The GIS Team at Veitur Takes Charge of Migrating to Utility Network

Veitur is located in Reykjavík, Iceland. The utility services district provides heating, water, sewer, and electricity to its customers. Its electric distribution delivers 1,141 GWh per year through 3,414 km of power lines. Empowered by the Similix Utility Network Migration Suite and a thorough proof of concept (POC) and data assessment, Veitur's internal GIS team is migrating its electric distribution data to Esri's ArcGIS Utility Network.

Veitur wanted the geographic information system (GIS) to hold the single source of truth about assets and connectivity. It also needed to provide that information to its GE’ PowerOn advanced distribution management system (ADMS) and other systems to improve both efficiency and safety. The problem was that the company was recording the same data more than once.

Veitur also needed to understand customer behavior better. So the integration of GIS with smart meters and the associated Meter Data Management (MDM) system was essential to performing customer spatial analyses.

"I strongly believe that the Utility Network technology will provide us with many useful new tools and opportunities, saving time and money in the future. The Utility Network technology would advance our business, as its processes provide better overview and statistics, strengthening our workflow and customer services." - Valdimar Ásbjörn Kjartansson, Geographic Information Team Lead, Veitur 

Similix provided technological expertise on the data model, migration, and process changes for the project. The Similix software products, Utility Network Migration Suite and CIM Adaptor for ArcGIS were used heavily. Similix also conducted the project analysis, including the POC and data assessment, providing support for Veitur when needed.

Project Team

• Veitur: Leads and executes the ArcGIS Utility Network migration and related data enrichment
• Similix, Esri partner and project consultant: Provides project analysis, leads the POC, and supplies Similix Utility Network Migration Suite and CIM Adaptor software
• Samsýn, Esri distributor in Iceland: Provides Esri licenses and support for setting up the platform

A successful POC triggered the decision to start the Utility Network project. It proved that data could be easily migrated while, at the same time, building the foundation for new integrations.

Implementing the Utility Network enables GIS as a strategic platform at Veitur. The ability to model connectivity and the new subnetwork (circuit) export functionality allows the GIS to maintain and share the electrical model. The project employs the Common Information Model (CIM) for data interoperability and migration. CIM is the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard for describing electrical models. The Similix CIM Adaptor creates the CIM files that provide smooth data input into its ADMS and any other system that requires network data.

Veitur has a strong GIS team. It built applications and integrations for the existing GIS platform and resources to understand electrical models and CIM. The team heavily relies on the Similix Utility Network Migration Suite. Further, it has adopted the European Electric Utilities Utility Network Community (UNC) target data model. Veitur's GIS team has taken on the challenge to do the identified data cleansing and has also received these recommendations for data enrichment:

• Create internals of primary substations, enabling the circuit breakers to be the starting point for medium voltage (MV) feeders that will be subnetworks in ArcGIS Utility Network.
• Introduce cables on transmission level in the GIS.
• Create low voltage (LV) network connectivity in secondary substations to connect the LV and MV grid, enabling cross-voltage tracing and calculating aggregated load.

Being able to build subnetworks in ArcGIS Utility Network was an important milestone.

"I thoroughly enjoy taking on a new challenge in GIS, which will also improve the quality of our data. I think data quality is absolutely essential." - María Thors, GIS Manager, Veitur 

Veitur will now have the resources to execute the migration to the ArcGIS Utility Network. Furthermore, running the Utility Network migration as an internal exercise paves the way for a Utility Network journey that might be attractive to and even necessary for many other small-to-midsize electric utilities.

ArcGIS Utility Network can model the electric network and allow the integration of planning, operation, and maintenance. The visualization of the grid in various business units utilizes the same data and information. Based on the subnetwork export, the Similix CIM Adaptor for ArcGIS successfully delivered Esri GIS data to the GE ADMS. Integrating ArcGIS increases the value of GIS data and removes redundant data maintenance.

The next task will be to integrate smart meter data and the GIS to maximize their value.