Regional Electricity Companies Research Articles

Evaluating energy harvesting from water distribution networks using combined stakeholder and social network analysis

The chance of success in implementing a new project in a water distribution network (WDN) significantly depends on the behaviour of the involved stakeholders. In this paper, the feasibility of installing the micro-turbines in WDNs for generating hydro-power energy is studied from the stakeholders' perspective. Stakeholders’ analysis (SA) and social network analysis (SNA) are performed to methodically recognise the environment and the relationships among stakeholders. 18 stakeholders at the local, regional, and national levels were identified and their representatives were interviewed. In SA, the power, interest, access to information, and satisfaction from the current condition of the system were evaluated for each stakeholder. The Water and Wastewater Company and Ministry of Energy were found as the stakeholders with the highest power and interest. Unexpectedly, the Regional Electricity Company was discovered with medium power and low access to information. In SNA, cooperative and non-cooperative relationships between stakeholders were analysed and an assessment was made for the role of each stakeholder in their social network, through four centrality metrics. The correlation between SA and SNA results suggests that SA factors could be estimated using the SNA metrics.

Bridging organizational performance gaps using the EFQM excellence model

The purpose of the article is to develop knowledge from applied research that examined a real-time application of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model in Isfahan Regional Electric Company (IREC). The study objectives include identifying strengths and areas requiring improvement and stimulating a quality culture to address them. The research was conducted in three stages: (1) formation of a focus group to analyze the gap between the desired situation and the current state of IREC, (2) distribution of questionnaires among experts inside and outside the company, and identification of the importance of each factor causing a gap and (3) reestablishment of the focus group to provide strategies to close the gap between the current and desired states. The key findings indicate that (a) employee management, (b) social and customer impact, (c) key performance results, and (d) partnership and resources, have significant gaps with the desired situation. Improvement strategies were recommended to bridge these gaps and improve the IREC performance measurement and evaluation system, its strengths, and areas for improvement. This paper contributes to quality and performance management bodies of knowledge. Our organizational framework and associated contributions serve as a managerial resource.

Design and implementation of a competitive framework for a day-ahead demand-response program in Iran

To replace traditional demand-side management (DSM) programs with demand-response (DR) programs, market operators have considered market-based DR. In recent years, Iran's power system has faced increasing pressure to meet the total demand, especially in warm seasons. In this regard, DSM activities have become an important tool used by Iran's power system operator for peak reduction purposes. However, there are concerns regarding the implementation of these activities, such as fair remuneration of participants, the efficiency of these programs, and customers' motivation to participate. Therefore, Iran's power system operator has started transitioning from traditional DSM activities to modern DR programs, i.e., market-based DR. Khorasan Regional Electricity Company (KREC) has taken the first step to design and implement such a market-based DR program in Iran. Hence, this paper focuses on designing and implementing a proposed day-ahead DR (DADR) program in KREC. The framework, timeline, and mathematical formulation for the clearance of the proposed DADRP via a pool-based environment are presented. Industrial customers have chosen to participate in the market in the first phase of implementing the DADRP. The real case of KREC is used to show the feasibility and efficiency of the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model can effectively determine the optimal market configuration to meet DR demand, delivering more than KREC's current DR program.

Providing a model for assessing regional electricity companies in 1395

Providing a model for assessing regional electricity companies in 1395

A Comprehensive Study Approach for Evaluation of Resonance and Ferro-Resonance in HV Substations A Case Study: Khuzestan Regional Electric Company

Resonance and ferroresonance in power systems are categorized as two destructive phenomena especially in HV networks which their occurrence are being initiated in consequence of a power system event. Also, Ferroresonance phenomenon may be initiated by non-power system event such as lightning strike. Hence, the study of resonance and ferroresonance requires an exhaustive evaluation of possible network events in different network configurations. In each event, the analysis of network voltages is conducted based on identified allowable limits by IEEE 519 standard as an evaluation critera. In this paper, a novel comprehensive study approach is proposed for study of ferroresonance phenomena in power networks. The proposed approach comprises different steps including substation equipment modeling, EMT simulation of the probable switching events, evaluation of correspondence results, and finally detecting the probable ferroresonance occurrence. Furthermore, a novel approach for resonance study is also presented. Voltage and current limits are implemented to define an impedance criteria for performing resonance evaluation of network buses. Findings – The proposed method is implemented for study of resonance and ferroresonance in all HV substations of the Khuzestan regional electricity network. By performing the proposed evaluations, the probable condition which may lead to resonance and ferroresonance occurrence are identified. The results are highly valuable for network operators in prevention of unintended overvoltages occurrence.

