be dropped or we’re going to overload a piece of equipment. Before ADMS with embedded DERMS, each operator had to do that analysis on their own by reviewing their steps.”
  The ADMS operations engineer explained: “For unplanned outages, there can be a reduction in complexity of the switching that the control room needs to undertake due to the reduction in fault-finding enabled by FLISR. Because operators now have more information about where the fault is and where they’re going to be switching, they spend less time writing switching programs for those unplanned outages.”

• Providing information (e.g., about outages or customer escalations) to key accounts/executives/public information offices. ADMS with embedded DERMS enabled designated employees to access the same information operators saw, instead of asking operators to provide it. The power system supervising engineer noted, “Since our executives and the key accounts and public information office staff have real-time access to the same information our operators do, they no longer need to interrupt those folks.”

• Assessing potential network problems. For switching plans and other network operations decisions, operators gained the ability to programmatically assess risks and impact using ADMS with embedded DERMS instead of relying on more time-consuming and less consistent manual review or simply guesswork.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite has 30 control room operators.

• The composite attributes time savings of 50% for control room operators in Year 1 to ADMS with embedded DERMS. As operators and the organization overall get more familiar with the software, the composite attributes time savings of 65% in Years 2 through 5 to the solution.

• The composite’s control room operators reinvest 65% of the time they save toward tasks that provide the organization with greater value.

• The fully burdened hourly compensation for a control room operator is $69.

Risks. These results may not be representative of all experiences because time savings for control room operators can vary based on:

• The extent to which the organization leverages the functionality of ADMS with embedded DERMS.

• The organization’s prior operating processes and software for control room operators.

• The number of the organization’s control room operators, which depends on multiple factors (e.g., the number of metered customers, the scope and nature of the service area, and the organization’s priorities for its operators).

• Prevailing local compensation rates.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a five-year, risk-adjusted total present value (discounted at 10%) of $5.5 million.

Time Savings For Integration Of Additional DERs

Evidence and data. A DER is a supply-side or demand-side resource connected to a distribution network, including distributed generators (e.g., rooftop photovoltaic panels), distributed storage (e.g., batteries), and electric vehicles that consume load but can also function as storage units. Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS helps their utilities control and optimize the use of DERs integrated into their networks by providing visibility and tools that improve network planning and operational management specific to DERs. This includes detecting and automatically controlling potential problems around load and generation and ensuring grid stability even with these multiple sources of variability added to their networks. ADMS with embedded DERMS also enabled their utilities to connect customers’ DERs sooner and decrease capital expenditures by capitalizing on DERs for various grid services, such as leveraging flexible connections in network areas under constraint instead of building out the network to accommodate every potential — but infrequent — overload scenario.

Before approving a request for a DER to be connected to its distribution network, an organization must assess the feasibility and impact of doing so, and interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS reduces the time lead energy analysts spend analyzing what would happen if a new DER is connected to the network and then integrating it into the network.

Among the interviewees’ organizations, there is considerable variation in the current number of DERs relative to the number of metered customers and new DERs integrated each year relative to the existing DERs and total customers. Interviewees explained that the number of new DERs added each year fluctuates and that they expect that to continue based on changes to rate structures and periodic additions, revisions, or deletions of incentive programs. In addition, they noted variations in the nature or size of the DERs for which their utilities were getting requests to integrate. One interviewee cited a growing number of batteries being connected while another said that although the number of DERs added each year may decrease, the rate of capacity growth may remain steady due to larger installations.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite uses ADMS with embedded DERMS to analyze and integrate an additional 3,500 to 3,800 new DERs in each of Years 2 through 5, resulting in a total of 14,600 DERs added during those four years.  

• The composite attributes a 17-hour reduction in the average time a lead energy analyst requires to analyze feasibility and to integrate a new DER to the grid in Years 2 through 5.

• Because the composite implements DERMS in Year 1 after ADMS is fully in production mode, there is no time reduction in that year.

• The fully burdened hourly compensation for a lead energy analyst is $80.

Risks. These results may not be representative of all experiences because time savings for integration of new DERs can vary based on:

• The extent to which the organization leverages the functionality of ADMS with embedded DERMS.

• The organization’s prior operating processes and software for assessing the impact of connecting a new DER.

