Learning Consortia

Substation Best Practices Consortium

TECHNOLOGY LEADERBOARD WEBINAR, Presented by Doug VenJohn, Evergy – Tuesday, March 1st 3:30 PM EST › Learn more!

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TECHNOLOGY LEADERBOARD WEBINAR

Presented by Doug VenJohn, Evergy - Tuesday, March 1st 3:30 PM EST

Join UMS Group’s Substation Best Practices Consortium for a “Tech Truth” session on substation monitoring technology. These utility-driven assessments of current technology offerings cut through the marketing noise to demonstrate real world value from emerging technology and available applications.

Highlights Include:
• The Pros and Cons of the Monitors
• Vendor Support
• Data Extrapolation (running off the end of the chart)
• Monitor Life Expectancy

Jack Shearman, UMS Group’s CEO, will also be presenting a keynote address to launch this year’s Substation Best Practices Program entitled “Substation Best Practices – The Path Forward from 2022”.

Register today to hear from our industry leading speakers on important topics and the exciting new additions to the Substation Best Practices Consortium.

Register today

Facilitating Communication and Collaboration

The Substation Best Practices Consortium is a community of industry professionals led by a Utility Steering Group for exchanging ideas and sharing innovative and leading edge practices across the industry.

It brings together the leading North American electric utilities to solve common industry problems and understand how to achieve superior business outcomes.

The program promotes a web of working and networking channels between members to support ongoing sharing of data, information, technology and practices.

For more information, contact us by email at substation@infrashieldlabs.com or by phone at +1-973-335-3555

Program Objective

The Substation Best Practices Consortium’s objective is to build a “community” of industry professionals with similar interests exchanging ideas and working together to share innovative and leading-edge practices from across the electric utility industry.

UMS Group will serve in a coordination and facilitation role for the collaborative, including administering the program, conducting on-site interviews with members, performing analysis and development of collaborative deliverables, facilitating collaborative gatherings, and providing support to utility-led community working groups.

In addition, a Steering Group made up of member representatives will provide oversight and guidance for the program and will ensure that the collaborative provides quality and value to its members.

A Leader in Driving Best Practice

  • There is a pressing need for meaningful best practice sharing across utilities today. This program is led by knowledgeable leaders among the best North American utilities and facilitated by UMS Group’s operational experts.
  • Together, we have crafted a program that is focused on how top performers are achieving superior outcomes, and the underlying enablers in areas such as technology, people (training, safety, and productivity), innovation, regulation, and execution.

Vision

The Substation Best Practices Consortium strives to bring utilities together that can work to solve common industry problems and understand how to achieve superior business outcomes through technology, analysis, people (training, safety, and productivity), innovation, and execution.

Member Engagement

Networking and Information Sharing

A key benefit to program participation is the ability to leverage the experience and knowledge of our utility subject matter experts

Industry Practice Sharing

Industry benchmarking is a significant component of the model, allowing participants to stay informed of the latest developments and issues in the industry

Collaborative Deep Dive Projects

Collaborative projects bring participating utilities together to work across all phases of the deep dives project from study ideas creation to submission of final report and results review

Portal and Electronic Library

Knowledge Management. The Substation Best Practices Consortium supports the exchange and management of experience and data via secure, effective program tools:

• Reports Database – Reports library, advisories, and alerts, lessons learned

• Metrics and Analytics – Metrics database, reports, peer benchmarking

• Surveys – Formal, member-wide questions and responses

Participating Companies

2019

Facts & Figures

  • Years of Service – 8 years
  • Steering Group Members – 5 including AES, PG&E, SCE, Evergy and BG&E
  • Number of Participants – 25 to 30 annually
  • Number of Participants at Conference – 50 to 60

Substation Best Practices Consortium User Community

THE ANSWER LIES IN COLLABORATION – in a forum of like-minded organizations and people banded together to share knowledge and learn from one another and foster peer relationships.

The group provides many ways for people to get together before, during, and after collaborative activities for continued knowledge sharing.

Substation Best Practices Program Conference

NEXT CONFERENCE COMING SOON!

The Substation Best Practices Consortium is the cornerstone of our program. This is where sharing and collaboration are at its best. The standard program starts with on-site interviews of the Member to identify practices, processes and technology that members are using to address the below topic areas. These interviews are used to create an agenda for the conference. During the conference the members will select follow-up activities or the rest of the year including the identification of three topics be included in a more Detailed Study to be part of the program report.

Program Activities

  • Deep Dive Studies 
  • Facilitated Site Visits
  • Workshops
  • Webexs

Technology

  • Touchless Substation/Wireless Sensors
  • Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence
  • Drones and Other Robotics

Operational Analytics

  • Automating Decision Support
  • Using Data to Identify Risks
  • BI Platforms

Asset Management

  • Prescriptive Analytics
  • Risk Management
  • Precision Maintenance Procedures
  • Asset Replacement Strategies

Workforce

  • Labor Management/O&M Cost Reduction/Productivity Management
  • Managing Capital Efficiently
  • Skills Required for the Digital Future
  • Measuring and Improving Training Effectiveness

IT/OT Integration

  • Role/Responsibility Split
  • Ownership of Risk
  • Decision-making Process

Background of the Consortium

In 2013, UMS Group was engaged by PG&E to conduct an industry study on Substation Inspection practices. The intent behind the study was to understand the opportunities that existed for more efficient and effective inspections in order to drive change in practices at the utility. The results of the study were compelling enough that UMS Group was further engaged to facilitate a two-day forum in which the participants were brought together to share their practices and discuss issues related to driving performance improvement.

The following year, UMS Group performed a similar effort around circuit breaker and power transformer maintenance. At the conclusion of the forum for this study, several of the other utilities, who had participated in both studies, expressed a desire to form an ongoing group focused on sharing around Substation Maintenance, Construction, and Asset Management. This resulted in the establishment of what is now known as the Substation Best Practices Consortium.

Client Feedback

“Anytime you can get representatives from various utilities to engage in discussion around process, productivity initiatives, innovations, and impacts to the business, it’s a plus.”

Client Feedback

“We attended the Substation Best Practices Consortium for the first time this past year. For the two of us, this was the one of the best conferences we have attended in our combined 70 years of attending events. We were very impressed with the overall content and open sharing of information!”

Resources

Substation Best Practices Consortium Tear Sheet

View Tear Sheet
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