Performance Analysis in Production Systems with Uncertain Data: A Stochastic Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

The problem of determining an optimal benchmark to inefficient decision‐making units (DMUs) is an important issue in the field of performance analysis. Previous methods for determining the projection points of inefficient DMUs have only focused on one objective and other features have been ignored. This paper attempts to determine the best projection point for each DMU when the inputs and outputs data are in stochastic form and presents an alternative definition for the best projection by considering three main aspects: technical efficient, minimal cost, and maximal revenue as much as possible. Considering the important role of the electricity industry in the economic growth of each country, a practical example has been implemented on 16 regional electricity companies in Iran in 9 consecutive periods. The efficiency score along with the projection points of the three technical models (BCC model of Banker et al. (1984)), cost, and stochastic revenue are compared with the projection point obtained from the model presented in this article, which simultaneously meets these three objectives, showing the improvement of companies’ performance.

An agent-based Stackelberg framework for joint expansion planning of privately Owned regional energy systems and sub-transmission grid

Traditionally, a regional electric company (REC) should supply electricity demand of consumers at sub-transmission level in special geographic areas. As a promising alternative for traditional centralized planning, in this paper, a Stackelberg game approach is employed to solve the investment and operational expansion planning problems in the presence of privately owned Regional Energy Systems (RGESs) and multi-agent systems are used to ease the participation of private ownerships in planning model by preventing agents to disclose their private properties. The RGES's and the REC's agents are the active players of the proposed method and in the form of a semi-decentralized framework, the information exchange among them is fully decentralized. Also, an Independent Coordinating Agent (ICA) is centrally responsible for Stackelberg Nash equilibrium point extraction. Further, a bi-stage Stackelberg game approach is proposed for coupled expansion planning program of Sub-transmission network and privately owned RGESs. To validate the feasibility and efficacy of the suggested model, a modified electric sub-transmission system (located in Guilan Province, Islamic Republic of Iran) is employed as a realistic test case system for simulations. And, the obtained results of simulations by the proposed method are compared with conventional expansion planning of sub-transmission systems.

Transmission Expansion Planning Considering Power Losses, Expansion of Substations and Uncertainty in Fuel Price Using Discrete Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm

Transmission expansion planning (TEP) is an important part of power system expansion planning. In TEP, optimal number of new transmission lines and their installation time and place are determined in an economic way. Uncertainties in load demand, place of power plants, and fuel price as well as voltage level of substations influence TEP solutions effectively. Therefore, in this paper, a scenario based-model is proposed for evaluating the fuel price impact on TEP considering the expansion of substations from the voltage level point of view. The fuel price is an important factor in power system expansion planning that includes severe uncertainties. This factor indirectly affects the lines loading and subsequent network configuration through the change of optimal generation of power plants. The efficiency of the proposed model is tested on the real transmission network of Azerbaijan regional electric company using a discrete artificial bee colony (DABC) and quadratic programming (QP) based method. Moreover, discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) and decimal codification genetic algorithm (DCGA) methods are used to verify the results of the DABC algorithm. The results evaluation reveals that considering uncertainty in fuel price for solving TEP problem affects the network configuration and the total expansion cost of the network. In this way, the total cost is optimized more and therefore the TEP problem is solved more precisely. Also, by comparing the convergence curve of the DABC with that of DPSO and DCGA algorithms, it can be seen that the efficiency of the DABC is more than DPSO and DCGA for solving the desired TEP problem.

