Western Power installs on-demand operational data system

Western Power, an electricity networks corporation in Western Australia distributing power along more than 88,000 miles of transmission lines, has implemented a real-time trending tool for monitoring asset performance against limits.

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Western Power, an electricity networks corporation in Western Australia distributing power along more than 88,000 miles of transmission lines, has implemented a real-time trending tool for monitoring asset performance against limits. Visual KPI from Transpara Corp. is also a real-time alerting tool for monitoring generation fuel mix and tracking the contribution of wind generation to Western Australia’s total system generation.
Visual KPI is composite key performance indicator (KPI) software that delivers on-demand operations data from multiple data sources to any desktop or mobile browser. It provides role-based, real-time operating data in context, enabling decision making from any location through support for more than 150 mobile devices. Western Power is currently using Visual KPI as the key support tool for operational SCADA. The product will also be used as a KPI tracking tool for key customer, fault outage and duration measurements, such as the Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI), a reliability index.
“Visual KPI puts accurate and key operational information in the hands of people who need it, exactly when and where they need it, which more often than not, is out in the field,” said Julian Rouse, system administration manager at Western Power. “Visual KPI is fast becoming a must-have tool for us to improve our operations. For that reason, everyone from frontline SCADA support staff, system controllers, operations engineers and managers will rely on it for real-time tracking of operational conditions and asset performance.”
“Once we realized the value of Visual KPI and potential for significant cost savings and increased productivity, we decided to increase adoption across the enterprise, to more than 900 users who will access business-critical operational data via mobile devices and traditional Web displays,” Rouse said. . In 2008, Western Power will roll out the product to its head office site and two operational control centers.
Rouse said Visual KPI leverages Western Power’s existing technology investments, integrating with the PI System from OSIsoft, as well as frontline operational SCADA systems, corporate ratings and limits databases. Visual KPI enables users to easily create and customize composite KPIs and scorecards without any additional programming, using information from any combination of existing data sources, including the OSIsoft PI System, Rockwell RSSQL, Invensys InSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, SmartSignal, OLE DB and Web Services.
Western Power
Transpara Corp.

Control Engineering News Desk
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