City distribution automation projects - Economic justification aspects

There have been several automation projects by Power Distribution utilities across India that have focused on control and monitoring of the primary distribution networks. Distribution Control Centers have been set up and the primary substations (generally 66/11kV or 33/11kV) are covered by such SCADA Systems. Encouraged by the benefits derived out of such initiatives, several Indian utilities have started to explore possibilities of taking automation down to the secondary distribution network. In this paper, the authors describe the economic justification of implementing a Distribution Control Center for Chennai City. The authors step through the implementation of the project and share the experience gained along the way to explain how the project was commissioned successfully and the benefits that were derived out of the same. This paper also discusses the various factors required to be considered while planning a secondary network automation project. The authors also discuss on the potential of using IT technologies to manage the large volume of operational data available from such systems and to integrate the Distribution Automation systems with enterprise-wide IT systems making it possible to have a near-real time view on the techno-commercial performance of the utility using simple tools.