Power Analytics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Power Analytics is the term used to describe the management of electrical power distribution, consumption, and preventative maintenance throughout a large organization’s facilities, particularly organizations with high electrical power requirements.

Such facilities typically include corporate and government data centers, network operations centers, public utilities, transportation systems, manufacturing facilities, and petrochemical or process control facilities. In addition, it could include the autonomous, self-sustaining electrical power systems within structures or vessels such as oil platforms, submarines, or aircraft carriers.

For such facilities, electrical power problems – including the worst-case scenario, a full power outage – could have a devastating serious impact. Additionally, it could jeopardize the health and safety of individuals within the facility or in the surrounding community.

[edit] Applications of Predictions

The term Power Analytics – first used by an electrical power systems software firm, EDSA Micro Corp. – is the electrical power equivalent of “Business Analytics,” a term used by firms like Fair-Isaac and Experian, who use complex mathematical algorithms to determine the credit risk associated with specific individuals or organizations.

In the case of electrical power, such algorithms are applied to the detectable variations within an organization’s power infrastructure (measurements such as voltage, current, power factor, etc.). Such variations could be early indications of longer-term power problems; when a Power Analytics system detects such variations, it will begin to diagnose the source of the variation, surrounding components, and then the complete electrical power infrastructure.

Then, using computational intelligence (CI), Power Analytics systems will – after fully assessing the location and potential magnitude of the problem – predict when and where the potential problem will occur, as well as recommend the preventative maintenance required preempting the problem from occurring.

[edit] Components of analysis

There are three elements comprising a Power Analytics solution:

• A designbase (short for a “design database”) that contains an intelligent schematic of an electrical power infrastructure, as well as the operating specifications for all equipment and components designed into the infrastructure itself

• A real-time, expert system-like application that can calibrate the designbase specifications with those actually occurring in the live facility infrastructure, in order to detect variations between the “Actual” and “As-Designed” specifications.

• A knowledge visualization system that can interpret the complex behavior within the electrical power system, and present it to a human operator in the form of a “dashboard” or user interface that is easy to understand, interpret, and actionable.

[edit] Additional Resources

EDSA Micro Corporation [1]