Knowledge, as the saying goes, is power.

Rarely, though has that been more literally true than for the residents of Gainesville, Florida.

Located in the north central part of the state, the city is home to nearly 150,000 residents, nearly two-thirds of whom rely on the city-owned Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU) for electricity and other utilities. While the company has reliably delivered power for more than a century, like many other utilities in storm-prone areas, the increasing number and severity of hurricanes poses a very real challenge to keeping the lights on.

To help address that challenge, the company recently launched a six-month project to upgrade the software that allows them to model their grid, as well as the system operators use to monitor the grid in real-time.

So, for GRU customers at least, knowledge is – often quite literally – power.

Though not the primary driver for the upgrades, when storms – and the outages that come with them – do occur, the software improvements allow the company to optimize how repair crews are dispatched, ensuring more customers are back online as quickly as possible.

From the moment the first electrical grids were created, utilities sought to create models that would enable them to ensure the systems were safe and reliable. Those first models involved meticulously hand-drawn paper maps showing everything from power plants to substations to distribution networks. The drawback, of course, is that those paper maps were difficult to update and prone to human error.

In recent decades, utilities – including GRU – have turned to digital technologies, particularly GIS (Geographic Information Systems) software to create those maps. Though initially developed to model roads, the software allowed utilities to create more detailed maps of the grid which were far easier to update and analyze.

For all their benefits, though, GIS models still faced significant limitations when it came to modeling the grid, and those limitations have become clearer as the grid has become increasingly complex in recent years.

Dramatic increase in renewable resources like wind and solar power and the rise of distributed energy resources like smart thermostats, EV chargers and battery storage in recent years have profoundly changed how grids operate. Where they were once one-way roads, with power flowing from large, centralized power plants to substations and then on to homes and businesses, the grid today is a two-way highway, carrying both electricity and huge amounts of data back and forth between utilities and customers.

To help manage that growing complexity, GRU turned to UDC, an implementation service provider and AspenTech to upgrade their GIS by moving from a geometric network model – a more basic way to map the grid – to a utility network model, which allows for the inclusion of far more detail, including substation assets that can replicate conditions from the field, enabling more accurate data reporting and improving system capabilities.

To understand the difference between the two, GRU utility engineer Darko Kovac said, start by thinking of a dirt road.

“When a road is dirt, you can drive a tractor on it with no problem,” he said. “You can use that tractor to get from place to place, and for plowing a field. But when you pave that road, now the tractor is no good. You can still use that tractor to plow a field, but now you need a vehicle which is a little faster and roomier.”

The industry, he said, is experiencing similar changes.

While geometric network models in the past were extremely effective, the rise of smart devices, increasing use of sensors and distributed energy resources means more computing firepower is needed to process the flood of information.

The upgrades to their GIS software meant GRU also had to update their SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) system to ensure the two were compatible. That system, which collects real-time data from the grid, helps operators make appropriate decisions to optimize performance, identify and avoid potential issues and adjust quickly to changing conditions on the grid.

The improved ability to get real-time data from the grid also enables the company to more comprehensively analyze outages when they happen and more efficiently dispatch work crews to get customers back online faster than ever before.

While it may not have been the main driver for GRU’s upgrade decision, the reality of Florida’s hurricane season did play a role in the process.

“This project did improve reliability across the board,” said GRU Technical Systems Analyst Richard Gunton. “The storm season really had to do with getting our schedule right. It gave us a timeline, because we wanted to get this done before storm season started, so we didn’t get impacted.”

Ultimately, the upgrades were completed on schedule, just before two major hurricanes hit the region, and gave GRU operators a far more comprehensive understanding of the grid’s operations in real time, which has translated into improvements in efficiency, outage management and responsiveness and – in the end – improved service for customers.

“When it comes to storm season, we are limited in what we can do,” added Kovac. “We wanted to meet that deadline so there were no surprises during that time of year.”

To learn more, read the Gainesville Regional Utilities Prepares for Hurricane Season with AspenTech and UDC case study.