Promotion of automation
At the seminar "EVN with the industrial revolution 4.0" taking place at the end of 2018, Mr. Duong Quang Thanh – EVN’s Chairman of the Board of Directors said that in the Industry 4.0, digital technology (automation, digitalization, information and communication technology) plays a very important role in making production, trading and service activities of the economy easier, faster and more effective. EVN is of course not out of trend. The Group has been promoting the application of advanced technologies which can bring about remarkable efficiency in production and business activities, contribute to enhancing labor productivity and reducing costs.
Currently, EVN’s member units have been adopting many state-of-the-art equipment and technologies in power system management and operation. Specifically, EVN has deployed hydrological forecasting software system, equipment condition predicting system in power plants; automation, remote control, unmanned substations in 110kV – 220kV grid systems. In addition, outage management system (OMS) applications, digital power purchase agreements, online power supply in the distribution sector; SCADA/EMS/MMS software, automatic generation control (AGC) in load dispatch centers, etc. have been being applied now.
Remote control center of HCMC Power Corporation
The power grid in Ho Chi Minh City has been primarily automated, contributing to accelerating the roadmap of smart grid development and improving grid operation and management capacity. Mr. Pham Quoc Bao - General Director of Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation (EVNHCMC) stated that EVNHCMC has remotely supervised and operated the power grid including 220kV distribution substations, 110kV substations and medium voltage switchgear equipment. Particularly, 80% of the medium voltage grid has been controlled remotely (by Mini-SCADA); accordingly 20% of the medium voltage grid has been operated automatically, 95% of incidents have been remedied within less than 15 minutes (previously 75 minutes on average), and 50% of incidents have been remedied within less than 5 minutes.
When artificial intelligence becomes a global trend, Hanoi Power Corporation and Central Power Corporation have followed the trend with the introduction of Chatbot into their customer advisory and customer care activities. Without any operators, Chatbot automatically answers questions or deals with specific situations based on programmed scenarios. In addressing customers' questions on facebook or messenger, Chatbot will "think" and respond in the most accurate way, giving advices on electricity related information and procedures 24/7. The application of Chatbot not only contributes to increasing labor productivity, improving customer care efficiency, but also reducing work pressure for counselors, and modernizing the mode of interaction between the power industry and customers.
Management of transmission line by drones
According to a representative of the National Power Transmission Corporation (EVNNPT), in 2019 the Corporation will bring 4 UAV drones (Altura Zenith ATX8) into use in the management and operation of power transmission lines. With a maximum flight time of 40 minutes within 18km, at an altitude of 300m, thermal camera and high definition camera (4K), the drone can identify equipment, equipment code, detect failures and monitor right-of-way of transmission lines. Thereby, this equipment can assist workers who now no longer have to go along the line or climb up towers to regularly check equipment condition or right-of-way as before, thus saving time and efforts and contributing to the improvement of labor productivity.
EVNNPT has studied and applied IBM Watson IoT platform to receive drones’ data through 4G mobile network, using IBM’s artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze and detect equipment failures (such as heat, damaged insulation), detect risks of violating right-of-way, etc. Previously, drones were successfully studied and tested by Power Transmission Company No. 2.
The National Load Dispatch Center (A0) has been studying and putting into practice big data, AI technologies in load forecasting, water inflow prediction for hydropower reservoirs, integrated operation of battery energy storage system and renewable energy sources; implementing automatic generation control system (AGC) in communication and data exchange with planning systems. A0 sets the target that by 2025 it will become one of the leading organizations in Southeast Asia in the field of research and application of high technologies into the operation of power system and electricity market.
Not only EVNNPT and A0, in 2019 and the following years, EVN and its subsidiaries will accelerate the effective application of digital technology, information technology and technologies of Industry 4.0 such as: IoT, AI, Big data, Cloud computing, Block chain, etc. to activities ranging from corporate governance to production – business; connecting online and thoroughly data centers, maximally and effectively utilizing data stores; building standards for shared databases, etc.
With the strong application of Industry 4.0 achievements to activities such as generation, transmission, distribution, business - customer service, power system operation, electricity market operation, etc. EVN has been striving to become the leading digital Group in the region.