Washington City Power (WCP) is a municipal electric utility that serves approximately 12,000 customers in the southwest corner of Utah. WCP’s service territory is experiencing steady growth, typically adding 30-60 new connections per month. WCP’s GIS infrastructure plays a critical role in supporting field operations, outage management, and system planning activities.

WCP wanted to upgrade its legacy Esri ArcMap GIS to Esri ArcGIS Pro Utility Network. Beyond getting onto the latest version of Esri GIS, WCP wanted to build out its network model to better support its operational processes and connect to existing and planned SCADA, OMS and AMI systems.

The Problem

Limited Insights into Network Conditions  

WCP’s legacy ArcMap-based GIS provided limited visibility into the utility’s circuit configurations, meter connections, and network conditions. The GIS was not configured with connectivity or topology rules, which hampered outage management efforts and made it virtually impossible to keep network data current, especially with limited staff resources.

During outages, staff had no reliable way to determine which meters were affected or how long it would take to restore power, beyond rough estimates based on which circuit was down. Configuration changes were also challenging. When WCP took a main substation offline for a longer term rebuild project, updating the GIS to reflect the alternative configuration was too labor-intensive. Instead, field crews had to rely on the “normal configuration” of circuits maintained in GIS, mentally translating between system representations and actual field conditions.

Thes challenges are particularly difficult because several of WCP’s staff are new to the utility and don’t know the system inside and out. Having current, accurate network data is vitally important for effective operations.

The Solution

Utility Network Migration Completed in 90 Days with SSP Accelerate

WCP migrated to Esri Utility Network in less than three months with the help of SSP Accelerate, SSP’s signature packaged migration offering. SSP Accelerate is designed to move utilities into production with Esri Utility Network quickly and affordably. At the heart of the offering is a pre-built solution that meets the majority of a typical utility’s requirements right out of the gate. Starting with a solution that is 80 – 90% complete enables utilities to focus on the aspects of the migration that are truly unique to their organization.

Rather than implementing Esri’s complete Utility Network model with over 600 fields, WCP worked with SSP Innovations to implement a streamlined version built on electric utility best practices. SSP’s automated tools were used to clean up and migrate WCP’s legacy GIS data to its new Utility Network solution. Further QA/QC was performed on the migrated data within the Utility Network. WCP used network functionality within the Utility Network to confirm connectivity and phasing and make necessary corrections.

WCP’s GIS editors will initially use ArcGIS Pro editing tools, with future plans to use SSP Productivity for asset creation, editing, and management. With automations, context-sensitive prompts, and background processing, SSP Productivity provides a streamlined editing experience and reduces the Utility Network learning curve.

WCP plans to use Esri Field Maps to enable work crews to access its Utility Network solution in the field.

“The migration process went smoother than I anticipated,” said Rick Hansen, Washington City Power Director. “We finished earlier than expected and got to do a few more things that weren’t on the original list.”

The Results

Dramatic Improvements in Switching, Outage Response, and Data Quality

Just weeks after implementing the Utility Network, WCP is already seeing operational improvements:

• Rapid Switching Procedures with Enhanced Validation. Prior to implementing Utility Network, WCP’s switching procedure was a manual process that involved drawing the configuration on paper, signing off on the plan, and then manually updating the GIS after implementation. There was no way to test the plan before it was implemented and there was a lag in updating the GIS with the final configuration.

With the Utility Network, crews can model the switching plan in a new version, test the changes for unexpected de-energization, and immediately post the updates once the switching procedure is complete. What previously took several days to update in GIS can now be completed within a few minutes.

• Enhanced Outage Response: Field crews now have access to up-to-date circuit configuration enabling faster response times during outages and providing better visibility into which meters are affected.
• Improved Data Integrity: The Utility Network’s tracing and propagated phase capabilities have revealed previously unknown data errors, allowing WCU to systematically improve their electric model’s accuracy.
• Foundation for AMI and OMS Integration: The Utility Network implementation has positioned WCU to proceed with planned AMI deployment and SCADA and OMS enhancements.

Rick Hansen, Washington City Power Director commented, “When our crews go out on an outage, I think it’s important to have the best information available. Our system has only been up for a few weeks, but we’re already seeing the value of the map staying up to date with the current switching configuration.”

For Washington City Power, the Utility Network implementation has transformed their operational capabilities while establishing a foundation for future enhancements, all accomplished within a remarkably short timeframe of just 90 days.