Greentech Lead America: Dell has announced the
availability of a new smart grid solution– Dell Smart Grid Data Management
Solution, tested in collaboration with OSIsoft– for electric utilities.
The smart grid solution helps electric utility companies
smartly manage their distribution networks, minimize and potentially avoid
outages and improve service to their customers through an innovative
application of smart grid technologies.
Dell Smart Grid Data Management Solution combines
high-performance computing, networking and storage to manage data and provide
actionable results in real-time. Based on customer requirements and the age of
the data, Dell’s solution provides three tiers of storage, enabling customers
to optimize performance at a low cost.
The solution’s reference architecture features Dell
PowerEdge 12th-generation servers with PCI Express Flash drives, and provides
data in near-real time to grid operators enabling them to quickly identify and
assess the health of the distribution grid.
The OSIsoft PI System is the enterprise infrastructure
for streaming data and events. The PI System captures phasor and other T&D
system performance data, archives and contextualizes the data including
real-time calculations and makes the data available to staff, applications and
business systems.
Leading electric utilities are beginning to leverage
Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) within their transmission and distribution
(T&D) systems to monitor and manage the health of the T&D system. PMU
measurements provide data related to the stability of the electricity network;
PMU output can indicate either a current or imminent outage condition.
However, to realize the benefits of PMUs, actionable
information from the streaming data needs to be efficiently retained for later
analysis. Dell’s Smart Grid Data Management Solution, in conjunction with the
OSIsoft PI System, provides an efficient, scalable platform for this analysis.
“Smart grid technologies have the potential to
revolutionize the way power is produced, delivered, used and conserved – but
only if we can effectively capture, analyze and respond to the data that is
generated,” said Jeff Gillespey, global energy sales director for Dell.
“Managing the data deluge is imperative for utility
companies that want to make their operations more efficient, and Dell is
committed to giving them the power to improve productivity and enhance service
levels,” Gillespe added.
“In the utilities market, deriving knowledge from grid
data confers a competitive advantage but can stress computing systems,” said
Bernard Morneau, chief strategy officer at OSIsoft. “We are very pleased to see
Dell taking up this challenge and joining us in this journey to help OSIsoft
customers address their growing data management requirements. We will be
looking to expand this collaboration to other industries and big data
scenarios.”