Data modeling and data exchange for electrical distribution networks

The electric power utility is an extremely large enterprise encompassing many computer systems and applications to complete both business and engineering functions. Utility activities may need information from several systems and applications to achieve a single goal. Also information from one system or application may be useful across the whole system. An efficient information exchanging and sharing infrastructure is key to the success of an electric utility. Because there is a proprietary data model for each individual system, it is often impossible to integrate systems together easily. To facilitate the integration, a common data model is needed as a common language by which systems and applications can talk with each other. This dissertation focuses on creating a common data model for the electrical distribution. It extends the CIM (Common Information Model) to electrical distribution networks for the data requirements for distribution power flow applications and proposes modified models for distribution lines, distribution loads, and some specific distribution devices. It converts the standard IEEE Radial Test Feeders to distribution CIM based XML (Extensible Markup Language) documents and provides an initial reference model for the electrical distribution data in CIM XML format. These CIM XML documents have been tested in the research and reviewed by industrial contacts. Test results show that the distribution network data can be exchanged based on the proposed distribution CIM model.