IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference 2009, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

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AbstractSeveral industry sectors have recently undergone a
significant transformation of their Information &
Communications Technology (ICT) systems to support both
current and future business modes of operation. A notable
example is the transformation of Operational and Business
Support Systems (OSS and BSS) in Telecommunications. The
power & energy sector is now confronting a similar change.
Moreover, the industry is transforming from the traditional
models of business to embrace a number of new and enhanced
technologies that support future smart grid operations. This
paper outlines our experience with several industry smart grid
projects. This includes automated metering infrastructure as part
of a smart community project, intelligent network monitoring and
control providing real-time and historical data, and the capability
for consumers to view and manage their carbon foot print as part
of these programs. We also outline our approach to a control
room of the future that manages and leverages the capabilities of
these emerging smart grid systems.

Index TermsIntelligent networks, Interconnected power
systems, Monitoring, Power distribution control, Remote sensing.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE power and energy sector is currently undergoing some
significant changes in the way that energy systems and
power distribution is monitored and controlled. This includes
the adoption of renewable energy sources, smart grid
distribution technologies, and automated metering. The key
motivations for adopting these, and other, innovations has
been derived from the need to improve operational
effectiveness, increased competitive behavior due to
privatization, and climate change. The first two drivers are
traditional in a sense, in that they also provide the motivation
to other industries such as telecommunications; which has seen
significant change in modernization of their operation support
systems (OSS) and business support systems (BSS) [1].
While the traditional business motivations contribute to
change within the electrical energy industry, the sector draws
further uniqueness from other industry sectors with a need to

A. Clark is with EnergyAustralia, Sydney, NSW Australia. His current
position is Manager, Intelligent Networks at EnergyAustralia. (e-mail:
adrian.clark@energy.com.au).
C. J. Pavlovski is with the IBM, Brisbane, Australia. He is the Chief
Architect, Technology & Innovation, and member of the IBM Academy of
Technology; (e-mail: chris_pav@au1.ibm.com).
J. Fry is with EnergyAustralia, Sydney, NSW Australia. He is the
Manager of Telecommunications and Operations at EnergyAustralia; (e-mail:
jfry@energy.com.au).
respond to climate change, the third driver. Moreover,
governments world wide have been forced to respond to
climate change, with stimulus programs aimed at smart grid
and green initiatives. The industry perspective is that smart
grid technologies are essential to enable renewable energy
sources, particularly micro-generation (household),
interconnection to the network. To accommodate the smart
grid ultimately means that Information & Communication
Technology (ICT) is to be deployed to host.
While there is much interest from research and industry to
adopting smart grids, one aspect of these developments that
has received little attention is the control room that monitors
and manages the intelligent network. The traditional control
room is responsible for monitoring the electrical network and
for managing responses to network outages. As energy
companies undergo these transformations to adopt a smart grid
and host renewable sources, there will be an impact to how the
control room will operate and function. Specifically, we
suggest that the control room of the future needs to alter its
routine operations to manage both the electrical network and
the Information & Communications Technology deployed that
enable the intelligent network.
In this paper we outline our industry experience in two key
projects that deploy smart grid solutions to the electrical
network. The first project deploys an intelligent network for
monitoring and control of the high, medium and low voltage
networks; a key novelty is the ability to provide both historical
and real-time event and measurement data to external users.
The second project is a smart community trial that deploys to
the household a convergent system that enables automated
metering for gas, water, and electricity. Furthermore, we
discuss in this paper our work on the needs of the control room
to support these technological changes within the electrical
distribution network and outline our framework that supports
the control room of the future.
II. BACKGROUND AND RELATED WORK
We now outline the related work in the literature that
addresses the transformation of the energy companies to
accommodate an intelligent (smart grid) electrical network.
While there is considerable literature on smart grid
transformation, there is little work on the subject of
transforming the control to accommodate these intelligent
networks.
Transformation of Energy Systems:
The Control Room of the Future
Adrian Clark, Christopher J. Pavlovski, Jeff Fry
T

IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference 2009, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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A. Renewable Micro-Generation
There is considerable work in integrating micro-generation
renewable energy sources into the electrical grid [2]. These
energy sources include sources such as photo-voltaics, wind,
and combined heat and power micro-generation. A key
observation made in [2] is that existing electrical grids were
designed without the use of micro-generation sources in mind.
Hence several problems emerge such as increases in local
voltage beyond low voltage grid limits, There is work [3]
discussing the broader implications of the social acceptance of
these technologies, as they represent a significant departure
from the incumbent approach of monolithic large scale energy
generation. In addition, the implications of regulatory and
economic factors also contribute to potential take-up and
various deployments models to increase adoption are
discussed [4].
B. Automated Metering
Automated Metering Infrastructure (AMI) has already gained
some traction within the industry, with advantages suggested in
the accuracy and process improvement of meter reading and
control. In [5], additional benefits are suggested to be gained
in managing power quality and asset management with AMI.
The author discusses how reliability, operational efficiency,
and customer satisfaction may be addressed with an AMI
deployment. Conversely, the benefits of AMI are countered
by increases cyber security issues [6]. These technologies
require a communications infrastructure to provide
interconnectivity. Hence, the vulnerabilities that expose other
internetworking systems will ultimately lead to security threats
to AMI systems.
C. Monitoring and Control of Electrical Grid
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems
have been implemented to monitor and control electrical
power grids for some time. Our experience shows that
practical deployment of SCADA based systems may restrict
this to the high voltage transmission networks. Other authors
also make the observation that existing monitoring and control
systems are restricted to the transmission (high-voltage)
network and not suitable for larger scale monitoring and
control of the entire electrical grid [7]. As SCADA systems
evolve, there is much interest in the security vulnerabilities
posed with these systems increasingly available over networks
and internet technologies [8, 9, 10].
In [7] a distributed monitoring control system is proposed
to manage the electrical grid. They propose a Grid Computing
solution to address these monitoring control needs and discuss
the results of their research for an off-line test environment.
The authors note that the key motivations also include the need
to support sustainable, and renewable, energy source at the
micro-generation level.
Our work goes beyond the previous work with an actual
industry implementation. Furthermore, our solution applies
existing ICT technologies in a hierarchical decomposition of
the electrical grid into logical zones for monitoring and
control. We also outline the impacts to the control room
responsible for management and control of the electrical
network, suggesting a framework for future control rooms in
order to monitor and manage the smart grid.
III. INDUSTRY MOTIVATIONS
Before describing our research projects and control room
strategy, we briefly highlight some of the key industry
motivations to pursue a smart grid transformation.
Enhanced Customer Experience: A key objective for
energy distributors is to improve service to customers.
This includes reduced outage times when power is
interrupted, improved notification of network problems
and providing customers with tools to understand and
optimize their energy usage.
Increased Staff Productivity: Intelligent performance
information and tools will allow staff to undertake their
current duties in a more efficient manner, with longer term
benefits coming from automating the grid. These gains in
productivity will help to reduce deployment costs and
operational costs in managing the network.
Improved Grid Utilization: A smart grid will provide
more detailed data on which to base network design
extensions. This information allow the operator to
improve the investment decision making processes by
identifying which network components are likely to fail
and the replacement strategy.
Facilitate De-carbonization of the Grid: A smart grid has
the potential to reduce network losses and limit growth in
network demand, due to embedded monitoring of the
high, medium and low voltage networks. The smart grid
will enable options for renewable micro-generation and
provide customers with the awareness and capabilities to
reduce their consumption.
Adherence to Regulatory Constraints: New regulatory
demands include provisions for increased levels of asset
data tracking (cost justification) and greater reliability
targets.
Cyber Security Threats: New threats are continuously
emerging that are to be mitigated. Grid transformation
naturally occurs as part of improved technology adoption.
A coherent transformation to a smart grid will also
address the increased cyber security threats. This becomes
increasingly important with recent attempts at malicious
attacks upon the grid [11].
IV. INTELLIGENT NETWORK PROJECTS: INDUSTRY R&D
We now describe our industry projects that address intelligent
network monitoring & control and support smart community
energy sources. The following diagram (Figure 1.) illustrates
the scope of the intelligent networks program in three domains.
The first two domains include monitoring and control for the i)
high voltage transmission network and ii) medium/low voltage
distribution networks. The third domain is composed of
deploying automated metering infrastructure together with gas

IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference 2009, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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and water usage that enable households to monitor and manage
their carbon footprint (the smart community initiative).


