Following our user presentation with Ameren at the Esri 2023 User Conference, we answered several questions from the audience regarding Ameren’s transition to the advanced network model for its electric transmission data. We have gathered those questions and provided answers from the UDC and Ameren team.
Watch the joint presentation and recording with Ameren from the conference here.
Q: How is Ameren qualifying its return on investment with a Utility Network implementation?
A: It’s hard to qualify the benefits at this point of the implementation since Ameren has not gone live – that is planned for later this summer. However, Ameren created business cases to help quantify how much time would be saved through the automation within the Utility Network model around areas such as data quality checks. These checks will provide Ameren with the largest and most immediate savings. Ameren plans to build a framework to monitor these savings in the future.
Q: Is Ameren migrating from a geometric network?
A: Ameren’s starting point was not a geometric network; it was points and lines. The utility had a database with fields displaying which assets were linked.
Q: Will there be downtime with the cutover to the new model?
A: There will not be any downtime for Ameren’s users that are viewing the data. For editors updating the system for construction projects, there will be about two weeks of downtime before the team can go live and start editing in the new system.
Q: What’s the timeframe for Phase II – Substation Data and Alignment in GIS?
A: This is currently undetermined. Ameren has not yet completed a business case for this.
Phase II will enable Ameren to model the insides of substations within the GIS, including switches, breakers, transformers, etc. Currently, substations are modeled simply as points within the database. Once in the Utility Network model, Ameren will simply need to plug in the data to model its substations.
Q: What customizations were done to make the Utility Network model work for Ameren’s organization?
A: UDC and Ameren collaborated with Esri to incorporate Ameren’s needs into the beta models and quickly turn those around. As a result, there were not a lot of customizations other than some minor ones involving custom asset types.
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Feel free to contact UDC for any further questions regarding Electric Transmission modeling at Ameren or your own network management initiatives.