• The number of requests to connect a DER, which is a function of the number of metered customers, prevailing customer sentiment about DERs, and financial incentives for those customers to invest in DERs.

• Prevailing local compensation rates.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a five-year, risk-adjusted total present value (discounted at 10%) of $12.1 million.

Reduction In Capital Expenditures

Evidence and data. Interviewees noted several ways ADMS with embedded DERMS reduced their organizations’ capital expenditures for grid reinforcement or expansion, including:

• Providing flexible generation and flexible service interconnections instead of network upgrades to accommodate DERs. Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS enabled their organizations to offer customers flexible generation and flexible service interconnections (to the network) for their DERs instead of incurring capital expenditures before each new connection. Under a flexible generation or flexible service interconnection agreement, a DER owner agrees to comply with occasional temporary restrictions on how much of any excess energy generated by their DER they can export to the network or how much energy they can be serviced with when doing so would adversely affect network operations. That agreement enables the organization to connect that DER to its network without incurring capital expenditures to upgrade lines and other infrastructure to permanently expand capacity before connecting it.
  Interviewees explained that prior to deploying ADMS with embedded DERMS, if a customer asked to connect a DER, their organizations either declined until they could upgrade (which could take several years) or they would accept the DER with an ongoing and artificially low limit on how much excess generated energy the customer could export to the network or how much energy the customer could be serviced with. These restrictions were necessary because the organizations lacked visibility to real-time system load and had no efficient automated way to temporarily limit export from or service to large numbers of DERs as needed.
  They said using ADMS with embedded DERMS provided flexible generation and flexible service interconnections capacity through adaptive load limits on constrained circuits, which allowed their organizations to quickly connect most customers’ DERs while avoiding the capital expenditures for infrastructure upgrades. The grid edge innovation director said: “It provides an alternative. We can say, ‘You can connect now, but we need you to allow us to curtail you from time to time.’”

• Increasing utilization of existing assets (i.e., using them more). Interviewees said that having more comprehensive visibility to the state of their organizations’ networks (including power flows to and from DERs on the low-voltage grid) enabled them to leverage DERs and increase utilization of their existing grid assets, which reduced the need for capital expenditures to expand grid capacity. The head of operations technology and data said: “With ADMS with embedded DERMS, we can get more utilization in our network. If I’ve got 10 megawatts of capacity of network available for use, I want to be using as much of that as I can for as long as I can to make sure I’m maximizing the benefit of having that capacity available. We have a lot of network capacity that’s not used a lot. DERMS gives us the ability to fill some of the troughs with load that we control with management, so we can get more benefit from the investment in that capacity — from what our customers have invested, ultimately.”

• Extending the life of existing assets (i.e., using them longer). Using ADMS with embedded DERMS helped the organizations understand how DERs impacted their grids’ load and voltage while enabling their operators to incorporate those insights into their decision-making about existing grid assets. The power system supervising engineer said, “We now have visibility to what’s out there versus having a bunch of DERs installed but not being able to assess the ramifications of that.”
  Interviewees explained that having more comprehensive network visibility and improving management of DERs could help their organizations avoid equipment overload, which can lead to equipment failure over time. The grid edge innovation director said: “Using flexibility — such as using DERs to manage capacity — to avoid continued equipment overload may help prevent equipment failure. That could prolong the life of an asset and reduce the need to spend on more assets.”

• Reducing energy consumption and line losses. Interviewees also said the VVO functionality of ADMS with embedded DERMS reduced energy consumption for their organizations’ customers, therefore reducing the amount of power distributed through the networks and the capital expenditures required to reinforce or improve the grids. The senior director of grid transformation said: “Because we use VVO, less power needs to be generated or purchased and then distributed. With less flowing through the grid, the capital expenditures to reinforce or improve the grid also decrease.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Prior to using ADMS with embedded DERMS, the composite’s average annual capital expenditures were $600 million.

• The composite attributes a 0.6375% reduction in capital expenditures in Year 1 to ADMS with embedded DERMS. This reduction grows to 0.850% in Year 2 and then to 1.2750% in each of Years 3 through 5.

