Integrated GIS and SCADA system model for alexandria electricity distribution company

Alexandria Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) is the electrical power distributor in Alexandria governorate in Egypt. The nominal medium operating voltage is 11KV. Seeking efficient methods for managing MV network assets, AEDC installed SCADA/DMS system in 1998.The system runs on UNIX using DEC Alpha servers with Sybase SQL backend. It is implemented to the key sections of distribution network. Additionally, AEDC installed Esri´s ArcGIS in 2002 separately, running on Windows platform and connected to Oracle database. The geodatabase presents the spatial information of the MV networks efficiently. Both systems are isolated from each other. Data is maintained and accessible to only those who use these systems, leading to data redundancy and systems out of synchronization. It is crucial for SCADA staff to operate on the MV network with a geographical context for better explaining events, predicting outcomes and planning strategies, meanwhile GIS staff needs to operate while knowing the current status of the network in real-time. This situation has raised the need of integrating both systems. The data mapping from SCADA to GIS was a challenging job, facing several technical and non-technical issues. Several approaches were held for integrating both systems before implementing the most efficient and economical one. The integrated system allows users to easily manage both spatial and non-spatial data and interact with multiple databases. This paper explains the need, the approaches made with the evaluation and analysis of the implemented system and its benefits. It shows how the integrated GIS/SCADA/DMS system serves as a low-cost effective asset management system that improves the MV network efficiency, helps to reduce operational costs and down time, and increases the value of the information resources and decision p