EMS, SCADA, DMS and OMS Systems to be Significantly Upgraded or Replaced to Meet New Regulations and to Provide Improved Situational Awareness and Visualization Tools for Systems Operators
Role of Operational Analytics for Outage Management Growing Rapidly in Attempts to Improve Reliability and Minimize Outage Duration and Frequency
January 25, 2013. Ellicott City, Maryland. The Newton-Evans Research Company has released highlights of findings from its newly published study of EMS, SCADA, DMS and OMS usage patterns in North American electric power utilities, one of four component reports of the company’s 2013 global market assessment series on power delivery operational control systems.
Among the observations gleaned from interviews and surveys with more than 110 participants from a wide range of participating U.S. and Canadian electric utilities, are the following:
- Plans call for upgrades or retrofits to EMS (energy management systems) and SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems among a large percentage of these utilities. Related industry expenditures will likely increase by more than 25% over the next 24 months.
- Plans for procurements of new DMS (distribution management systems) and OMS (Outage management systems) are significant, with more than one quarter planning to purchase a new or replacement DMS and nearly one-in-five planning OMS procurements.
- Eighty percent of utility officials cited a need for cyber security features to be designed as an integral part of their control systems, not provided as an “add-on.” Most officials also called for control systems integrators to do more to make NERC compliance and regulatory reporting easier and more automated.
- Third party services are being used and relied upon to assist with NERC CIP compliance issues, for the conduct of vulnerability assessments and for consulting on smart grid topics.
- DNP 3 continues to be the most prevalent operational data communications protocol throughout North American electric power utilities. Plans call for continuing the use of DNP 3 for the foreseeable future, among the majority of these utilities. Increased use of IEC 61850 for intra-substation communications has been reported in newly constructed transmission substations.
The North American report is one of four volumes of study completed for the company’s fourteenth bi-annual series of EMS, SCADA and DMS studies published by Newton-Evans Research since 1984.
Further information on this new series entitled The World Market Study of SCADA, Energy Management Systems and Distribution Management Systems in Electric Utilities: 2013-2015 is available from Newton-Evans Research Company, 10176 Baltimore National Pike, Suite 204, Ellicott City, Maryland 21042. Phone: 410-465-7316 or visit us at www.newton-evans.com or to order any of more than 100 related reports. For readers interested in purchasing this new series please call or email the company for special introductory pricing. Chuck Newton can be reached at cnewton@newton-evans.com.
summary reviews and highlights from completed studies
