CUSTOMER BASE INVENTORY, SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AUDIT AND

NETWORK ASSETS MAPPING OF ELECTRICAL POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

USING GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (GEOGRAPHIC
INFORMATION SYSTEM)
For a nation to continually make major positive strides towards total economic development, it
must have efficient, reliable, and environmental friendly sources of energy.

Nigeria is currently recording major changes happening in the electricity distribution sector with
regard to the recent privatisation and deregulation of the distribution companies’ structure. As a
fallout of the privatisation, the focus for the distribution companies have been to provide every
citizen with power, as well as fulfil the rising expectation from its customers, shareholders, and
other stakeholders calling to mind that the satisfaction of these groups has a direct bearing on the
profitability of the organisation.

Electricity distribution was traditionally done by conventional surveying method using analogue
equipment, storing data in the form of analogue maps and commissioning reports found mainly in
drawing offices with the no integration of these activities into one system. Electricity utilities have
a need to keep a comprehensive and accurate inventory of their physical assets, both as a part of
normal service provision (extending the network, undertaking maintenance, etc.) and as a part of
their obligation to inform third parties about their facilities. With a fast growing industry, changes
are experienced everyday through new customer connections, network maintenance and
expansion.

This presents a challenge with regards to tracking, quick connection of new customers, speedy
response to electrical faults, swift update of network assets, fast infrastructural analyses, and easy
selection of short and economical routes for supply of electricity. Providentially, the recent
availability of fast computer, digital data acquisition technology and digital data processing along
with information presentation technology have brought a revolution into the world at large and the
electricity distribution. Thus, to take wise decisions vital to the operations, growth and
management of electricity distribution facilities, information can now be captured, stored,
integrated, manipulated, analysed and displayed to its full extent. These information contributes
not only to efficient services, but also to improving the understanding and networking of electricity
power distribution towards effective, reliable and well-organized power delivery.

Complexity of electrical distribution power system is a good reason for introducing the new
Geospatial Information Technology - GIS (Geographic Information System) that carries out
complex power system analyses (e.g., fault analysis, optimization of networks, assets audit, load
forecasting, customer indexing and enumeration) in acceptable amount of time. By using modern
GIS, in conjunction with his own in-house developed software – customer information system
(CIS), in less time and more accurately, the utility engineer is able to design and to analyze
electrical distribution network.

This paper presents the idea of developing a Geographic Information System to close these gaps
currently experienced in the Nigerian Electricity Distribution. This involves the implementation
of Customer Base Inventory, System Infrastructure Audit And Network Asset Mapping by
adopting GIS to collect, store, analyse, share and display data acquired from the Electricity
Distribution network. This tool is to be implemented to provide us with a better and more proficient
system for customer base, system infrastructure audit and network assets management. The three
main components of the project are briefly discussed below.

CUSTOMER BASE INVENTORY:

This arm involves Consumer Inventory, it is the input of customer’s information into a database
so that they can be uniquely identified and accounted for by the Utility Company. Having a
database showing how customers are distributed across the network can influence key customer-
related business decisions in Utility companies. Customer inventory facilitates the easy
identification of all customers within a network, and drives improved communication with these
key business stakeholders by use of a uniquely generated Customer Index Number (CIN).

SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AUDIT:

This would necessitate experts to inspect and evaluate the network with its associated equipment
to highlight areas with infrastructure requiring improvements and upgrades for increased
performance, enhanced load flow and reduced equipment downtime. This rehabilitation is set to
develop the operating condition of assets and decrease technical losses (in so doing help curb
commercial and collection losses).

The life span of key assets can also be predicted and work plan for upgrades designed as at when
due. This would create a proper load distribution, power flow analysis and reduce the number of
overloaded lines as well as infrastructure in the network, and help save the life of overworked
equipment. With proper planning and system integration, future projects can move towards
construction of more ringed 33/11kV circuits and essentially reduce service downtime to
customers via feeder redundancy.

NETWORK ASSET MAPPING:

Geographical Information System (GIS) is being used to map the location (Latitude-Longitude)
and attributes of each electrical network entity from 132kV/33kV system down to the 0.415kV
system (overhead and underground circuits). Within GIS, assets can be linked directly to customer
information system, to allow proactive monitoring of assets, work orders, vegetation management,
and outages monitoring. Mapped assets are useful for future network planning and rehabilitation.
It improves data management, planning and analysis.
CONCLUSION

This technology can show assets and customers distributed across the network and can help
electricity distribution companies make key business decisions; from planning major upgrade of
assets feeding groups of customers to distribution of payment centres based on the demography of
customers.

Aside from these key benefits the customer base inventory allows for all customers to be accounted
for in the business, this also helps in identifying free riders and reducing commercial losses as
customers are being indexed and enumerated into a database so that they can be uniquely
identified. This identification will support in immediately providing information about what exact
assets are key to each customer’s electricity supply. This means that if a customer or a group of
customers complain of downtime or poor power supply, they just need to give their Customer
Index Number (CIN), and the utility company can easily find out which asset or infrastructure is
responsible for it. Outage notices can also be communicated to specific affected customers
(identified through their customer index number) and help foster trust and build a better
relationship with customers. The customers’ location and building is geo-referenced (which is a
geeky way of saying “pointed and viewed on a geographical map”). This record showing
customers across the network can help us plan major overhauls or upgrade of key assets feeding
groups of customers and aid in the distribution of payment centres based on the demography of
customers.

The system infrastructure auditing will help in providing a comprehensive report of the status of
protective relays with a plan to recommend for replacement aged and defective relay units by the
testing of protective systems at all injection substations. The Insulation ability of overhead line pot
insulators are also included in order to know their status report.

Collection of operational data (trippings, planned outages, frequency of maintenance, etc.) on the
electricity networks (33kV & 11kV feeders) will assist in generating monthly reliability indices
such as System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), System Average Interruption
Frequency Index (SAIFI), Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI) and Customer
Average Interruption Frequency Index (CAIFI) of the feeders in a given period. This would aid in
the development of improvement mechanisms for the current situation of each feeder.

With the Network Asset Mapping, the technical crew can have a better grip of the various aspects
of the network, display location of where crews are working with the status of their work, have an
optimised work schedule and keep a log of work history on an asset. This means that information
can be shared amongst all staffs of the company with group restrictions and privileges applied
accordingly to various kinds of information in the database. Patrolling a feeder route just got easier
with a map showing the route of the feeder and its terrain, with generated single line diagrams
(with standardised symbols) needed for all kinds of power distribution analysis. The information
gathered can be used to identify vulnerabilities that cause outages and run a robust preventive
maintenance scheme in determining asset investments. Also help to understand how best to
achieve customer satisfaction and have a more accurate estimate of the Return On Investment of
future projects. With a rich set of easy-to-use analysis tools, we can determine the right location
for new facilities and new technology such as smart grid sensors and the AMI meters. In addition,
street-level routing and asset location navigator allows us to reduce travel costs and gain additional
scheduling time, giving us the ability to handle more service calls from customers with easier
physical location of assets. The platform is deployable on mobile phones and tablets and can be
used on-the-go by authorised personnel.

Lastly, the information stored in the GIS platform needs to be updated frequently due to the
dynamic nature of the network in order to tap into its numerous advantages. Hence, this high level
system of continuity and analysis can be adequately done with the use ArcGIS employing Python
as a scripting and programming language. Python is actively used for GIS through running python
scripts for automating tasks, as well as writing applications, such as add-ins which advances the
investigation and query of data in ArcGIS in line to understand and interpret the electrical power
distribution system.