Multi-Criteria Optimal Sizing and Allocation of Renewable and Non-Renewable Distributed Generation Resources at 63 kV/20 kV Substations

The optimal allocation and sizing of distributed generation (DG) resources are important in installing these resources, to improve the technical parameters of the network, including the power losses, voltage profile, and short-circuit level, as well as to increase economic factors. In this paper, a new multi-criteria algorithm and objective function are proposed for the optimal sizing and allocation of renewable and non-renewable DG resources simultaneously. The proposed algorithm is implemented on 63/20 kV substations at 20 kV levels. In the proposed objective function, all important technical and economic factors as well as important constraints, such as penetration level of DGs and budget constraint, are considered in a way that all factors are assigned to monetary values. Moreover, a new mathematical formulation is introduced for the allocation of renewable DG resources to reduce run-time optimization. The genetic algorithm (GA) is employed in the proposed algorithm to minimize the objective function. For renewable DG resources, photovoltaic panels and wind turbines, and for non-renewable DG resources, gas turbines are considered. The 115 buses network of Bakhtar Regional Electric Company (BREC) in Iran is used to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. The results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm improves technical factors efficiently and maximizes the profitability of the investment.

Performance evaluation of complex electricity generation systems: A dynamic network-based data envelopment analysis approach

To evaluate the performance of complex electricity generation systems, a new dynamic network-based data envelopment analysis (DNDEA) approach is presented. Past data envelopment analysis (DEA) studies on energy system efficiency have often ignored the dynamics of each process of the system individually. Here a network-based DEA method is built, which considers the interrelationships of the operations to determine the efficacy of the system. For assessing the performance over successive periods, with time-based dependencies between the successive periods, a dynamic DEA (DDEA) model is proposed. In DDEA, a linear combination of the efficiencies in successive periods is used as the complement of the system. The network-based and dynamic features of the created model enable measuring the performance of each sub-system process and the entire system in multi-period planning horizons simultaneously. These features make the DEA model identify changes in system efficiencies so much better than the current approaches. The created model is comprehensively implemented in the Iranian electricity sector using real data. Based on the findings, the efficiencies of power generation and transmission sectors are decreasing while the distribution performance is increasing. The proposed model could be applied to electricity generation systems in other countries as well. • Efficiency of regional electricity companies is estimated using company-level data. • A dynamic network-based data envelopment analysis model is employed. • All generation, transmission and distribution sectors are considered. • Efficiency of generation and transmission sectors were decreased from 2017 to 2019. • Privatizing the distribution sector resulted in a huge increase in its efficiency.

Development of the digital platform of intellectual services for the regional electric grid company

Annually, the structural units of electric grid companies involved in the operation of network equipment, dis-patch and technological management tools, maintenance and repair of power equipment, asset manage-ment and electricity metering introduce specialized hardware-software complexes (HSC) from different man-ufacturers. This trend leads to the disunity of technological processes control means of electricity transport and distribution. It is difficult to control the life cycle of the equipment in a single management system, as well as access to the information of the relevant services of different HSC, which requires the integration of highly specialized systems. The aim of the study is to develop the structure and information model of a digital integration platform that integrates the management systems of a regional network company and to create on this platform the intelligent services for conducting business processes by various structural di-visions of the company. The software for the development of cloud digital platforms and cloud services was used. When analyzing the management structure of an electric grid company, the methods for building multi-level automated control systems that take into account the specifics of managing distribution networks on a regional-company scale were applied. The structure and information model of a digital integration platform has been proposed, which forms a unified trusting software environment for automated management systems of a regional network company. Intelligent services have been developed for a digital platform, including the prediction of energy consumption, and a basic version of services for conducting joint business processes by different divisions of the electric grid company has been presented. A modern hierarchical structure of the automated technological control system of a regional power grid company has been proposed. It implies providing of an intelligent module at each control level, that allows integrating the local system into a single trusted software environment for operational management in everyday and emergency situations. The proposed digital integration platform is open and scalable. In the first case, it allows combining the efforts of intelligent services developers, and in the second one, it can be deployed both on local servers within the enterprise and on rented cloud resources.

Preparing and compiling a model to identify the outsourcing activities of Khorasan Regional Electricity Company

The aim of this study is to extract outsourcing indicators of Khorasan Regional Electricity Company (KREC) by focusing on the activities of specialised and non-specialised occupations that have a non-governmental process. For this purpose, after reviewing articles related to outsourcing, 494 indicators were identified and categorised into six axes. In the first stage, the indicators that have overlapping or repetitive concept were removed and 44 indicators were selected in accordance with strategy and vision of KREC. Therefore, the first questionnaire was distributed among the expert team to localise the indicators. After interviews with the experts of KREC, 10 indicators were selected. In the next step, the second questionnaire was set to determine the importance of each indicators in the 5-dimensional Likert scale. The 10 selected indicators were prioritised by weighted average and Friedman test. Finally, a model was developed to measure each activity which quantifies the feasibility of outsourcing activities.

