Posted by: Rose Bundock

Multinational power company Enel last week scooped an award at European Utility Week in the Global Smart Energy Elites 2015 ‘Best Digital Utility Transformation’ category. Enel received the award as part of the 3-day trade event held in Vienna‚ Austria.The gong coincided with the launch of Metering & Smart Energy International’s launch of the Global Smart Energy Elites‚ a guide to the most innovative smart energy people and projects.

Claire Volkwyn‚ managing editor of Metering & Smart Energy International‚ said: “Enel’s efforts to address grid reliability with C3 Energy’s predictive maintenance platform is a prime example of a utility effectively executing its digital transformation strategy.

“In the Global Smart Energy Elites 2015 guide‚ we are showcasing superb work being done by Enel and other utilities across the globe in leveraging the increasingly data-rich smart grid.”

Enel’s digitised substations

Enel Italy teamed with US application software company C3.ai to deploy its Predictive Maintenance programme across 16‚000 substations in Italy. C3.ai said it designed the deployment for Enel Distribuzione to accurately predict faults on medium voltage electric distribution feeders across Italy.

C3 Predictive Maintenance works by integrating data from 10 source systems: SCADA‚ maintenance work orders‚ fault protection‚ asset management‚ historical equipment failures‚ known network issues‚ power quality‚ lightning‚ terrain and vegetation‚ and weather.

The California-based software developer said it leverages more than 750 analytics to update the asset health score in real-time as data is received‚ and then uses a machine learning model to predict the probability of feeder faults and pinpoint their locations with increasing precision over time. With this information‚ Enel is able to conduct efficient inspections and proactively address possible problems‚ which will drive substantial savings for Enel.

Ed Abbo‚ president and CTO at C3 Energy‚ said: “Enel is a smart grid innovator and a leader in renewable energy. The company continues to raise the bar in its digital transformation‚ which enables it to achieve its goals of greater reliability‚ operational efficiencies‚ and cost reductions.” Enel has reportedly achieved high system reliability‚ with an industry-leading average annual interruption time (SAIDI score) of 40 minutes per customer.

View the full article at Metering’s website here.