Hotline of power engineering specialists:
On 16 April, the delegation of IDGC of Centre - the managing organization of IDGC of Centre and Volga Region (part of ROSSETI’s Group of Companies) headed by the company’s General Director Igor Makovskiy visited Bashkir Electric Grid Company (BESK). The delegation also included Acting First Deputy General Director of IDGC of Centre Vitaly Akulichev, Head of the Strategic Planning Department Sergey Saenko. At first, the delegation visited the Grid Control Centre (GCC) of Ufa City Electric Grids of Bashkirenergo LLC (a subsidiary of BESK, a subsidiary of Sistema), where it was met by Dmitry Sharovatov, Chairman of the Management Board - General Director of BESK, a member of the Board of Directors Dmitry Sharonov, Deputy General Director Sergey Savchenko, Director of Organizational Development and Information Technologies Yury Gorbachev, Director of Production Association UGES Ildar Bashmakov, Director of BESK Engineering LLC Ilnur Gazizov, other managers and specialists of the Group of Companies JSC “BESK”.
BESK is one of the country’s industry leaders in the implementation of smart grids. A grid digitalization project similar to the goals and objectives is implemented by interregional grid companies, including IDGC of Centre. This became the basis for a thorough conversation and exchange of experience. The guests were primarily interested in the organizational and technical features of the implementation of the project for the modernization of the Ufa grid complex with elements of the Smart grid. The GCC, as a kind of “think tank”, is designed to coordinate and manage the operation of electric grids of Ufa. According to Dmitry Sharovatov, if earlier troubleshooting in electric grids was carried out by an on-site crew by searching possible causes and the alleged fault location almost manually, which took two to three hours, now thanks to the new equipment in transformer and distribution substations, the new control panel being part of the Grid Control Centre, software dispatcher prompts are implemented, allowing on the screen to see the faulty section. Real-time sensors from the field transmit information to the Grid Control Centre. The software and analytical complex in a matter of seconds provides information about where the failure occurred, offers a step-by-step troubleshooting algorithm and, after the dispatcher makes a decision, automatically selects the faulty section of the grid, performs switching, and then delivers power to consumers using an alternative circuit. The whole process after the completion of the Smart grid project will take a few minutes.
Also, the guests were shown samples of bays for transformer points, which are assembled on the basis of a subsidiary of Bashkir Electric Grid Company - BESK Engineering LLC in the framework of an agreement with Siemens LLC on the localization of production in Bashkiria.
The Smart grid project is closely related to the implementation program of the automated information system for commercial electricity metering (AMI), in which BESK has advanced further than many other grid companies in the country. This topic is closely related to “smart grids” and has also become the subject of detailed discussion by managers and specialists of both companies.
The delegation of IDGC of Centre showed great interest in managing business processes in the area of improving the management system and automating business processes. To implement a unified approach to automation, BESK used its own development tool “Management of end-to-end business processes”, built into 1C:ERP, which allows to track the approval status of various documents, as well as control the entire budget process.
During the exchange of views, many related issues that all grid companies face in one way or another were raised: new legislative decisions affecting the grid complex of Russia, rental of electric grid infrastructure by third parties to accommodate communications equipment and cables, increase of productivity, etc.
In addition to the Grid Control Centre, the delegation of IDGC of Centre visited the assembly shop of BESK Engineering LLC, which assembles bays for distribution points of Ufa, and a pilot micro-district of Ufa, where the guests could visually see the work of the installed equipment.
Commenting on the visit to the power facilities of the grid infrastructure of Ufa and the results of automating business processes and production, the company’s General Director Igor Makovskiy stressed:
“JSC BESK is half a step from full grid automation in the city of Ufa. You have come close to reducing the time to emergency outages to a few seconds. At the same time, the concepts of digital transformation implemented in IDGC of Centre and in your company are in many respects identical, which opens up the widest possibilities not only for sharing experience, but also for fruitful joint work. If we talk about efficiency, then I was most impressed by the significant increase in labour productivity at JSC BESK - this is the best proof of the correctness of the decisions made about the implementation of new technologies and optimization of the company’s structure. Your pilot micro-district smart grid is exemplary. And the import substitution project you are implementing in the part of assembling bays for transformer points allows you to significantly reduce costs and makes these products popular in the Russian market.”
The head of the strategic planning department of IDGC of Centre, Sergey Saenko, drew attention to the fact that familiarity with specific technical solutions that Bashkir grid operators took in response to the problems that arise will allow IDGC to save from one to one and a half years when implementing the digitalization program.
Following the joint workshop, the parties expressed their intention to conclude a cooperation agreement.
