Integrating Utility Data into a SCADA Dashboard
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Learn how NamPower used FME to integrate spatial data from multiple sources into a SCADA Dashboard to enable engineers to make decisions under emergency conditions and to deliver critical data to staff while they are not in the office.
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Integrating Utility Data into a SCADA Dashboard
- 1. NamPower Francois Binneman, Senior Operational Analyst Namibia
- 2. Objectives Integrate spatial data from multiple sources into a SCADA Dashboard. ● Enable engineers to make decisions under emergency conditions. ● Deliver critical data to staff while they are not in the office.
- 3. Challenges ● Integrate powerline voltage, network data, power stations, and vehicle GPS data. ● Reduce Effort to Maintain and Expand SCADA Dashboards.
- 4. Solution SOURCES SCADA System Smallworld GIS GPS FME DESTINATION SCADA Dashboard Google Maps
- 5. TIPS FeatureMerger Helpful for matching, comparing, or filtering objects from two sources. XMLTemplater Useful for creating HTML tables in dashboards.
- 6. MORE TIPS ListBuilder Useful for indexing objects from the source and placing them in the dashboard. HTTPCaller Makes REST calls easy.
- 9. Power Line Flows: Google Earth within SCADA Dashboard
- 10. Vehicle Locations: Google Earth within SCADA Dashboard
- 11. Benefits ● Easy to author and update. ● Maximum up-time.
- 12. “FME made it easy to create, maintain and expand our SCADA dashboard.” - Francois Binneman, NamPower
- 13. Thank you!
Editor's Notes
- NamPower, Namibia’s national power utility, has for decades been a mainstay of the nation’s economy and is now positioned to be a main driver of Vision 2030, Namibia’s blueprint for broad-based, sustainable economic growth. NamPower owns a world-class transmission system and network of overhead power lines spanning a distance of more than 25,000 kilometers, one of the longest of its kind in the world and enough to circle a continent. The national grid has been homegrown – designed and largely built by Namibians.
- NamPower’s employees needed to be able to observe live power flows in their network. These could originally only be accessed using the microSCADA system, which required each user to have a license for the software. The new SCADA Dashboard offering provides this information without requiring additional microSCADA licenses, and makes it possible to view the flows over the Internet on any device at any time, without having to be at the office. Employees can use this tool to analyse the network. For example, it enables engineers to make decisions under emergency conditions, especially when they are not in office. Once the platform was created, other opportunities arose to display more spatial data. The dashboard needed to be expanded to track all company vehicles and display relevant statistics, such as vehicle type and registration, current speed, ignition status and driver name. Renewable power plants also needed to be added to the system to display current generation. The purpose of the SCADA Dashboard was not to replace any current systems, but rather to combine data from various systems to obtain meaningful information.
- For this dashboard to be effective, NamPower needed to integrate data from multiple sources: Powerline voltage from SCADA Powerline network data, including transmission lines and power stations in Smallworld GIS and vehicle GPS data so they could see where the nearest crews were in the event repairs are needed This SCADA dashboard was initially written with about 1,800 lines of magik code, which required regular updates to the code as changes in the network were made. Such changes took a long time to implement to ensure that the logic in the code remained functioning as expected. Francois looked for a better solution.
- To replace magik code, Francois chose to create FME workspaces because they are straight forward to maintain and expand. An FME workspace was created to read power line voltages from the SCADA system, merge this with the correct power lines from the Smallworld GIS database and then display it in an HTML web page with a Google Map section to display the spatial data. Major substations are also displayed on the map. An HTTP Caller was used to read the vehicle tracking data in REST format from a cloud database and display it as an additional layer on the map. Another workspace is responsible to read the current generation output for renewable power plants from the SCADA system, create a separate table to display these values and also create another KML layer for display in the SCADA Dashboard.
- Francois found it helpful to use the FeatureMerger transformer when matching, comparing, or filtering objects from two sources. He also chose to use the XMLTemplater transformer for creating HTML tables in the dashboard, as it gave him more control over his output than the HTMLReportGenerator. He shared his findings in the FME Community, and received helpful ideas back which made the work even easier. (For presenter’s reference, here is the thread:) https://knowledge.safe.com/questions/63652/dashboarding-creating-html-tables-and-formatting-i.html
- The ListBuilder Transformer worked well to index the objects that he read from the SCADAOut file and then place them where he wanted in the HTML file using the fme:get-attribute function in the XMLTemplater (ie. something like {fme:get-attribute(concat("_list{",$index,"}.OV"))} ) The ever-popular HTTPCaller transformer was another transformer Francois found useful. He said it made making REST calls very easy to link up their Vehicle tracking data.
- NamPower’s management team and engineers now rely on the SCADA Dashboard to provide them with the status of their electricity network when they are not in office. Although it does not replace any engineering tools, it adds value to day to day operations for monitoring their system. Most notably, the Google Dynamic Map implementation is now possible, which previously couldn’t be done in the code-based version of the dashboard - previously, only a static map could be displayed.
- In the dashboard, the interactive maps are shown on the right hand side, and power flows are on the left.
- With these dynamic maps, different map layers or KML layers may be turned on or off, and areas of interest may be zoomed in. The map is now interactive. In this screenshot, a network link file was able to be created to dynamically show power line flows within Google Earth, right from the SCADA dashboard.
- And in this screenshot, vehicle locations are shown and can be interacted with. For example, the closest vehicle to a fault on a power line can be identified with the Dashboard and radioed for assistance to attend to the issue.
- When asked about the benefits they’ve experienced with this solution, Francois pointed out the speed of design and ease of maintaining and expanding the dashboard. The FME version of the dashboard is almost codeless, apart from the HTML bit of code that is written in the XMLTemplater transformers. This makes maintaining and expanding of the dashboard fast and effective and minimises logical errors that could be made, which was difficult to maintain with the code based version of the dashboard. It’s now very easy to add new types of spatial data to the dashboard with very little effort. Instead of writing more code, Francois only needed to add a few transformers to handle additional spatial data, such as the vehicle tracking information or renewable power plants. For example, a full screen map was added to the Dashboard with little effort. A renewables dashboard based on the principles of the SCADA Dashboard could be created within one day. Requests and ideas to expand the dashboard are arising due to the usefulness of the current platform. These include expansion to include all SCADA system screens, and an analysis on renewable power plants in terms of generation based upon their location. Finally,FME ensures that the Dashboard runs with maximum up-time. If the server for some reason has to restart, FME Server automatically restarts all scheduled workspaces.