6 months without power outage
Mr. Duong Tuyet Minh, managing electricity system at Era Town Apartment Building (Phu My Ward, District 7) shared: "When the first Era Town blocks came up, electricity was still unstable. Since last year, electricity supply has been very stable. The Era Town consists of many apartment blocks, which are used for resettlement families and for commercial business, with thousands of households. In the first 6 months of 2017, only one outage occurred in the afternoon of June 21st, 2017 because of an old tree falling down to the line and the electricity was temporarily interrupted until clearing and cleaning completed.
Not only Era Town, nearly 20,000 households living along the Go O Moi, Dao Tri, Hoang Quoc Viet and Pham Huu Lau streets are supplied with electricity stably from two MV cable lines Bo Bang and Phu My. Since the end of 2015, these two lines have been applied to deploy the Distribution Automation System (DAS) by electrical engineers of Power Sector who studied and learnt that model from Japan.
Mr. Nguyen Duc Phu, Director of Tan Thuan Power Company, said: "Along the two lines of Bo Bang and Phu My, automatic sectionizers have been installed to control and monitor the grid. When a problem occurs, the units with the pre-set program will send signal to the center and automatically isolate the problem area, keep continuous electricity supply for the other sections of line, overcome the long and widespread power outage of the old days."
According to the recorded statistics of the project operation until July 2017, the outage time of these two lines is only 8.3 minutes, unlike before when power outage was for many hours and the workers have to go through each line section to detect problems and perform manual operation.
For Districts 1 and 3, in particular, the power grid is currently being undergrounded. The F.I system (reporting points of fault) and mini SCADA (troubleshooting, power source changing, switching the systems on computers) have been deployed. In 2016, the number of power outages in these two districts decreased by 33% compared to that of the same period last year. Particularly, the SmartGrid system (which automatically identifies failures, performs the analysis and delivers the quickest solution for the return of power supply and workers do not have to check and handle in the field) will be installed and operated by the end of 2017.
Convenience in meter reading
Another effect of the smart grid model is to measure the power consumption index remotely. Tan Thuan Power Company has performed a pilot project in Phu My residential area (District 7). When the project is completed and put into operation, it will be convenient for both customers and the power sector - because people do not have to open the door for employees to enter for the monthly meter reading, instead, the system from the center will automatically measure and report the indicator to the people over the phone.
Mr. Luan Quoc Hung, Technical Director of Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation, said: "The power sector has piloted 4 smart grid areas, apart from Phu My residential area, there has been Mieu Noi Residential Area (Binh Thanh District), Hi-Tech Park District 9 and Ton Duc Thang - Mac Dinh Chi (District 1) line. All parameters (power consumption, voltage, current) will be updated directly online, avoiding confusion, manual recording mistake and reducing number of the employees. Customers can therefore know the index to adjust the consumption; Businesses will be aware to arrange production properly and save energy."
In addition to remote meter reading, the Smart Grid model gives a greater benefit which is when a power outage occurs at the customer’s house, the signal will be transmitted to the control center; workers can be mobilized for maintenance without the customers having to call for help.
According to the roadmap of HCMPC, by the end of 2017, 50% of medium voltage lines will be put into remote control operation, 50% of 110kV power station will be unmaned, 25,000 distribution power stations will be remotely measured to minimize the time of power failure. In the first 6 months of 2017, the blackout period has been reduced to an average of 150 minutes / customer, compared to the target of 400 minutes / customer / year and 2018 will decrease to 300 minutes.