An Effective Multi-Solution Approach for Power System Islanding

Controlled islanding is known as a last resort to prevent power system blackouts. The most important challenge in this context is the appropriate selection of separation points in a very short time considering the practical constraints. In this regard, several islanding methods have been proposed until now. Among them, the methods that provide the appropriate solutions are usually very complicated and difficult to implement in the real-time application of power system separation. Also, all methods result in one islanding solution, which may not be optimal due to the limitation of the commonly used objective function. To overcome these limitations and reach a comprehensive solution, this paper proposes a straightforward multi-solution approach through a suggested hierarchical spectral clustering algorithm. In this concept, the most desirable islanding scenario could be selected based on secondary criteria to reach more sustainable islands. In the proposed method, the hierarchical clustering algorithm, which has good records in other applications, is improved such that the generator coherency constraint can be considered in the clustering process. Meanwhile, the transmission lines without remote-controllable circuit breakers could be easily excluded from the islanding solutions. The proposed method is tested using the model of the IEEE 39-bus test system. Furthermore, to evaluate the computational effectiveness and accuracy of the method in a large-scale grid, the model of Khorasan Regional Electric Company (KREC) power system (which is the biggest part of Iran power system) is used. The comparative analysis with the state-of-the-art methods verifies the superiority of the proposed approach.

Preparing and compiling a model to identify the outsourcing activities of Khorasan Regional Electricity Company

The aim of this study is to extract outsourcing indicators of Khorasan Regional Electricity Company (KREC) by focusing on the activities of specialised and non-specialised occupations that have a non-governmental process. For this purpose, after reviewing articles related to outsourcing, 494 indicators were identified and categorised into six axes. In the first stage, the indicators that have overlapping or repetitive concept were removed and 44 indicators were selected in accordance with strategy and vision of KREC. Therefore, the first questionnaire was distributed among the expert team to localise the indicators. After interviews with the experts of KREC, 10 indicators were selected. In the next step, the second questionnaire was set to determine the importance of each indicators in the 5-dimensional Likert scale. The 10 selected indicators were prioritised by weighted average and Friedman test. Finally, a model was developed to measure each activity which quantifies the feasibility of outsourcing activities.

Analysis of Reliability Indexes in Air and Ground Distribution Networks (Case Study: Bakhtar)

With respect to power distribution networks, which includes two types of air and ground networks; it is worth noting that the use of the air networks is more economical and therefore dominates the existing air networks. In this paper, the authors have worked on the reliability indexes changes for a month period. As well, the paper’s aim is to make a strategy in short-term (monthly) to network management in order to alleviate cutoff number and time, ENS, increasing customer satisfaction from electric distribution companies and comparing the performance of air and ground networks. The paper was done based on a case study sample substation of a network in Bakhtar regional electric company, Iran. Also, simulation results have obtained by CYME PSAF.

HUMAS SEBAGAI FASILITATOR KOMUNIKASI DALAM MENANGANI KELUHAN PELANGGAN WILAYAH SIDOARJO TERKAIT DITARIKNYA SUBSIDI LISTRIK 900 VA

The state electricity company is a state-owned enterprise engaged in the field of electricity. The state electricity company that deals with customer service, namely the distribution section. The state electricity company is an electricity industry that has the potential for people's lives. PT. The Sidoarjo regional electricity company is one of the state electricity companies engaged in the distribution of electricity for customer service management and electricity network services. However, recently there were customer complaints regarding the withdrawal of 900 VA electricity subsidies, this withdrawal was due to policies from the government which were considered to be inadequate to obtain electricity subsidies. Teratric researchers to examine this research because the case experienced just happened and the researchers wanted to know how the process carried out by PR in completing the case. From the study, it was adjusted the results that the poorer communities could still get electricity subsidies by submitting a certificate of incapacity from the kelurahan. This research method uses a qualitative approach and uses descriptive types of research. The literature review used is a functional approach using an open system model with a "two-way symmetrical" approach from the results of this study that public relations succeeded in carrying out its role as a communication facilitator.Keywords: Communication Facilitators, Public relations, Customer

Robust Self-Scheduling of Operational Processes for Industrial Demand Response Aggregators

This paper proposes a novel structure for industrial demand response aggregators (IDRAs) to provide operational flexibility for the power system. A robust self-scheduling approach is formulated for the first time to optimize different sub-processes of the whole production line of heavy industries. The new approach satisfies the customer order with the lowest energy cost. Numerical studies are implemented on eight integrated cement factories, from Khorasan Regional Electric Company, in the east of Iran. The results show that the integrated model of heavy industries provides guaranteed flexibility to the system when a power shortage occurs or system reliability is jeopardized.

