Using big data to make better network decisions.

Data is fast becoming the most valuable asset in an EDB's toolkit, with data-driven strategies offering a smarter approach to network resilience than traditional capital investments.

As smart meter data becomes more readily available, electricity distribution businesses (EDBs) are eager to harness its potential. However, transforming that raw data into actionable insights requires smart solutions, as the team at Northpower found during their trial with Hiko Energy Insights.

Future Grid is excited to announce that it has been selected by Orion NZ Ltd to supply its Low-Voltage (LV) Network Analytics Platform. Orion owns and operates the electricity distribution network that provides power throughout central Canterbury, serving more than 215,000 customers.

"Orion is leading the way in the New Zealand market for LV visibility and analytics. We are thrilled to have been selected through a competitive RFP process." says Chris Law, CEO of Future Grid.

Future Grid has been working with other EDBs across New Zealand, including Buller in Westport, PowerCo in New Plymouth, Wellington and NorthPower in Whangārei. Following the announcement, several other EDBs have engaged Future Grid to pilot its technology, taking its customer list to an impressive 60 per cent of the NZ market.

Future-proofing your network doesn't have to mean more infrastructure or personnel. Nelson Electricity’s four-person team transformed their operations — all through use of their smart meter data.

Finding the Right Solution

The team at Nelson Electricity was searching for a solution that would provide value quickly for their small team. They also wanted a tool that could adapt over time, as the network scaled up.

Operationally, they wanted to change how they monitored their LV network, shifting away from a process that relied on conducting manual measurements each winter. Viewing the network in real time would also enable them to validate their processes for new connections and PV connections, with visibility of congestion.

Transpower’s 2024 Engineering and Technology Excellence Awards were awarded on Tuesday 15 October and recognise the incredible collaborative innovation happening in our country to find engineering solutions to complex challenges.

These awards were open to teams and individuals working in the electricity transmission sector, across the country.

This is the second time the biennial awards have been presented, with the inaugural awards presented in 2022.

There are six award categories and an overall supreme winner. The categories are:

In early 2024, Future Grid officially launched the DSO Box with 1000+ electricity Coops in the US. The DSO Box has now become the solution of choice for NZ EDBs, where security and cost are important for the AMI analytics business case.

Why the DSO Box?

Small/secure/on-premise hardware Eliminates cloud costs forever 100+ analytical outcomes

Is the DSO Box right for me?

Designed for EDBS with less than 100,000 ICPs, the DSO Box has become popular in New Zealand, with over 10 EDBs recently

The best of New Zealand’s line mechanics and cable jointers will be going head-to-head in the Waikato, showing off the skills that keep our communities connected right around the country.

Annual Connection 2024, held in conjunction with Connexis, is a prestigious three-day competition that attracts national interest. It sees line mechanic crews and cable jointers from around New Zealand compete in a series of challenges that put their workplace skills to the test.

Annual Connection is also an opportunity for school students to see energy supply workers in action and get a feel for what a career in the industry looks like.

Don't miss your chance to attend the premier event dedicated to the future of wind energy in New Zealand, the NZ Wind Energy Summit.

The Summit is being held on 10-12 September in Wellington and will feature presentations from across NZ and the international wind energy sector.

This year’s over-arching theme, "Our Wind, Our Future", encapsulates wind energy’s critical role to deliver our future clean energy needs. Aotearoa’s wind resource is not only abundant, but it is world class in terms of sustained wind quality, which we should all embrace. The secondary theme of this year’s event is focused on the wind sector's ability to provide energy security to the grid. While wind is intermittent on a short-term basis, we have 21 wind farms and 661 turbines operating in real time (a total of 1.26 GW installed), with capacity factors far greater than what is observed in other jurisdictions. New Zealand’s wind farm geographic diversity and high-capacity factors, therefore, enable the sector to deliver critical energy at times when we need it most.

After working with more than 50 utilities around the world, successful low-voltage analytics projects follow a “stabilisation” path by focusing on strategies any electricity distributor can adopt, including:

Pilot for Production A Best in Suite mindset (vs “best in breed”) Think Platforms

The following is an extract of Future Grid’s paper to be presented at the EEA2024 Conference (https://confer.nz/eea2024) being held at Te Pae, Christchurch from 10 - 12 September.

Introduction to Stabilisation

Mercury NZ has around 573,000 electricity customer connections. In the future the energy data management software robotron*esales will manage Mercury’s LCOM division, where 7000 ICPs including all generation plants will be billed.

Along with managing all billing relevant tasks, the software will handle quotation calculation and market communication for Mercury.

Mercury is helping move Aotearoa New Zealand to a low emissions future through generating electricity from 100 per cent renewable sources: hydro, geothermal and wind, and Robotron is proud to help!

The function of transformer oil in a power transformer is to perform several critical functions such as cooling, insulation, arc suppression, lubrication, and corrosion prevention. As critical power infrastructures age, power outages are one of the most critical threats to the grid.

A power transformer is considered one of the backbones of the modern electrical grid. It needs to be dependable to always ensure a resilient and stable power system. TotalEnergies transformer oil provides this protection by cooling transformer components such as the core and windings and insulating them. This ensures that wear and corrosion are protected against, as well as dangerous overheating and the breakdown of transformer materials.

Future Grid is helping more and more EDBs “leapfrog” peers on their LV analytics journey comes integrated with Vector NODS, retailers and major transformer monitor vendors supporting EDBs with LV hosting capacity and Dynamic Operating Envelopes for load management

Future Grid has been developing AMI analytics software for EDBs for over 10 years. A pioneer of low voltage visibility using smart meter data, Future Grid began its journey in Australia, where its software is in production with 95% of Australian distribution networks. The ability to detect network faults in real-time and with high accuracy has driven this adoption, however DER compliance and voltage management are now primary features deployed.

New Zealand’s female secondary school students are taking their place among New Zealand’s major energy companies to try out different career opportunities as the industry looks to solve critical skills shortages.

Throughout May and June, female school students from around the country will take part in an industry experience day, onsite with lines companies and at some of the country’s major electrical supply projects, as part of Girls with Hi-Vis® (GWHV). While there, they’ll get hands-on experience of the skills required by the electrical supply industry and hear from women already working in the sector.