‘Plug and Play’ Digital Twin Accelerates LV Network Transformation
Significant challenges from electrification, decarbonisation and the rise or the energy ‘prosumer’ are almost upon us and even those LV networks that were built ‘gold plated’ are now resigned to fact that significant investment in network resilience can’t wait much longer. Let’s be honest though, the industry is not well known for quickly embracing innovation, agile change processes or transformation. Seemingly no single playbook is available to help networks prioritise and steer more sophisticated decisions and actions TODAY, July 2023.
The ENA’s ‘Future Network Transformation Roadmap’ provides a good macro level perspective, but at a more tangible level the lack of a cohesive approach in New Zealand is making it unnecessarily hard and slow for individual EDB’s to put words into action. Most are travelling their own individual journeys, constrained by current programmes of work, undertaking their own explorations into the unknown and attempting their own requirements gathering exercises for data and systems they have limited experience in but believe they will need. For others the intent is there but the journey hasn’t really even begun, the challenge being viewed through a traditional lens of ‘engineering practices’, predicated on ‘guestimation’ and trying to work backwards from multiple hypothetical objectives…..and often repeatedly deferred due a perception that business cases and additional dedicated resources (which don’t exist) need to be secured first. Talking with some of New Zealand’s smaller networks there is even evidence that a state of ‘paralyses’ can prevail, with stakeholders sharing their fears that to look too granularly and precisely at the current state might uncover something ‘worse’ or at the very least more expensive to plan for and ‘fix’ than they currently imagine. Readers of this blog might recognise some or all of the above realities, but for networks that start the journey differently, with an open mind and an iterative approach to knowledge accumulation and innovation, everything starts with high quality enriched data, actionable insights and if you are lucky a digital twin of your current network.
Smartco’s ‘HIKO’ platform offers an ‘out of the box’ LV Digital Twin and Data Enrichment solution to New Zealand EDB’s. No requirements gathering, no network-side systems or storage dependencies, and no customisations or proof of concepts needed. Everything in one place to immediately start accumulating knowledge, proactively targeting current state network priorities and faults, building models on proven data rather than ‘guestimation’, and informing higher quality business cases for future resources, roles and targeted network investments.
Vector and I-Hub data is only now becoming available with a few EDB’s tentatively trialling some early ‘proof of concepts’ using off-shore front end applications, so how is it possible that HIKO’s ‘plug and play’ solution already exists and why should New Zealand networks have the confidence to deploy it as even an interim solution for operational improvement and network planning? The answer is that HIKO is the result of 15-years of exhaustive co-creation, platform and data development with multiple New Zealand EDB’s having had access to smart meter data for experimentation for this entire duration.
Network engineers and planners get all the advantages of 15-years of trial, error and success in delivering high value solutions focusing exclusively on New Zealand market’s highest priority LV use-cases. New customers of HIKO receive an immediate seat at the table to join and collaborate with their peers around the country, ranking network priorities and directly influencing HIKO’s data and toolkit development roadmaps. Only HIKO gives customers a chance to quickly and efficiently ‘catch up’ and piggy-back on almost a decade’s worth of investment and work already undertaken by New Zealand’s early adopters of ICP knowledge and data driven toolkits.