Fig. 1. Intelligent Network Projects
A. Network Monitoring & Control: Real-time and Historical
The network monitoring and control projects consist of
implementing smart grid devices to the electrical network that
will monitor the network for alarms, faults, events and
electrical measurements. While Supervisory Control and Data
Acquisition (SCADA) systems have provided this level of
monitoring to the high voltage network on a real-time basis,
our projects provide several additional capabilities required of
a smart grid network. This includes monitoring medium and
low voltage networks (necessary for micro generation based on
renewable sources); the provision of both a real-time and
historical view of these events and measurements; and ability
to view the network configuration at a point in time.
Collectively, these attributes make this a first of a kind for
widespread monitoring, particularly as it is observed that such
detailed monitoring is required to adopt renewable micro-
generation into the grid from the household.

Fig. 2. Intelligent Network Projects
The data gathered from the system will provide network
engineers with greater information to design the electrical
network. This is for both incumbent electrical grid design, but
also to accommodate network design. In addition, this data
may be used to assist control room users to analyze faults and
repair network outages across the high, medium, and low
voltage distribution networks. For example, control room staff
may observe temperature and voltage fluctuations over several
months to help assist in identifying faulty network assets.
Alternatively, network assets may be examined with a street
view. This will enable, for instance, an ability to view if lines
may be subject to excessive foliage, which may be hazardous
in high winds. Finally, renewable micro-generation sources
from the households are yet to deploy en masse and a
capability to monitor and correct network faults at this level is
required.
An additional requirement of the projects is to ensure the
data is accessible to non-control room staff; i.e. general users
and (in part) external customers. Hence, a Web 2.0 style of
interface was necessary to support ease of use. Figure 2
illustrates the initial release of our transmission and
distribution network monitoring & control system, where the
graphical mapping interface is shown.
Shown in Figure 2 is a map-based view that enables users to
search and navigate for desired network assets for monitoring
or control. Related network event, fault and electrical
measurement data may be viewed within the network; the data
originates from the smart grid devices deployed to various
network points. Typical measurement includes voltage, phase,
current, power, for all three phases. When a particular network
asset, or group of assets, is defined the actual asset may be
viewed in several mapping modes, this may be via its terrain
setting, traditional satellite, or street view.
After an asset, or electrical zone, is selected, detailed data
on measurements, events, and faults may then be viewed. The
diagram overleaf (Figure 3) illustrates the visualization of the
real-time and historical data; where the three charted lines
represent the measurements for each phase over a given time
period. By selecting a measurement point (current, voltage,
power, etc) the data is charted and key event points highlighted
on the chart are displayed in more detail in the tabulated
section below the chart.
In addition to viewing the real-time or historical network
data, the solution will be able to display the network topology
of the network at selected historical time points. While the
high voltage transmission network is generally static in terms
of its network configuration, the medium and low voltage
networks are considerable more volatile. Hence, such a
historical network view will provide further input to the
control room to assist in diagnosing network faults, and will
also support engineers in the design of the electrical network.
A key challenge with the deployment of this technology
was to manage installation without increasing the number of
support staff required to oversea the new operations. This was
facilitated by ensuring Web 2.0 style user interface that the
internet has adopted, reducing need for extensive re-training.

IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference 2009, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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Fig. 3. Visualization of Real-time and Historical Data

B. Automated Metering Infrastructure: Smart Community
A further project, a smart community trial, deploys several
automated metering devices to the customer household. This
includes gas, water, and electricity automated metering. The
smart community trial provides customers with access to new
tools to reduce their carbon footprint and hence manage
energy consumption.


