Innovation Needed for the Expansion of the Grid

The conventional wisdom in the power industry is that the transmission grid will need to expand its capacity by double in the next decade and maybe even triple by 2050. The industry will need a lot of innovation and automation if we will accomplish so much in such a short period.

 

Bill Meehan: I talked with Dennis Beck, the founder, and CEO of Spatial Business Systems(SBS). Throughout our dialogue, we delved into the key areas that utilities, especially transmission owners and operators, must prioritize to fulfill the transition requirements toward a carbon-neutral grid.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dennis Beck: My dad was a plumbing contractor, so believe it or not, I started working on utility construction as a plumber when I was a kid. Dad would put in services to homes in addition to plumbing. I was out there with him in the trenches, rolling out copper. So I got to see utility construction way back then. This work encouraged me to get my civil engineering degree from Purdue.

I got a job with IBM in their facilities organization as an engineer and owner representative. I was exposed to CAD and IBM’s GIS products as a civil engineer. When I joined the IBM marketing organization, I became a GIS specialist and supported a lot of utility GIS.

In the late 1990s, I joined a startup in the UK and became successful, But then I made the entrepreneurial leap in 2002 with my business partner Andy Street. We started our firm, SBS, focusing on integrating CAD and GIS. Our name reflects our ties to spatial to traditional IT. A few years ago, Autodesk contacted us, and we developed product-level integration for them. And it grew our relationship with Autodesk. My passion was to provide really strong CAD and GIS interoperability. We eventually acquired Autodesk’s Automated Utility Design (AUD) into our product suite.

 

Bill Meehan: What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term GIS?

Dennis Beck: Problem-solving. Years ago, while doing my Masters degree, I was focused on how we could take CAD information and use it to manage build materials, costing, and life cycle analysis. This stuff we call Building Information Management (BIM) today. Back then, it was all very futuristic. Thirty years later, we are doing much of this stuff nicely with GIS. When I delved into GIS, I discovered we could solve big problems, particularly the infrastructure problems I wrote about in my master’s thesis. So the first thing I think of GIS is still true – problem-solving.

 

Bill Meehan: How will utilities accomplish so much expansion of our grid?

Dennis Beck: Standardization and partnerships. If the transmission system is to expand like we believe it will, we will need many more substations. We can’t design and build one-off facilities. Our 3-D paradigm is progressing rapidly. The integration of GIS using GeoBIM is moving that along quickly.

Additionally, I believe another substantial aspect is the enhancement of our partnerships beyond their current state. These partnerships must include design firms, utilities, customers, community collaborations, and regulatory alliances. Streamlining these partnerships will be crucial to achieving significant progress and efficiency. GIS facilitates collaboration and coordination from conceptual to detailed design to project management and construction.

By being able to visualize and subsequently share this visual data, the engagement of all stakeholders can be expedited and facilitated. This leads to quicker and more seamless involvement from various parties. Documentation of their activities and contributions becomes more coherent, streamlining the overall process. While there are numerous aspects, such as supply chain considerations, to delve into within our geospatial, construction, CAD, and BIM domain, I believe enhancing these capabilities is a pivotal requirement.

 

Bill Meehan: Your company has embraced the ArcGIS Utility Network (UN). Where do you see the most impact on transmission?

Dennis Beck: Certainly in developing substations, advanced visualization, and network analysis. We need a better, more detailed transmission network model for analysis. The UN will provide more and more tools to standardize and collaborate. The UN will greatly enhance the transmission operators’ ability to pull together areas needed for asset management. There are just too many disparate systems that lack standardization and coordination. Replacing haphazard information, reports, and requests with a portal-type solution will automate the manual processes. Having the UN based on web services is a game changer.

The other thing we’ve done and have been doing is using AUD and the UN for telecommunications for all levels of the electric grid, particularly in the transmission area where control and monitoring are so critical. So if you start thinking about a substation, for example, or all the real-time systems associated with transmission networks and the protection and control activities, those are all complex networks that need to be modeled. The UN is ideal.

However, another important aspect of our actions and ongoing efforts is using AUD and the UN utility for telecommunications, spanning various electrical grid tiers. This is especially true for transmission, where control and monitoring are critical. To illustrate, contemplate a substation or the array of instantaneous systems intertwined with transmission networks, encompassing protection and control at substations. These intricate relationships mandate comprehensive modeling—a role perfectly suited for the UN.

I believe this idea holds some intriguing possibilities. It might take a little time, but envisioning organizations engaged in substantial automated work for protection and control design within CAD and subsequent transformation into the UN appears promising. And these telco networks will get more and more sophisticated. They’re different from a traditional transmission network where you put it in the ground and will be there for 75 or 80 years. These are very dynamic components and will be subject to more service activity.

 

Bill Meehan: What advice would you give transmission operators?

Dennis Beck: I’d make these points:

• Safety – since there will be lots of activity, build safety for all your automation systems.

• Push to more intensive standardization. This drives down costs and improves safety.

• Don’t skimp on investments in the people, the data, and automation.

• Be patient – take a long-term view. I’ve been doing this for 30 years. I’ve already replaced systems I thought were perfect.

• Keep your architecture flexible, keep your approach open and thoughtful, knowing that things will continue progressing. They always do.