Integrating GIS with high performance SCADA

Summary form only given. The GIS in a utility is a major source of important information in the company, and often is, or should be, the master repository of the utility´s facilities and equipment. The SCADA control room requires a particular view of the facilities, and therefore needs access to the GIS data. It is expensive to manually re-create the graphics and equipment definitions in the SCADA system, especially in a system subject to continual expansion, upgrades, and changes. Rather, a mechanism to easily and periodically move the information into the SCADA system and convert it to a suitable form, or in some other way make the GIS data available to the SCADA system, is needed. The operators often can benefit from being able to access the information about a specific piece of equipment, so providing a mechanism for the SCADA user interface to be able to query the GIS or AM/FM system for this information is valuable. This paper explores these issues, identify some possible solutions, and discuss one vendor´s implementation that has attempted to solve these issues.