CIRED 20th International Conference on Electricity Distribution Prague, 8-11 June 2009

Paper 0362

REDUCTION OF POWER LOSSES AND CO2 EMISSIONS:

ACCURATE NETWORK DATA TO OBTAIN GOOD PERFORMANCES OF
DMS SYSTEMS
Giorgio DI LEMBO Paola PETRONI Christian NOCE
ENEL Distribuzione – Italy ENEL Distribuzione – Italy ENEL Distribuzione – Italy
giorgio.dilembo@enel.com paola.petroni@enel.it Christian.noce@enel.com

the results of the calculation directly on the network

ABSTRACT diagram and updating them on each variation of the field.

The document describes the solution adopted in ENEL Therefore DMS increases the performance of network
DMS Systems to obtain precise results in network management in case of outages, work plan developments,
calculations and, consequently, real improvements in the medium-term and short-term network planning.
reduction of power losses and CO2 emissions. In particular, the main functions are:
• Load Flow;
• State estimation;
INTRODUCTION • Performance indexes;
There are several actions to be undertaken in order to • Supply restoration;
reduce the CO2 emission level; the cost impact of these • Fault calculations;
solutions is also different: for example the introduction of • Voltage control;
“green” sources (wind/hydro generators) can be effective • Energy losses;
but quite expansive. • Optimal switching.
The reduction of power losses through a better network By means of Performance indexes and Energy losses it is
operation is another method that can be effective and cheap possible to evaluate power and energy losses for all the
at the same time; moreover, it can be applied by network or analyze each single element.
Distributors directly, thanks to the new advanced Moreover, Optimal switching allows the operator to
Distribution Management Systems (DMS). optimize the network connection status so as to minimize
DMS is a powerful tool to improve the overall efficiency energy losses.
of the MV/LV distribution network, providing what/if
analysis, methods for the optimization of network
resources, cost/benefit analysis, education/training
facilities for the operators, planning facilities, etc.
However, accurate network data are crucial to obtain good
performances and results very close to the reality. In fact,
to perform network calculations, such as “State estimation”
or “Load Flow”, very quickly and precisely many inputs
are needed; for example it is important to have:
• the precise Network Topology, updated in real time
together with the real connection status of each
branch;
• the electrical characteristics of elements (transformers,
conductors, switches, ….),
• some basic measures from the field;
• reliable evaluation of customers’ load and generation.

ENEL found its solution to these problems in a pilot DMS

project set up in Milan in 2007 and, after more then one
year of experience, planned the introduction of the
application all over the Italian territory.
THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE SYSTEM
Main functions
DMS supports operators and technicians in the evaluation
of electrical behaviour of the network, providing very fast
and effective tools. These tools run usually in “Off line
mode” on freezed image of the network, nevertheless,
many of them can also run in “Real time mode”, providing
FIG. 1
System architecture
The DMS core application is based on a special Software
developed by “DMS Group” of Novi Sad (Serbia). It runs
on a special client-server architecture directly connected to
the LAN of ENEL central systems for the remote control
of the MV networks.
As described later, this connection is fundamental to
maintain data consistency with the real network.

CIRED2009 Session 4 Paper No 0362

CIRED 20th International Conference on Electricity Distribution Prague, 8-11 June 2009

Paper 0362
Workstations for
Servers
remote control of the Load Description data are input manually by means of a
network
batch procedure that uploads them at least yearly (FIG.4).
As a matter of fact the load profiles are the most difficult to
be provided and at the same time are very critical to obtain
reliable calculation. Therefore mach effort has been spent
on this matter.
LAN
Load profiles
Load profiles of of MV/LV
MV Customers Transformers

DMS Clients DMS

SERVER

Yearly
FIG.2: System Architecture

In fact, to perform network calculations, such as “State

estimation” or “Load Flow”, very quickly and precisely the
following data are needed:
STATIC DATA DMS
• Network Topology;
• electrical characteristics of each element (equivalent FIG.4: Load description data input
circuit, impedances, etc);
DYNAMIC DATA LOAD DESCRIPTION DATA
• instantaneous connection status of the net (open/close
status of each switch); Each MV customer and each MV/LV transformer must be
• measures coming from SCADA systems (Voltage, represented with load profiles reproducing the effective
current ,active power, reactive power); load during the day, taking into account all the variations
LOAD DESCRIPTION DATA due to time, holidays, seasons, etc.
• load profiles of each MV customers connected to the Thanks to the application of electronic meters to all the
network; ENEL MV and LV customers, an enormous amount of
• load profiles of each MV/LV transformers in MV/LV data is available: each meter records the values of power
substations. flow every 15 minutes (P and Q); these values are stored in
Thanks to the direct connection with the Central remote the meter memory and downloaded periodically by the
control system and by means of a Data exchange protocol, Metering control Centres.
DMS receives Static and Dynamic information. MV/LV transformers are not metered but the archives
contain the number of supplied customers divided into
commercial categories and the average energy
Electrical
Data
consumption per year of each LV customer.
Network Load profiles for MV customers
Corporate
Data Base HV/MV Subs Nevertheless it is possible to extract load profiles of all the
SCADA customers, assigning to each MV customer its own load
data is not viable for two reason:
• DMS mass storage resources are not designed to
contain this amount of samples;
• the real time performances of the DMS application
DB changes should be negatively affected by this data
management.
Therefore load profiles have to be analyzed in order to
Continuous

MV/LV Subs
reduce the amount of Data and to reach a trade off among
DMS performance (precision and speed) and data
management resources.
With the aim of mutual comparison and sorting of MV
consumers, the first step is the “Normalization” of load
curves coming from energy meters. This is done dividing
the energy samples by the average absorbed energy of
each customer in the reference year.
Analyzing the change of load profiles all the year round,
the following assumptions can be made.
DMS Each passive load can be taken into account using 24
FIG.3: Static and Dynamic Data exchange daily load curves :

