GE Releases Smart Grid Software Solution For Electric Distribution Systems

GE Intelligent Platforms today announced the availability of its newest solution for the electric distribution industry, Proficy Grid Manager, a targeted portfolio of proven grid optimization software technologies for local utilities. The solution delivers real-time information and analytics to help utilities improve operational reliability and efficiency, and manage a more intelligent, cost-effective grid.

Offering a holistic, flexible approach that’s customizable to align to a utility’s desired smart grid vision, Proficy Grid Manager encompasses four integrated yet modular capabilities, including operations management, lifecycle management, load management, and knowledge management. It leverages the latest technologies to help utilities reduce system outages, enhance equipment lifecycles, manage customer loads, and digitize standard operating procedures.

“What sets Proficy Grid Manager apart is that it has an open and layered architecture to seamlessly connect with a utility’s current systems and applications while providing the flexibility to implement value-added capabilities layered right on top,” said Bill Pezalla, Global Energy Industry Manager for GE Intelligent Platforms. “It’s also Microsoft-based for easier support and training, cost-effectiveness, and integrated security.”

The key solutions of Proficy Grid Manager include:

• Operations ManagementDashboard: provides remote monitoring capability that enables utilities to respond to outages, analyze and prioritize alarms, and leverage advanced and causal analysis; it delivers actionable information that increases system reliability and decreases restoration time.
• Lifecycle Management:delivers alarms and quick diagnosis to events on transmission and distribution equipment, providing information that can reduce downtime caused by equipment failures.
• Load Management:provides powerful analytics that leverage next-generation technologies to more effectively predict and balance customer loads—minimizing the impact of peak loads on customer productivity and costs, and limiting utility spending on wholesale supply or new generation resources.
• Knowledge Management:improves consistency and ensures that best practices become standard operating procedures. This is an industry-unique offering that electronically manages a utility’s work processes and provides an audit trail for compliance.
• Grid Information Manager: enables smarter business decisions that improve operational reliability and efficiency through a single view of all of a utility’s grid information management functions.

To help utilities get started, GE Intelligent Platforms works with each utility to develop a complimentary customized “Smart Grid Roadmap”— a unique offering from other solution providers. The roadmap provides a step-by-step integrated strategy, tailoring Proficy Grid Manager to meet specific business needs and achieve each utility’s own vision for its distribution system.

“A key advantage is that a utility can jump straight in at any step and progress from that point,” said Pezalla. “Depending on what smart grid technologies are already in place, the roadmap allows users to focus on the areas that provide the best operational performance and cost effectiveness for its utility today while providing a strategic, forward-looking path for the future.”

Proficy Grid Manager is the latest example of how GE’s $4 billion-a-year software and solutions services businesses are helping customers improve productivity.