Risks. These results may not be representative of all experiences because reduction in capital expenditures can vary based on:

• Annual capital expenditures before deploying ADMS with embedded DERMS.

• The extent to which the organization leverages the functionality of ADMS with embedded DERMS.

• The organization’s prior operating processes and software.

• Percentage of metered customers using DERs.

• What portion of capital expenditures for grid upgrades required to accommodate new DERs are paid by the organization versus by customers.

• The condition of the organization’s existing infrastructure.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a five-year, risk-adjusted total present value (discounted at 10%) of $18.7 million.

Reduction In Outage Penalties

Evidence and data. Electric distribution utilities are subject to outage penalties when their reliability indices fail to meet thresholds established by their regulatory authorities. Interviewees said that because a wide range of factors less amenable to software intervention contribute to the frequency of outages, ADMS with embedded DERMS helped their organizations reduce outage penalties primarily by shortening the duration of outages, which improved their System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI). As the head of operations technology and data explained, “Every minute we can save on an outage is money.”

Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS helped shorten the duration of outages for their organizations by reducing the elapsed time needed to address an outage in the following ways:

• Faster identification of faulted sections. Operators have more information about the potential location and type of fault, so they can help field crews understand what to look for and pinpoint the faulted sections faster.

• Faster notification of field crews about where they need to address outages. By having the ability to communicate with field crews via software instead of radio calls, operators can more rapidly dispatch field crews to resolve outages. The ADMS operations engineer said: “ADMS really shines on busy days when operators would be stuck on the phone and not be able to talk to the next crew, in terms of how much we can actually do and get restored and how quickly that can happen. This really streamlines it.”

• Faster creation and provision of switching plans to field crew. Control room operators can create and communicate switching plans more quickly than before, so less time elapses before field crew can execute on those plans and resolve an outage.

• Automatic resolution of certain outages. Interviewees said their organizations can operate FLISR functionality within ADMS with embedded DERMS in manual, semi-automatic, or automatic modes, and vary in that mode within the utility service area, depending on local network characteristics. The ADMS operations engineer explained: “Our automated FLISR can act in timeframes we wouldn’t be able to achieve using manual means. It finds the fault, isolates the fault, and restores supply to those customers that it can. The network operating center would not be able to safely restore a section in the same amount of time, especially if operators are under pressure and a big weather event is coming through.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• Before deploying ADMS with embedded DERMS, the composite paid an average of $2 million in outage penalties each year.

• The composite attributes a 15% reduction to those penalties in Year 1 to ADMS with embedded DERMS. This reduction increases to 20% in Years 2 through 5.

Risks. These results may not be representative of all experiences because reduction in outage penalties can vary based on:

• The extent to which the organization leverages the functionality of ADMS with embedded DERMS, especially the FLISR functionality.

• How extensively the organization uses FLISR on a utility network.

• Whether the organization uses FLISR in manual, semi-automatic, or automatic mode.

• The organization’s prior operating processes and software (if applicable) for outage management.

• Prevailing local regulations regarding outage penalties (e.g., thresholds for and amounts of penalties, whether those thresholds persist unchanged or are periodically adjusted for all or individual customers based on recent experience, the extent to which severe weather or wildfires are incorporated into the calculation of reliability indices).

• The organization’s reliability indices and outage penalties prior to deploying ADMS with embedded DERMS.

• The nature of the organization’s distribution network (e.g., highly concentrated in an urban area versus more dispersed over a rural area) and the resulting time and effort previously needed to pinpoint the source of an outage.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a five-year, risk-adjusted total present value (discounted at 10%) of $1.1 million.

Cost Savings From Retiring Legacy Solution

Evidence and data. Each interviewee’s organization is a brownfield utility that had already been using software for certain aspects of its operational management, and the interviewees reported that replacing their organization’s prior operational management solutions with ADMS with embedded DERMS saved them the cost of software and infrastructure for legacy solutions and time needed to manage those solutions. These are net savings since their organizations now incur ongoing costs associated with ADMS with embedded DERMS.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• After deploying ADMS with embedded DERMS, the composite retires legacy solutions with annual costs of $500,000 for software and infrastructure.

• Four FTEs previously spent 100% of their time managing and maintaining the composite’s legacy solutions.

• The blended fully burdened annual compensation for an FTE in this role is $140,000.

