Meter data management systems, methods, and software with outage management capabilities

• US 9,103,854 B2
• Filed: 06/07/2013
• Issued: 08/11/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Landis+Gyr Analytics, LLC (Landis+Gyr Group AG)
• Original Assignee: Landis+Gyr Analytics, LLC (Landis+Gyr Group AG)
• Inventors: Kardos, Christopher P., Varney, Darren D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Johnson, Ryan
• Application Number:
  US13/912,252
• Publication Number:
  US 20130342358A1
• Time in Patent Office: 795 Days
• Field of Search: 34087001-87004, 702 57- 62, 324/113, 700/286, 700291-293
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 2204/22 Arrangements for detecting or reporting faults, outages or leaks
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 4/004 Remote reading of utility meters to a fixed location
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 21/00 Arrangements for measuring electric power or power factor G01R7/12 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00001 characterised by the display of information or by user interaction, e.g. supervisory control and data acquisition systems [SCADA] or graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 13/00034 the elements or equipment being or involving an electric power substation
• CPC Class Codes: Y02B 90/20 Smart grids as enabling technology in buildings sector smart grids supporting the management or operation of end-user stationary applications in general, or like technologies with no associated climate change mitigation effect Y04S20/00
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 10/40 Display of information, e.g. of data or controls
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 20/30 Smart metering, e.g. specially adapted for remote reading

Abstract

The present inventors recognized a need to leverage the data from Advanced Metering Systems (AMIs) in the management of electrical outages. To address this and/or other needs, they present inventors devised, among other things, systems, methods, and software that not only intelligently filter and communicate AMI outage data to Outage Management Systems (OMSs), but also facilitate communications between OMSs and multiple types of AMI systems. One exemplary system includes an outage management module that receives AMI outage data in the form of “last gasp” messages from meters and determines whether the OMS is already aware of a power outage associated with those meters. If the OMS is already aware of an outage associated with these meters, the outage management module excludes the outage reports from its communications with the OMS, thereby preserving its capacity to handle new outage information and overcoming a significant obstacle to using AMI data within OMSs.

Claims

1. A system for handling data from electrical usage meters comprising one or more computer processors configured for:

receiving and storing messages for electrical usage meters, the messages including energization status messages;

determining whether one or more of the energization status messages are associated with an outage condition presently recorded in an outage management system; and

transmitting outage condition data based on one or more of the energization status messages to the outage management system, wherein the transmitted outage condition data excludes data based on the energization status messages determined to be associated with the presently recorded outage condition in the outage management system.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more computer processors are configured for determining whether one or more of the energization status messages for the electrical usage meters are indicative of a distribution transformer outage;

and wherein the computer processor configured for transmitting outage condition data based on one or more of the energization status messages transmits outage condition data identifying a distribution transformer associated with the energization status.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more computer processors are configured for determining whether one or more of the energization status messages for the electrical usage meters are indicative of a distribution transformer outage;

and wherein the computer processor configured for transmitting outage condition data based on one or more of the energization status messages transmits energization status messages for a number of the usage meters that is less than the total number of the usage meters associated with the distribution transformer.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the number of the usage meters that is less than the total number of the usage meters is equal to a minimum number of usage meters required by the outage management system to infer deenergized status of the distribution transformer.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more computer processors configured for receiving and storing messages for electrical usage meters receive and store powered-up messages indicative of powered up electrical usage meters, and the one or more computer processors are configured for receiving restoration verification requests from the outage management system, and a computer processor configured for responding to the received restoration verification based on one or more of the stored powered-up messages, wherein the stored powered-up messages are stored prior to receipt of the restoration verification request.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the transmitted outage condition data excludes data based on the energization status messages determined to be associated with one or more anticipated outage conditions.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the one or more anticipated outage conditions includes a condition based on prior utility scheduled electrical outage.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more computer processors are configured for inferring deenergized status of one or more of the meters based on data indicative of a power up or power down status of a network communications device associated with the one of the meters.

