Energy management and automation specialist Schneider Electric has made available its digital architecture, EcoStruxureTM Grid in Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan. The platform utilises disruptive technology to generate higher efficiency within utilities. The architecture is an open IoT-enabled framework for digital transformation of distribution utilities. EcoStruxureTM leverages the IT/OT convergence, thereby ensuring higher efficiency in grid operations, enabling overall digital transformation and optimal asset management, a release from Schneider Electric said.
“The challenges related to power in India mostly come from its distribution. These can be addressed through digitisation, which offers tremendous opportunities for improving the quality and efficiency of power distribution,” Prakash Chandrakar, Vice President, Energy Business, Schneider Electric India, was quoted in the release.
According to a white paper released by Schneider Electric on the need for digitisation in the power sector in association with IDC, IoT, analytics and cloud capabilities are important elements for utilities seeking to monitor and control equipment across the network of assets and to manage their grid environment.
Schneider Electric is currently working with various state discoms to provide digital technologies for the grid. Last year, the company commissioned a SCADA-DMS project for the Bihar Power Distribution Company that helped the state utility reduce its overall costs by curbing power theft and losses, reduce unscheduled downtimes, improve customer usage mapping, detecting faults at a faster pace, and gaining capabilities to scale up to meet increasing power demand.
Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxureTM architecture and platform enables the ability to create an interoperable and open platform that is IoT enabled. It enables assets across the grid to be managed proactively. This means that companies will be able to achieve improved efficiency and cost optimisation. Data will be accessible in real time, enabling the ability to resolve critical issues and increase customer satisfaction by proactively managing issues that arise across the grid.
According to a white paper released by Schneider Electric on the need for digitisation in the power sector in association with IDC, IoT, analytics and cloud capabilities are important elements for utilities seeking to monitor and control equipment across the network of assets and to manage their grid environment. Manual distribution processes, insufficient infrastructure, and lack of real-time information are some of the other challenges that are in turn resulting in delayed revenue realization, poor operating efficiency, and high operating costs, the study revealed.
According to the IDC survey, 64 per cent of Indian utility companies cited the digitizing of manual or paper processes as one of the biggest drivers for people, process and technology transformation within their organizations, the release added.
(Photo Courtesy: Schneider Electric, for illustration only)
