“GIS + Smart Grid = Enabling location intelligence to utility network systems”
The highlight of the GIS
technology in a smart grid concept is its capability in visually representing the
geographic location of each and every events happening in a utility network
detected by OT integration systems like SCADA, OMS, DMS and various other related
smart metering systems. The one among many challenges faced by the utility
network systems is the outage management. Giving an immediate response to
restore an outage issue is one of the hurdles to pass by which is currently
tedious because of the obscure information made available about the geographic
location while an event is reported. But once GIS is integrated with the OT
systems, these systems automatically sends corresponding signals pertaining to
outage or power load in that very exact moment to the applications/systems built
upon geographic data and enables the analysis and manipulation of location or
event which therefore lowers the response time to resolve the issue. Hence,
considering this ideology if we take a look at the smart grid concept
implementation in an electric utility network, it is so obvious that without
GIS, this concept is incomplete.
GIS is about leveraging the
observation capability of the monitoring systems and pin pointing the exact
location of the events happening in the nooks and corner of the utility network
and hence we can say that integration of GIS will lead to enabling location
intelligence to the smart grid concept.