• Because the composite implements DERMS in Year 1 after ADMS is fully in production, it saves $400,000 for software and the expense of three FTEs in Year 1. When the legacy solution is fully phased out in Year 2, the savings increase to $500,000.

Risks. These results may not be representative of all experiences because cost savings from retiring a legacy solution can vary based on:            

• The number and nature of the organization’s legacy operational management software programs.

• The number of users of the legacy solution.

• Prevailing local compensation rates.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total present value (discounted at 10%) of $3.2 million.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned additional benefits of ADMS with embedded DERMS that their organizations experienced which are either not quantified for the composite or not included in the ROI, including:

• Reduced energy consumption. Interviewees indicated that the VVO functionality in ADMS with embedded DERMS enabled their organizations to reduce customers’ energy consumption by taking certain actions that slightly but imperceptibly reduced voltage in their distribution networks to the lower end of the acceptable voltage range. This decrease in energy consumption reduced the cost of generating or procuring energy, but it also reduced revenue.
  Interviewees noted this reduction in energy consumption nonetheless had substantial value for their organizations because of its positive impact on customer satisfaction and regulator perception of their organizations’ efforts to moderate expenses for ratepayers. For instance, one explained that being able to estimate impact may help distribution network service providers gain regulatory approval to implement VVO.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester modeled this benefit for the composite organization and assumes the following: 

• The composite pays an average of $45 to generate or procure each MWh.

• Before deploying ADMS with embedded DERMS, the composite delivers an average of 18 million MWh to customers each year.

• ADMS with embedded DERMS decreases the number of MWh by 0.35%.

Risks. These results may not be representative of all experiences because reduction in fuel consumption can vary based on:

• The extent to which the organization leverages ADMS with embedded DERMS functionality.

• The organization’s prior operating processes and software for VVO and line loss minimization (if applicable).

• The volume of customers’ energy use (i.e., the amount delivered/used).

• The prevailing conservation reduction (CVR) factor, which indicates the percentage change in energy consumption that results from a given percentage change in voltage and depends on the mix of customers and end-use devices.

• Prevailing fuel costs.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 20%, yielding a five-year, risk-adjusted total present value (discounted at 10%) of $8.6 million.

• A more satisfying experience for end customers. Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS enhanced the customer experience in the following ways:

  • More reliable service. Using ADMS with embedded DERMS increased service reliability by lessening the duration of outages and decreasing the number of customers dropped due to issues caused by switching.
  • Improved access to real-time information needed to update customers about outages and planned work. The power system supervising engineer said: “Our executives, key accounts team, and public information office can monitor what’s happening in the control room better than they could before. Because of that, we’re doing different things, like trying to reach out to our customers more often about what’s happening. One example is our public information office’s monitoring of social media accounts during storms. If people are asking questions about outages, that office can respond to customers directly on social media about some of those questions because now they have access to that information. Another example is our proactively identifying customers who’ve been out of power for a long time and sending them text messages about what we know and when their power might be restored.”
    The head of operations technology and data said, “Everything we do within ADMS to improve the accuracy of the network operating model directly affects our customers because if we know who’s connected where, we can accurately message them about outages and planned work.”
  • Reduced energy consumption and improved power quality. The power system supervising engineer observed, “VVO enables our customers to use and pay for a bit less energy and helps us deliver better power quality.”
  • Ability to connect DERs to networks sooner and with fewer export restrictions. As mentioned earlier in the benefit about reducing capital expenditures, interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS enabled their organizations to offer flexible connections through which customers can connect their DERs to the network sooner. The head of operations technology and data explained: “With DERMS, we can offer owners of DERs a flexible arrangement where we provide them with as much capacity as we can, depending on what’s available. If they’re prepared to accept that, we can accommodate them within existing network infrastructure. Prior to DERMS, we wouldn’t have been able to do that because of the staff time it would take to monitor and adjust for their DER’s impact on the network. Now we use DERMS to manage thousands of DERs and issue the operating envelopes for them to operate within, be that in real time or forecasted. We would never have been able to do that previously, and it’s a much more desirable outcome for customers.”
    The ADMS operations engineer said: “If customers decide to go onto a flexible plan, then there’s no real network upgrades we need to do physically, like upgrading lines before they can connect. It’s literally just a few entries in a database here and there, and they’re away with the flexibles. So, they can connect a lot sooner than they might have been able to under other schemes.”
    The head of network strategy indicated, “Without the flexibility that ADMS with embedded DERMS provides, we would need to impose more restrictions on the amount our customers can export from their DERs into the grid.”
  • Rate moderation. Interviewees said the employee efficiencies and reductions in capital expenditures translate into savings for customers, since operating expenses and capital expenditures affect rate structures. The head of operations technology and data explained: “A lot of our savings from using ADMS with embedded DERMS ultimately benefit our customers. Our component of their electricity bills increases very little despite us doing a lot more because we’re operating in a smarter way and we’re not having to invest in certain infrastructure. We manage DERs, for example, in such a way that customers still receive the maximum benefit from those without incurring additional cost from us because of our needing to augment the network.”

