WEL Networks Rapidly Validates LV Analytics Applications & Benefits For DSO Strategy With Gridsight

“Our Gridsight Pilot helped us quickly validate and quantify the benefits of key LV analytics applications and develop a clear path to a scalable, production-grade solution.”

Lingsong Zheng - DSO Engineering Manager, WEL Networks

Due to the rapid rise of distributed energy resources (DER), forward-thinking electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) are developing data strategies and exploring non-network solutions to prepare for unprecedented amounts of electric vehicle load and distributed generation.

WEL Networks (WEL) is the low voltage (LV) telemetry leader in New Zealand, with 5-minute power quality data from distribution transformer monitors and smart meters being available for 68,600 customers (~70% of WEL’s network). WEL’s next step was to validate LV analytics applications and benefits, in order to justify an internal business case to heavily invest in production LV analytics applications.

WEL decided to pilot Gridsight, an LV visibility and hosting capacity management platform that enables EDBs to rapidly develop, validate and productionise LV analytics solutions to safely support more DER on the network.

Please find the full case study here, or see the summarised version below.

Challenges

Building LV analytics applications internally is prohibitively difficult:

• Data engineering resources are required to combine and warehouse data
• Algorithm development requires a scarce data science + LV network skillset
• Data collection and algorithm development is time-consuming
• Product design and development is not a core  EDB capability

Solution

• Gridsight’s LV visibility and hosting capacity management platform was used to validate WEL’s LV analytics applications and expected benefits.
• Gridsight was provided GIS extracts and 6 months of smart meter batch data for 447 customers.
• Data was ingested into Gridsight and actionable insights were generated and presented on the platform.
• Data integration took four weeks and minimal internal resourcing.

Results

WEL enjoyed immediate results after implementation:

• Validated algorithmic customer phase detection, providing better data to manage asset loading and voltage unbalance
• Validated algorithmic broken neutral detection, improving customer and operational safety
• Demonstrated algorithmic open point validation for safe isolation in emergency response or customer works
• Validated customer level EV charger detection to facilitate targeted asset upgrades and minimise over-expenditure
• Validated detection of solar PV systems, sizes and battery installs
• Demonstrated ability for users to visualise voltage compliance and interact with large volumes of data in a quick and robust way
• Demonstrated optimisation of operational transformer settings to unlock voltage headroom and compliance
• Validated detection of highly loaded assets to avoid outages and asset damage

Takeaways

• WEL validated 8 LV analytics applications and their benefits by leveraging Gridsight.
• As a result of this Pilot, LV analytics are now a cornerstone of WEL’s DSO strategy.

ABOUT WEL NETWORKS

WEL Networks is an electricity distribution company, serving the northern and central Waikato region of New Zealand. WEL is the fifth largest electricity distribution company in New Zealand, with over 100,000 connections and 5,226 km of lines. WEL leads the NZ industry in its deployment and access to LV telemetry, having access to 68,600 smart meters with 5-minute power quality data. WEL plans on leveraging this LV telemetry as the foundation of their network’s transformation to becoming a DSO.

ABOUT GRIDSIGHT

Gridsight is an LV visibility and hosting capacity management platform that helps electrical utilities transition from “poles and wires” businesses to distributed system operators. Gridsight specialises in using disparate network data to generate advanced, interactive insights. This empowers utilities to quickly and safely support more residential solar, batteries and electric vehicles, and identify safety hazards such as neutral degradation and open point changes. Based on CEO Brendan Banfield's PhD research, Gridsight was founded in 2020 to maximise the renewables global electricity networks can host as safely and as rapidly as possible.