9. The system of claim 1, comprising a graphical user interface for interacting with energization status information regarding the usage meters, wherein the interface displays a first energization status derived from stored energization status messages for a first one of the meters and second energization status reported by the outage management system.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the first energization status is associated with a control feature which can be selected to invoke display of an energization event history associated with the first one of the meters.

11. A system comprising:

a computer processor configured for optimizing interactions between advanced metering systems and utility back-office systems by filtering data from advanced metering systems prior to transmitting the data to the utility back-office systems in order to detect, analyze, and respond to outage events, thereby minimizing duration of the outage events;

wherein the filtering comprises analyzing energization status messages;

determining whether one or more of the energization status messages are associated with a known outage condition recorded in the utility back-office systems; and

transmitting outage condition data to the utility back-office systems based on the energization status messages;

wherein the transmitted outage condition data excludes data based on the energization status messages determined to be associated with the known outage condition.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the utility back-office systems comprise one or more outage management systems.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for receiving data from other utilities, the data relating to a population of advanced metering devices and communication network devices, and relationships of the advanced metering devices and communication network devices to other entities within an electrical distribution network and communications network.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the data received from the other utilities comprise one or more of a metering device or communication network device identifier, a metering device or communication network device type, an advanced metering communication technology used by the metering device or communication network device, an identifier of an electrical service point served by the metering device, an identifier of an electrical network distribution transformer which provides electrical power to one or more of the metering device and communications network device, an identifier of a nearest electrical network upstream protective device for each service point, an identifier of an electrical network feeder that normally provides power to each service point, an identifier of an electrical network substation that provides power to the service point, an identifier of an electrical phase designation for the service point, and an identifier of a geographical region to which the other utility system has assigned the service point.

15. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for receiving and storing information content of an unsolicited event message from advanced metering equipment, said equipment comprising one or more of a metering device and a communication network device;

wherein the event message comprises one or more of a power down or last gasp message from the metering device or the communication network device, a power up message from the metering device or the communication network device, a communication down message from the communication network device, and a communication up message from the communication network device.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the unsolicited event message comprises a date and time of the event.

17. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for interrogating the advanced metering systems to determine a current energization status of one or more metering devices or communication network devices.

18. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for receiving and storing information content of an unsolicited event message from an outage management system or other utility back-office system, the unsolicited event message relating to the outage management system or other back-office system and further relating to an energization status of a service point or electrical network distribution transformer;

wherein the event message comprises one or more of a power down message and a power up message.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the unsolicited event message comprises a date and time of an event.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein the computer processor is configured for providing an indication of an energization state to a plurality of service points served by the distribution transformer when a device is a distribution transformer.

21. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for receiving and storing content of a message from another utility relating to an anticipated outage, wherein an anticipated outage comprises one or more of a true electrical outage associated with planned utility switching operations or a condition that causes metering or communication network devices to generate power down indications.

22. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for receiving and acting upon a message from an outage management system or the utility back-office systems, the message requesting an interrogation of one or more individual metering devices or communication network devices to determine a current energization status of particular metering devices or communication network devices.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the computer processor is configured for receiving a request from the outage management system or the utility back-office system to interrogate an energization status of one or more metering devices served by an electrical network distribution transformer;

wherein when the request identifies a distribution transformer, the computer processor is configured for determining an appropriate set of metering devices to interrogate.

24. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for receiving and acting upon a message from an outage management system or the utility back-office systems, the message requesting verification of restoration of power to one or more metering devices or communication network devices;

wherein the computer processor is configured for performing a verification and a return to the outage management system or the back-office systems of one or more of an energized status, a de-energized status, or an indeterminate status for each metering device or communication network device.

25. The system of claim 11, further comprising an interface to an outage management system or the back-office systems, wherein the interface is independent of an advanced metering technology used by one or more of a metering device and a communication network device, thereby eliminating a need for the outage management system or the utility back office system to have logic or functionality specific to any specific metering or communication technology.

26. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for processing incoming and outgoing messages containing one or more of a metering device ID or a service point ID;

wherein when both a metering device ID and a service point ID are provided, the computer processor uses data relating to a metering device to service point association to confirm the association; and

wherein when only one of the metering device ID or the service ID is provided, the computer processor is configured to use the data relating to the metering device to service point association to determine the metering device ID or service point ID.

27. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for separately tracking current energization status of metering devices, wherein the tracking is based upon information received from advanced metering devices and communication network devices and based upon energization status as is believed to exist by the outage management system.

28. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for one or more of discriminating between messages that represent events of current interest and those that may be invalid or stale, analyzing data from incoming event messages and interrogations to determine a current energization status of individual metering devices or communication network devices, analyzing incoming event data to determine current communication status of individual communication network devices, analyzing incoming event data from advanced metering systems to filter out from further processing outages that are of a momentary nature, analyzing the incoming event data from advanced metering systems to filter out from further processing power-down events associated with previously defined anticipated outages, analyzing data from incoming event messages and interrogations of advanced metering systems to determine an energization status of a distribution transformer associated with each incoming event, interrogating the advanced metering devices associated with a given distribution transformer to confirm whether the received incoming messages are indicative of a transformer-level outage as opposed to a service point-level outage, analyzing data obtained from incoming event messages or interrogation of advanced metering devices to determine or infer a current energization status of devices for which incoming event messages may not have been received, analyzing data to perform additional filtering and to determine an optimal set of messages to send to an outage management system or the utility back-office systems to inform the system of outage events, sending an optimal set of messages to the outage management system or the utility back-office systems, receiving and responding to requests from an outage management system to interrogate the current energization status of one or more metering devices, service points, or transformers, receiving requests from outage management systems for verification of power restoration to metering devices or service points, responding to requests for verification of power restoration by interrogating the advanced metering system to confirm power restoration when the restoration cannot be verified using data obtained from previously received unsolicited event messages, performing autonomous searches for service points that have had power restored but for which an unsolicited power-up event message was not received via an interrogation of the advanced metering system to determine current energization status on a schedule that is configurable, ascertaining that a service point has had power restored by receiving a meter reading from the metering device associated with the service point, communicating the existence of outage conditions to other functions within a meter data management application to ensure that any electrical energy usage that is estimated by the system takes into account known outage events in order to avoid overestimation, and notifying an outage management system or the utility back-office systems of the potential for sustained nested outages to exist following the restoration of power by automated protective devices in a momentary outage scenario which is not otherwise made known to the outage management system or the utility back-office system.

29. The system of claim 28, wherein an optimal set of messages is limited to a minimum set of information that allows the outage management system or the utility back-office system to determine an extent of any outage, and wherein the optimal set of messages does not contain information that is consistent with outage status already believed to exist by the outage management system or the back-office systems, does not contain information that is associated with anticipated outages, and does not contain information that is associated with momentary outages.

30. The system of claim 11, further comprising a graphical user interface for initially configuring or dynamically altering behavior of the system by setting or changing configuration parameters, viewing a summary of outage conditions in a service territory of the utility, such summary showing both outage conditions as determined using data from advanced metering systems and outage conditions believed to exist by the outage management system or the utility back-office systems, analyzing outage conditions to determine a current energization status of individual metering and communication network devices, analyzing outage conditions to determine the current communication status of individual communication network devices, analyzing metering and network communication devices to determine the current energization status history of individual metering and communication network devices, analyzing communication network devices to determine current communication status history of the individual communication network devices, searching based on metering device ID or service point ID to interrogate current energization status or energization status history of metering and communication network devices, and searching based on device ID to interrogate current communication status or communication status history of communication network devices.

31. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for customizing a behavior of the system through use of configuration parameters that can be set individually for various permutations of advanced metering technology, geographical outage region, and extent of outage activity;

wherein such configurability allows the behavior of the system to be tuned for the specific performance characteristics of different advanced metering technologies under a wide variety of different outage conditions in a service territory; and

wherein configuration parameters can be altered on-the-fly without interrupting the function of the system, thereby allowing for real-time adaptation to any unusual or unexpected outage conditions in the service territory or an enterprise application ecosystem of the utility.

