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Projects: Projects for Investigator
Reference Number	NIA_WPD_053
Title	Network Event and Alarm Transparency (NEAT)
Status	Completed
Energy Categories	Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution) 100%;
Research Types	Applied Research and Development 100%
Science and Technology Fields	ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) 100%
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation	Not Cross-cutting 100%
Principal Investigator	Project Contact No email address given Western Power Distribution
Award Type	Network Innovation Allowance
Funding Source	Ofgem
Start Date	01 October 2020
End Date	01 October 2022
Duration	ENA months
Total Grant Value	£500,729
Industrial Sectors	Power
Region	South West
Programme	Network Innovation Allowance
Investigators	Principal Investigator	Project Contact , Western Power Distribution (100.000%)
	Industrial Collaborator	Project Contact , Western Power Distribution (0.000%)
Web Site	https://smarter.energynetworks.org/projects/NIA_WPD_053
Objectives	The project will develop a tool to analyse the relationship between alarms and events within and across the control room system and those for ANM and SVO. This will be sufficiently generic that future systems can be included and analysed in the same way. It will have functions to highlight relationships helping identify common causes that can then be used to put remedial actions in place, which will include automatic grouping of alarms to simplify their management. The investigation will consider how the alarms in the new ANM and SVO systems relate to the alarms within PowerOn or to each other. However, the approach taken and prototypes developed will be generalised as far as possible so that it could be applied to future systems yet to be developed, or systems in use by other DNOs. The analysis will result in rules or information that can be used to understand root causes for alarms and events allowing the system support staff to take steps to reduce their frequency. For the avoidance of doubt, the existing alarm and event management facilities within PowerOn already provide a number of features to simplify and prioritise the information provided to the control engineers and the project does not intend to duplicate these. The project approach will contain six distinct work packages: WP1. Specification Gather detailed business domain knowledge to ensure a solid understanding of the WPD network region, business processes and availability of data. WP2. Design This work package will look into the design of the NEAT platform through a data quality assessment, data analysis and identification of advanced analytical techniques. This will cover checking the data is complete and whole, identification of outliers or other logical inconsistencies and ensuring that the joining of datasets does not lose information or incur further data issues.  An initial phase of data analysis will be used to derive preliminary insights and observations. This may involve the use of statistical models but primarily aims to identify characteristics of the data set and inform the formal modelling task. WP3. Build During the build phase the advanced analytical techniques and dashboard development will be completed. Depending on the insights identified during the initial data analysis during the design phase these may include; clustering analysis, network association analysis, spatial analysis where geographical information is present, time series analysis, and predictive forecasts. The analytical techniques will be integrated into the NEAT dashboard and will also include the development of stage that load data from the databases into the analytic tool to be formalised and available to run on a regular basis. WP4. Deploy and Test Selection and integration of the project into the NEAT dashboard. This stage also requires the scripts that load data from the databases into the analytic tool to be formalised and available to run on a regular basis as well as user acceptance testing. WP5. System Trial & Analysis The prototype dashboard will undergo further development during a live system trial to extract insights from the alarm and event analysis. This will include reviewing trends during the trial period to look for results improvement and learnings. WP6. Dissemination and Closedown Report This will cover the findings in terms of alarm relationships as well as trends from the ANM and SVO alarm systems. This will highlight the benefits and improvements possible through better understanding of the interactions between different events and improving the analysis from control room operators. The objective of the project are to; Understand the data that can be used to provide context for the alarm and event analysis. Assess the quality of this data and where possible correct quality issues. Derive preliminary insights from the data to inform the selection of models. Carry out advanced analytics to understand the relationships between alarms and events in different systems and the external datasets. Create a prototype dashboard to allow the analysis to be run regularly and present the user with results. Trial the use of the dashboard using real data over a period of time. Consolidate and share the learning from the project.
Abstract	DNOs across the world are experiencing increasing numbers of alarms in their control rooms as additional systems for Active Network Management or System Voltage Optimisation are introduced.   There is a risk that the number of alarms becomes a distraction and that control engineers find it increasingly difficult to assess the network and prioritise their actions appropriately. This would in turn lead to a higher risk of error, reduced effectiveness and lower morale.   The project goal is to improve transparency of alarms and events so that by understanding the root causes, the number of alarms can be reduced.
Publications	(none)
Final Report	(none)
Added to Database	02/11/22