• Improved safety for crews. Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS improved field crew safety by providing operators with additional data and programmatic analysis about potential safety issues (e.g., during switching), providing field crews with location awareness and insight on the as-operated state of a grid, and enabling faster and more accurate and comprehensive communications between operators and field crews. The power system supervising engineer said, “Our crews now have a real-time mapping system at their hands, so they can operate more safely and see crews that are working around them.” The head of operations technology and data noted: “Some of the biggest benefits are around safety and the use of digital field switching. Getting off paper plans and onto digital has had an outstanding impact on reducing switching incidents.”

• Enhanced ability to meet regulatory requirements and preferences. Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS helped ensure compliance with evolving standards and mandates. The ADMS operations engineer said: “Our regulator has started to add requirements, like around the emergency control of DERs. We might be at risk of losing our distribution license if we couldn’t meet some of those requirements. That was another driver for our implementing ADMS with embedded DERMS.” Interviewees also mentioned that regulators look favorably on their organizations’ voluntary efforts to slightly decrease their customers’ electricity bills by using VVO.

• Incremental revenue enabled by flexible service connections. The grid edge innovation director said ADMS with embedded DERMS enabled their organization to expand its load-serving hosting capacity by using flexible service connections. They described leveraging flexible service connection capabilities of ADMS with embedded DERMS to serve incremental load (and capture incremental revenue) without needing to first upgrade their grid at constraint points. Prior to the organization’s deployment of ADMS with embedded DERMS, when a customer requested a certain volume of new load, the organization would do a conventional grid planning study and typically determine that, until it could do a grid upgrade in several years, it could only commit to serving a portion of the requested load because it lacked visibility to system load and thus needed to impose artificially low limits on the load served.
  By using ADMS with embedded DERMS to provide flexible capacity through adaptive load limits on constrained circuits, the organization has been able to service all the requested loads at most times for several recent requests from commercial customers that need to charge electric vehicles from their company’s fleet or provide charging stations for their own customers. This approach accommodated load growth by increasing utilization of the organization’s existing assets, improved customers’ experience by providing most of their requested capacity faster than would have been possible with the organization’s former process, and resulted in incremental revenue each year by serving nearly 100% (instead of only a fraction) of the new load requested by those customers.
  At some point, future grid upgrades may replace this bridging solution for those customers, or the bridging solution may enable more permanent deferral of those grid upgrade expenses. The interviewee anticipates ongoing use of ADMS with embedded DERMS to more completely serve other customers’ load requests and capture additional revenue that otherwise would remain elusive.

• Increased visibility to all aspects of the network (including DERs). Interviewees uniformly noted that ADMS with embedded DERMS improved their organizations’ operational visibility by providing a single comprehensive model and data source. This underlies many of the quantified and unquantified benefits detailed in this study.
  The head of operations technology and data explained: “We have so much more visibility now, and it’s not limited to just the control room; it’s available across the organization. There’s a lot of benefit from having our planning teams and some of our other operational teams able to see the current state of the network and get information without having to go to a specific team. They’ve got access themselves now. … We now have a near-real-time operational model all the way from our transmission exit points to our customer service points. It’s effectively a digital twin of our network’s connectivity. Suddenly, there’s almost nothing we can’t do with that level of insight and forecasting ability or the ability to estimate the flows accurately across our network.”