32. The system of claim 11, wherein the computer processor is configured for limiting messaging load between the system and one or more advanced metering systems in order to protect the advanced metering system or its communication network from the messaging overload that could cause failure or unacceptable performance degradation of the advanced metering system or its communication network.

33. The system of claim 32, wherein the computer processor is configured for providing a configurable delay interval that, upon receipt of a power down message from a metering device or communication network device, awaits arrival of unsolicited event messages from other devices served by a given transformer before interrogating the advanced metering system to determine energization status of the other devices served by the transformer.

34. The system of claim 32, wherein the computer processor is configured for responding to a restoration verification request from an outage management system or the back-office systems by first analyzing unsolicited power up messages received from the advanced metering system before attempting to interrogate the advanced metering system, thereby reducing messaging load on the advanced metering system by avoiding interrogations that are not needed to perform the requested restoration verification.

35. The system of claim 32, further comprising one or more configurable parameters to disable or limit the interrogations performed of the advanced metering system;

wherein one or more resulting configurations tailor the interrogation activity to an appropriate level based upon various permutations of advanced metering technology, an outage extent, and a geographic outage region.

36. A method comprising:

optimizing messaging interactions via a filtering of messages between advanced metering systems and outage management systems or other utility back-office systems;

maximizing an efficacy of the outage management systems or other utility back-office systems while protecting the outage management systems or other utility back-office systems from a messaging overload that could cause failure or unacceptable performance degradation of the outage management systems or other back-office system;

wherein the filtering comprises analyzing energization status messages;

determining whether one or more of the energization status messages are associated with a known outage condition recorded in the outage management systems or other utility back-office systems; and

transmitting outage condition data to the outage management systems or other utility back-office systems based on the energization status messages;

wherein the transmitted outage condition data excludes data based on the energization status messages determined to be associated with the known outage condition.

37. The method of claim 36, further comprising determining, without the involvement of or interaction with the outage management system or other utility back-office system, whether outages detected by the advanced metering systems represent transformer-level outages or service point level outages;

and when transformer level outages can be determined to exist, minimizing messaging load to the outage management system or other back office system by sending only enough data to allow the outage management system or other back office system to determine an energization status of a transformer and a population of service points served by the transformer.

38. The method of claim 36, further comprising determining an existence of transformer-level outages by any of several configurable approaches, comprising one or more of receiving unsolicited power-out messages for a configurable number, percentage, or combination of number and percentage of devices served by a given transformer, receiving a configurable number of unsolicited simultaneous power-down messages across multiple transformers that are served by a single nearest protective device, wherein the time window for considering events to be simultaneous is configurable, and determining energization status of a transformer by interrogating energization status of one or more service points served by the transformer, and using the information obtained from the interrogation either alone or in combination with unsolicited event messages to determine transformer status.

39. The method of claim 36, further comprising preventing one or more of the following data from being sent to the outage management system:

data that is stale, either because it was delayed in delivery or because it was received in an order different from the order in which it was created or sent, data associated with anticipated outages, data that provides no new incremental information over data previously sent to the outage management system or the utility back-office system, and data that is consistent with the energization status already believed to exist by the outage management system or other utility back-office system, as previously reported by the outage management system or other utility back-office system.

40. The method of claim 36, comprising executing the filtering by:

collecting data from advanced metering systems that have been reenergized; and

generating a report based on data that the computer processor has, and not based the computer processor querying the advance meter systems to verify reenergization.

41. A non transient computer-readable medium comprising instructions for executing a process for facilitating management of electrical power outages, comprising:

identifying an electrical usage meter;

receiving an indication of an energization status of the electrical usage meter based on meter data; and

transmitting an indication of the energization status of the electrical usage meter based on meter data to an outage management system wherein the transmitted indication excludes data based on the energization status messages determined to be associated with a known outage condition recorded in the outage management system.