Software Utility Solutions

The electric grid is more complex today than ever. New, carbon-emissions-reducing sources of green energy are making significant inroads in the power supply mix as utility companies worldwide introduce distributed energy resources (DER) that were not accounted for in traditional one-way grid design and operations. DER is altering our everyday lives, bringing significant challenges for distribution engineers, and impacting almost every aspect of your distribution networks.

As you seek new solutions to increase visibility into, and control over, your distribution networks, you need better ways to manage assets and safely and reliably accommodate the fluctuations in voltage, current, and loads that result from increased demand and the integration of distributed energy resources. Solutions that combine the latest technologies – from initial plan through implementation – offer new ways to monitor and control millions of distribution lines connecting homes and businesses while reducing costs, improving reliability, and actively engaging with customers.

Aclara’s load control solution enables utilities to implement load-management programs as secure dispatchable resources for improved grid quality.  The solution, consisting of software and hardware:

• Utilizes a patented adaptive load control algorithm and analytics, allowing you to control load while eliminating the need for complex system modeling.
• Leverages industry standard APIs, enabling low-cost integration with third-party demand response management solutions.
• Alleviates specific locational constraints by managing consumer loads, installed at customer’s location.

AclaraONE technology enables utilities to better manage customer loads by building load-shed profiles using distributed intelligence to continually monitor loads locally,

Using the AclaraONE unified headend, distributed intelligence is easily and centrally managed by network operators, allowing you to set business rules, define strategies, and orchestrate load control events. Standards-based interfaces allow you to receive event objectives from balancing authorities.

Simply put, Aclara’s load control solution offers you the most advanced communications technology to manage your load programs and extend the life of your capital investments.

Unlike other control technologies, Aclara’s intelligent load control:

• Improves reliability during emergencies by transmitting SCRAM broadcast messages. Each message confirms load shed from all selected devices in under 15 seconds, quickly reducing loads and keeping the lights on.
• Improves long-term reliability by smoothing transitions, reducing system stresses with ramped load shed and cold load pickup.
• Reduces wholesale penalties and demand charges, which enables surgical peak reduction and peak shifting strategies.
• Increases customer satisfaction with intelligent load control that learns the customer’s load profile and applies load reduction, minimizing customer impact while maximizing load shed.
• Utilizes Aclara’s network for both AMI and load control, lowering maintenance costs.
• Improves forecasting because current sensors monitor availability for dispatch.
• Measures and verifies load shed using current sensors in the Aclara intelligent load control solution, along with the AMI meter.

According to EEI, 90% of outages in the U.S happen on the distribution grid network. But, predicting and responding to outages on this part of the network is difficult due to its sheer size. Yet, a utility’s ability to quickly resolve an electric outage is a critical driver of customer satisfaction as well as improved SAIDI, SAIFI, and CAIDI reliability metrics.

Aclara’s fault detection and localization solution complements outage management systems by automating the delivery of outage alert and restoration confirmation messages. It utilizes patent-pending algorithms to detect when a fault occurs, eliminating reliance on customer “no power” calls to notify you of an outage.

These algorithms also enable the identification of a fault location within the network by helping to:

• Reduce delays in service restoration by targeting truck rolls to the likely location of the cause of the service disruption
• Decrease time lost “driving the line” looking for the outage

This combination of reduced latency in detecting faults and more accurate targeting of crews to the fault location enables you to improve your SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) and CAIDI (Customer Average Interruption Duration Index) scores considerably. The fault detection and localization solution employs industry-standard APIs, enabling low-cost integration with third-party outage management solutions.

Aclara’s distribution automation solutions deliver unparalleled grid visibility and control of the electric distribution grid. Advanced analytics and communication management provided by the AclaraONE unified headend help utilities meet reliability, economic, regulatory, and safety objectives. Aclara’s purpose-built communications networks ensure that low latency, reliable communications, grid visibility, and control are available to all your grid monitoring sensors and distribution devices including capacitor banks, reclosers/line switches, voltage regulators, and load tap changers.

With AclaraONE’s robust, centralized data management capabilities, information is instantly available to all stakeholders. Our standards-based application interfaces also guarantee effective integration with other applications including DMS, SCADA, OMS, and GIS. Our advanced analytics tools turn your data into actionable information to locate and isolate faults, balance feeders, optimize the operation of capacitors and voltage management devices, and prevent outages by proactively identifying issues from electric waveforms.

Aclara’s distribution automation solutions meet your reliability, economics, regulatory and safety objectives with advanced applications:

Reliability

• FLISR – fault location, isolation, and service restoration
• Peak reduction
• Balance/maximize DERs
• Power quality
• Voltage management

Economics

• Reduce wholesale costs – VAR, CVR
• Reduce losses and allow you to get more out of existing assets through capital deferment

Regulatory

• Energy conservation
• Renewable portfolio standards

Safety

• Validate switching
• Accurate crew information

The AclaraONE platform supports the complete lifecycle of an advanced metering infrastructure network through a headend that handles device installation, network messaging and device management and control.The AclaraONE unified headend offers a common user-experience for the installation services and systems administration of electric, gas, and water devices on the network.

The AclaraONE headend recognizes, visualizes, and makes operational the devices installed on Aclara RF, power line communications and cellular networks. The AclaraONE headend:

• Supports installation, recognition, and configuration of network data collector units for electric, gas, and water devices on Aclara RF networks.
• Offers similar services for substation collectors on Aclara powerline communications networks.
• Allows direct communication to the headend from Aclara cellular transmitters.
• Communicates with a comprehensive set gas, electric, and water meters, as well as related distribution-network sensors and controls.
• Supports Aclara electric meters as well those from other manufacturers and is water- and gas-meter agnostic.
• Covers core meter-to-cash operations as well as sensors for smart infrastructure solutions.

Network messaging on the AclaraONE platform is reliable, robust, and secure. The AclaraONE headend:

• Supports single-sign-on, user authentication, and integration with MS Active Directory®.
• Offers secure, role-based access to the platform and downstream pages and functions.
• Provides translation, filtering, routing, queuing, deduping, and decryption of inbound and outbound traffic for all devices.
• Is performance-tested and scalable to 12 million meters and devices.

The AclaraONE headend provides comprehensive, low-latency network monitoring and controls and:

• Delivers a set of over 100 health-alarms and software-generated analytics alerts prioritized and targeted to the user’s job function.
• Prioritizes alerts and alarms via a time-stamped, prioritized, events framework and displays them on dashboard alarm panels, maps, filterable lists, and drill-downs to devices.
• Supports advanced, two-way over-the-air (OTA) communications including authentication, encryption, firmware management, remote connect/disconnect, on-demand reads, pings, traces, diagnostics, reading schedules, and device configurations for sampling at specific time intervals.
• Records a complete, timestamped audit trail timestamped of system access.