• Enhanced decision-making. Interviewees said ADMS with embedded DERMS enabled their organizations to replace multiple individual software packages with an integrated platform, add analytics tools, and consolidate and combine previously fragmented data sources into one source of actionable information. As a result, control room operators and other staff can make better decisions. The power system supervising engineer said: “Our distribution planning department uses state estimation to run comparative studies in ADMS and to determine loading and capacitor bank states during peak loading conditions, so they can have a reality check versus their other modeling tool and see how their results compare.”
  The head of operations technology and data said: “Our operators can make better-informed decisions because there’s more input and more things to look at, which means more work, but I think it ultimately results in superior decisions. And everyone’s using a common set of data as much as we can, which no doubt helps with people’s understanding and saves some time. We used to have conflicting information. We don’t have that anymore. We have a common platform and don’t spend time trying to glue pieces together quite imperfectly.”

• Less reliance on operators’ institutional knowledge. Interviewees said advanced tools within ADMS with embedded DERMS reduced their organizations’ reliance on operators’ level of experience and memories. The power system supervising engineer said: “ADMS’ advanced tools help bridge the gap and avoid knowledge loss as operators retire and we bring in new operators. Those new operators can see real-time load flow on the screen and get real-time validations if they are going to overload something, so we’re less reliant on institutional knowledge from experienced operators who would know you can’t do that kind of switching because it might overload a piece of equipment or drop a customer.” 

• Staff time freed up to address other needs. Interviewees explained that using ADMS with embedded DERMS reduced the time employees previously spent on a variety of tasks and enabled them to reallocate that saved time to other priorities. The head of operations technology and data said: “We have been able to manage and monitor the increasing complexity and changing use of the network without a large increase in control room operators. They couldn’t efficiently manage the large volumes of DERs, for example, without automation and tools.”     

• Increased employee satisfaction. Interviewees said that because ADMS with embedded DERMS improved access to operational and planning information and generated more extensive data than legacy solutions had, employees feel equipped to excel in their roles and come up with new ideas for the organization. The power system supervising engineer noted, “Across the organization, there are just new opportunities to up your game and do things better. Because there’s so much more visibility and reporting now, people can do their job more effectively.”
  Control room operators experienced less operational pressure because ADMS with embedded DERMS provided them with more data and thinking time with which to make decisions. It also simplified communication with field crews.
  The head of operations technology and data said: “Our operators have more time to think about what they’re doing rather than being constantly under operational pressure. The software probably gives them a little bit more time for each task they undertake, and they’ve got that thinking time to make sure what they’re doing is correct.” The power system supervising engineer observed: “Our operators have gone from having to make so many calls to communicate with every single person who needs information about assignments and switching plans to being able to send that information via the software. I think that made the operators’ lives easier and less stressful because they’re not having to feel they’re being timed and that the longer they take, the longer an outage lasts.”

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement ADMS with embedded DERMS and later realize additional uses and opportunities, including:

• Leveraging ADMS with embedded DERMS capabilities more completely. Interviewees noted their organizations will continue to explore additional ways to capitalize on ADMS with embedded DERMS functionality and gain even greater value from it. The head of operations technology and data said, “For example, we can start rolling out replacement equipment knowing we’ve got the back-end systems to take advantage of that and use the information, and then ultimately move to more field automation when we get enough of those switches out there.” The ADMS operations engineer and power system supervising engineer said their respective organizations anticipate adding the electric power safety settings (EPSS) of ADMS with embedded DERMS for wildfire mitigation so they can remotely put certain network devices in or out of wildfire mode as risk conditions change instead of having field crews spend time driving to those devices and manually adjusting them.

• Capitalizing on additional capabilities of ADMS with embedded DERMS as Schneider Electric introduces them. Interviewees said they anticipate gaining additional value by using new and enhanced features as ADMS with embedded DERMS continues to evolve. The ADMS operations engineer noted: “Schneider Electric’s product roadmap has things like the integration of AI into ADMS, which they’re planning on doing in future versions. I’m obviously unsure at this stage how much benefit we’ll get from it, but I have no doubt we’ll see some benefit. It’s something we don’t have now that hopefully we’ll have in future versions.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).