Fig. 4. Smart Community: Automated Metering Infrastructure
The above diagram (Figure 4) provides an overview of the
system components. Distributed Power Generation includes
potential renewable sources such as solar cell, solar thermal,
and wind.
The trial involves the deployment to some 1,000 homes that
communicate over WiMax to several IT systems that manage
the reading of water (natural and grey water), gas, and
electricity. Customers have access to an information portal via
an installed Home Area Network (HAN). This may be
accessed by an in-house display that interfaces via the home
personal computer.
Energy consumption is monitored by appliances enabled
with an intelligent chip that also allows the remote control of
appliances. Support for electrical vehicles will be provided for
one home. The data gathered from this trial will be made
available to the public, universities, and researchers so that
energy efficiency and environmental outcomes may be studied
further.
V. CONTROL ROOM OF THE FUTURE
Present day control rooms are supported by several systems
including outage management systems, distribution network
management systems, SCADA, and graphical information
systems that depict the electrical network topology. These core
systems serve to support asset control, network planning, and
response to electrical network outages. This support reflects
the traditional needs of energy distribution which is focused
upon detecting and repairing faults in the electrical network.

IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference 2009, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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As energy distributors transform their operations to
accommodate a smart grid, this means the distributors will
have an increasing dependence upon information and
communications technologies.
The traditional control room is responsible to manage the
electrical grid while receiving customer queries and/or field
technical correspondence via the contact centre regarding the
status of electrical grid when outages occur. As energy
distributors adopt and implement the smart grid, the control
room will need to respond to additional sources of input as
well as the management of both the electrical grid and the
communications network that supports this. The combined
communications network and electrical grid becomes the smart
grid capable of supporting intelligent monitoring and control,
and also supports the infusion of renewable distributed micro-
energy sources. Hence, we envisage the future control room to
include an Operation Technology Control (OTC) room to
support these needs. Moreover, the future control room is a
convergent set of operations from the OTC and control room
functions, as is illustrated in the diagram (Figure 5).