CIRED2009 Session 4 Paper No 0362

CIRED 20th International Conference on Electricity Distribution Prague, 8-11 June 2009

Paper 0362

• Active Power (P): 4 seasons x 3 day type (working Load profiles for MV/LV transformer
day, Saturday, Holidays);
• Reactive power (Q): 4 seasons x 3 day type For each LV customer the following data are available
(working day, Saturday, Holidays); from electronic meter archives:
If the load is passive and active, even during the same day, • load curves;
it is necessary to use 48 daily load curves , 24 representing
• average annual energy consumption;
the active load and 24 representing the passive load.
The last step to achieve the goal is “Clustering”: • commercial category;
Mathematical and manual algorithms can be used to find • connection to the feeding MV/LV transformer.
“Similar consumers” and to group normalized load profiles
into clusters. Taking into account the available Data, Enel solution is
based on the following steps.
2
Determine a set of normalized load profiles to be
0 assigned to each LV customer
0 10 20 30 Spring-Pp
40 50 60 70

2
Taking into account that each customer belongs to a
specific commercial category, the analysis of the
0 behaviour of the customers from the load profile point of
0 10 20 30Summer-Pp
40 50 60 70
view, leads to:
2
• reduce the 120 ENEL commercial categories into
4 main types:
0 1. Residential customer;
0 10 20 30Autumn-Pp
40 50 60 70
2. Agricultural customer;
2
3. Industrial customer;
4. Commercial customer.
0 • assign a set of 24 normalized load curves to each
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
category, so as to represent any kind of LV customer.
FIG.5: Clustering

Each cluster is represented by a “Characteristic consumer”

that has a dummy profiles used to define the load of all the
customers belonging to the cluster.
At the end of the process 40 clusters are enough to describe
all the 5000 MV customers in Milan network (Lombardia).
At the end, the system can obtain the absolute load profile,
simply multiplying all the values of the normalized curve
by the average absorbed power of the customer.
A default set of Load profiles is assigned to new MV
customers or in case of lack of data.

FIG.7: A Standard set of load curve (Active power)

Calculation of the load profile of each MV/LV

transformer

The set of curves to be assigned to a transformer are

FIG.6: the load curves used to represent the Active
power of a MV Customer in each season (Q1-Q4)
calculated adding the Load curves of all the LV customers
fed by it. In practice the addition is performed by the
system that operates as follows:
1. a standard normalized load profile is assigned to each
LV customer according to its commercial category;
2. the absolute profile is calculated multiplying the curve
by the average absorbed power;
3. the profiles of all the customers are added point by
point.

CIRED2009 Session 4 Paper No 0362

CIRED 20th International Conference on Electricity Distribution Prague, 8-11 June 2009

Paper 0362

RESULTS FROM THE PILOT SITE OF MILAN
In the real application of DMS in Milan, what foreseen has
been practically demonstrated.
The results of calculation are very close to the reality and,
far away from the values calculated with the old tools, in
term of precision and output speed.
For example, referring to the part of network highlighted in
FIG.8, apart from the time consuming activity of
evaluating the loads in the traditional way, the value of
190A (addition of nominal/average power values) is too
high to be resupplied by the feeder “128Basigli” (max
daily load = 130A, thermal limit= 240A).
On the contrary, DMS value of 98A is easily manageable
during a normal “Working day”.
not viable due to the cost of the operation and therefore,
only about one hundred of them could be performed,
choosing:
• all the remote controlled switches;
• the most effective of the list, even in case of manually
operated switches.
These first actions lead to a saving of about 6.5% of the
losses: it is less then 10% but still a valuable gain.
At the change of each season, the function was launched
again to compute the new connection status of the network.
In this case, for the described reasons, only about 40
switching operations are usually performed, obtaining a
gain of 4%.
In few words, it is possible to say that the steady gain that
is possible to maintain all the year round, after the first
optimizing process, is about 4%.

This small percentage will give a huge reduction of fuel

98 and, consequently, of CO2 emissions.
In terms of absolute values, starting from the year 2011, it
is possible to save about 144 GWh/year of energy,
corresponding to 75000 tCO2 / year.

To make the goal and evaluate the saving in a reliable way,

130/240 it is necessary to extend DMS all over the territory,
according to a deploying plan of 4 years (2008-2011).
According to this plan the energy savings will increase
year by year as described in Fig. 9.

Emissioni CO2
FIG: 8: Real example from Milan Network
80000
70000
60000
After one year of testing, the positive results coming from 50000
Tonn

the application in Milan lead ENEL to plan the extension 40000 CO2
of the system to its 28 Control Centers all over the country. 30000
20000
10000
Savings and operative improvements are foreseen in the 0
2008 2009 2010 2011
short and medium time application:
Years

• in everyday activities due to planned works in the MV

network; FIG: 9: Progressive reduction of CO2 emissions
• in supply restoration speed and reliability (continuity
of service);
• in reduction of Distribution Network losses.

REDUCTION OF LOSSES
DMS provides direct and indirect tools to optimize the
existing network resources and operation. Of course this
leads to a decrease in energy production and CO2
emissions.
Taking into account only the “Optimal Switching”
function, it is possible to minimize the losses,
reconfiguring the network at each change of season. The
function suggests a list of open/close actions on the
switches along the MV feeders, giving the contribution of
each action (percentage of the total value of saving).

Using the experience of the pilot site in Milan as reference,

the first time this function was lunched, the saving was
about 10% of the losses.
Of course, the execution of all the suggested actions was

CIRED2009 Session 4 Paper No 0362