A Fuzzy Multilayer Assessment Method for EFQM

Although the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) is one of the best-known business excellence frameworks, its inherent self-assessment approaches have several limitations. A critical review of self-assessment models reveals that most models are ambiguous and limited to precise data. In addition, the impact of expert knowledge on scoring is overly subjective, and most methodologies assume the relationships between variables are linear. This paper presents a new fuzzy multilayer assessment method that relies on fuzzy inference systems to accommodate imprecise data and varying assessor experiences to overcome uncertainty and complexity in the EFQM model. The method was implemented, tested, and verified under real conditions at a regional electricity company. The case was assessed by internal company experts and external assessors from an EFQM business excellence organization and the model was implemented using MATLAB software. When comparing the classical model with the new model, assessors and experts favored outputs from the new model.

Optimizing Configuration of Cyber Network Considering Graph Theory Structure and Teaching–Learning-Based Optimization (GT-TLBO)

Selecting the best configuration for a cyber-network system is considered as one of the major challenges in terms of the reliability evolution of smart systems because of a specific relationship between power network system and cyber network. Although producing some possible cyber networks for one simple power system and selecting the best one does not need any formulas and can be done through trial and error as performed in previous studies, producing all possible n th elements of the cyber network that observe the cyber protocols and choosing the best one has not been done before. Choosing the best configuration for any n th elements cyber network that can be connected to a bulk power network needs a robust and adequate computer algorithm considering cyber protocols and decision-making goals. In this paper, a novel method is proposed in order to introduce the best configuration for a cyber-network system to accommodate cyber protocols and have a remarkable effect on decreasing expected energy not supplied (EENS) compared with those previously studied. To this end, two mathematical concepts are proposed; a graph theory to consider cyber protocols and teaching–learning-based optimization to select the best cyber configuration with minimum EENS. During the first time, choosing the best configuration with each specific goal for n th devices of a cyber-network system is applicable by converting it into an $n \times n$ adjacency matrix and using the proposed graph theory mixed with teaching–learning-based optimization algorithm. Moreover, Monte Carlo simulation was used in this paper as one of the most precise probabilistic methods. The test results indicate that the proposed method selected for identifying the best configuration of a cyber-network system has significantly improved reliability indices compared to those in previous papers and it could be useful for every wide power–cyber network. Additionally, different types of cyber network are studied for validating the proposed method. This method is applied to the realistic feeder of the Hormozgan Regional Electric Company as a smart pilot system.

IMPLEMENTASI APLIKASI MANAJEMEN SURAT (AMS) DALAM PROSEDUR PENGELOLAAN SURAT MASUK DAN SURAT KELUAR DI PT PLN (PERSERO) WILAYAH SUMATERA BARAT

The purpose of this study was to find out how the implementation of the Letter Management Application (AMS) in managing the incoming and outgoing mail at PT PLN (Persero) in the West Sumatra region as well as the obstacles faced in the management of incoming and outgoing mail electronically. This study uses descriptive qualitative research methods. Determination of informants in the study was carried out with purposive sampling technique that aims to get the information obtained more targeted because the information has been determined in advance. Data retrieval is done through observation, interviews and documentation, with Model Miles and Huberman data analysis techniques. The results showed that the implementation of AMS in the West Sumatra Regional Electric Company had been carried out well but it had not been run optimally. It was seen that there was still a long time to complete the incoming and outgoing letters, even though the process of entering the letter data into the Letter Management Application did not take a long time but the letter arrived at the hands of consumers. it still takes a long time, besides that there is a discrepancy between the implementation of the procedure of incoming and outgoing mail with the theory set, the lack of technical guidance or special training in handling incoming and outgoing mail using the Letter Management Application. Keyword: Implementation, AMS, Management of Incoming Mail and Outgoing Mail