Fig. 5. Scope of Control Room Operations for ICT and Electrical Network
In Figure 5, control room engineers interact with the contact
centre and also manage the electrical network. While several
existing control room IT systems provide support for business
and operational needs, these systems and business processes
are not sufficient to treat the emerging problems that a more
complex intelligent network and smart grid pose. This is due to
distributed micro power generation, renewable energy sources,
communications technology, high/medium/low voltage
monitoring of the electrical grid, and an Internet environment
that provides customers with real-time access to selected
electrical usage patterns. Hence, the control room of the future
is required to deal with both the electrical network and
intelligent grid in diagnosing faults and outages to ensure
continuity of service. For instance, this is evident in the need
to detect outages in either the electrical grid or the
communications network.
Our experiences in deploying smart grid solutions has
highlighted the need to create a second control room that
monitors and manages the Information Technology and
Communications technologies deployed. This has involved
the deployment of many operational support system tools
which are implemented in telecommunications organizations.
This has included IT systems such as fault management,
problem management, change management, and network
management tools. We also observe that the Information
Technologies Infrastructure Library (ITIL) [12] standards and
best practices may be followed, providing the necessary
functions to support the migration to supporting smart grid
communications infrastructure.
As the energy distributor moves a greater range of services
online, much of what has been traditionally visible to the
internal organization may now be made available to the regular
customer over the Internet (as in our trial system for Smart
Community). This means the energy distributor faces the
challenge of streamlining their internal business process so
they appear disciplined to customers interacting with these
over the web. Presently the contact centre acts as the central
point of contact for customers to notify control room users.
However, in the future such notifications are likely to originate
from Internet based applications; hence a need to support this
form of input and query is required of the future control room.
A further impact point to the control room is the needs to
support and manage multiple power generation points within
the network. The traditional monolithic style of power
generation will be increasingly extended to support micro
power generation, most typically from renewable sources.
Enabling households with automated metering facilities will
provide the monitoring and control points for these sources.
Once again a historical and real-time perspective of this data
will also need to be made available to the control room.
Additional complexity will emerge for control room
engineers to process and make use of the volumes of
measurements and information supplied by the smart grid.
ICT solutions that harness this data and visualize the
information in an easy to read form will become essential to
avoid the additional burden to control room staff due to
excessive data. The information needs to be succinct,
intelligible, and contextual to the problem management task at
hand. Recent advances in data mining and visualization are
able to process this data to support these needs and further
illuminate the need for the control room to transform to an
operational technology centre.
VI. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
In June 2009 the IEEE launched the Smart Grid
Interoperability Standards [13]. The objective of the standard
is to ensure interoperability of electrical power systems and
Information & Communications Technologies [14]. This is to
ensure seamless operation from generation, distribution, and
end-user consumption that permit two way power-flow with
communications and control [14]. In our experience deploying
smart grid solutions we have also made the additional
observation that the control room also requires adaptation to
Future
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IEEE Electrical Power and Energy Conference 2009, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
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ensure both the interoperability with information &
communications technologies and to also facilitate the
augmentation of the electrical network into a smart grid. This
is in order to support enhanced control features over the
electrical network and the need to monitor the ICT that now
forms part of the smart grid.
In this paper, we briefly outline our smart grid projects that
include automated metering and enhanced network monitoring
and control. Based upon our industry experience in deploying
these solutions, we also observe the need for transforming the
control room to include an operational technology centre and
outline the motivations and scope for a control room for the
future that supports the convergence of the electrical and smart
grid networks. It is hoped that our experience and direction
will help raise awareness within the industry that
transformation of the network must also consider the
operational aspects of the control room.
VII. REFERENCES
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OSS/BSS using NGOSS, IEEE Conference on Communication
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[2] D. Infield, F. Li, Integrating micro-generation into distribution systems -
A review of recent research, Power and Energy Society General Meeting
- Conversion and Delivery of Electrical Energy in the 21st Century,
2008 IEEE, pp.1-4, July 2008.
[3] R. Sauter, J. Watson, Strategies for the deployment of micro-generation:
Implications for social acceptance, Elsevier, Energy Policy, Vol. 35,
Iss.5, pp.2770-2779, May 2007.
[4] J. Watson, R. Sauter, B. Bahaj, P. James, L. Myers and R. Wing,
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the UK, Energy Policy, Vol. 36, Iss. 8, Pages 3095-3106, August 2008.
[5] D. Backer, Power Quality and Asset Management The Other "Two-
Thirds" of AMI Value, IEEE Rural Electric Power Conference, pp. C6-
C6-8, May 2007.
[6] F.M. Cleveland, Cyber security issues for Advanced Metering
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[7] G.A. Taylor, M.R. Irving, P.R. Hobson, C. Huang, P. Kyberd, and R.J.
Taylor, Distributed monitoring and control of future power systems via
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[8] E. Chikuni, M. Dondo, Investigating the security of electrical power
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[9] C. Ten, C. Liu, and M. Govindarasu, Cyber-vulnerability of power grid
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[11] T. Claburn, CIA Admits Cyber-attacks Blackened Out Cities.
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[12] Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), Version 3, ITIL
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[13] IEEE Unifies Power, Communications, and IT with launch of Smart
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VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Adrian Clark is the Manager, Intelligent Networks at
EnergyAustralia. He has worked within the energy and power
industry managing projects in smart grid solutions and power
industry innovations that include smart metering, distribution
monitoring and control, and organizational transformation.
Christopher J. Pavlovski is a Distinguished Engineer with
IBM, is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology, and
has a PhD in electronic commerce and cryptography. Within
IBM he has worked in telecommunications, energy & utilities
industries, and is currently the Chief Architect of Technology
and Innovation for IBM Australia.
Jeff Fry is Manager, Telecommunications at
EnergyAustralia. He has led communications innovations at
EnergyAustralia which has included wireless communications
technologies to enable the smart grid for monitoring and
control.