About the Client
The client is a state load despatch centre responsible for integrated operation of a large intra-state power system with growing renewable generation.
It handles scheduling, despatch and energy accounting, and works with systems for SCADA, synchrophasor measurement, scheduling and settlement, renewable energy management and open access.
The Challenge
The load despatch centre was dealing with large volumes of operational data arriving at intervals ranging from milliseconds to 15 minutes.
However, most analysis ran within individual applications using only the data stored in each system. Data from multiple IT and OT systems needed to be combined and analysed together, while manual interventions made analysis slower and cross-system integration complex and error-prone.
A secure and scalable platform was therefore required to integrate existing and future systems while enabling unified analysis of operational data.
The Solution
CS TECH Ai implemented a unified operational data platform on AVEVA PI System. It integrates real-time and file-based data from SCADA, scheduling, meter data management, renewable energy management and regional settlement sources, with automated analytics running on top.
Data flows one way from the OT network to the IT environment through a firewall, ensuring that OT systems are never exposed.
The solution integrated 12 OT and IT data sources, covering RE schedules, DISCOM drawl schedules, actual meter data, generator despatch schedules and declared capacity, bus voltages, ISTS line loading, frequency, ISTS drawl, long-term scheduling, merit-order despatch, PSS-wise RE generation and web data.
Key capabilities included:
- Multi-protocol connectivity using IEC 60870-5-104 for SCADA, JSON for scheduling and meter systems, CSV and SFTP for settlement and renewable-energy data, along with web crawling.
- Resource shortfall analysis for DISCOMs, comparing demand forecasts with actual drawl across pre-despatch, real-time and post-despatch stages.
- DISCOM-wise demand analysis using 15-minute meter data from taluka to state level, including coincident and non-coincident demand.
- Generator capacity and availability analysis, comparing declared capacity with ex-bus capacity to identify under-performing units and support resource-adequacy planning.
- Renewable-energy deviation and ISTS drawl analysis, correlating SCADA and metered data to monitor PSS-wise RE schedule deviations and state-periphery drawl deviations.
- Dashboards, alerts and automated reports providing operators and planners with access to real-time and historical grid information.
The Impact
The unified operational data platform created a single source of truth across multiple critical systems, including scheduling, settlement, renewable management and SCADA.
It enabled:
The implementation brought together 12 OT and IT data sources, delivered 5 analytics use cases, enabled 15-minute block-wise analysis from real-time to annual timeframes, and maintained secure one-way OT-to-IT data flow.