Engineering Excellence Awards

World best practice

Western Power has been recognised as world leaders in Distribution Management at the 2008 WA Engineering Excellence Awards.

Our category winning submission, Transforming Electricity Distribution Management focussed on Western Power's state of the art Distribution Power Analysis tool (DPA) and took out the prestigious Control Systems, Reports and Procedures category.

DPA was recognised as a system that has significantly improved our customer's experience by:

• making it easier for embedded alternative energy generation to connect to the grid
• enabling smart grid technology (having a network that is self-healing)
• facilitating future network automation (which will help restore power rapidly and allow greater flexibility when diverting power)
• reducing customer interruptions
• optimising network operation (helps us get the most out of our equipment)
• reducing carbon emissions
• increasing the life of our assets
  

Managing Director Doug Aberle says the win has firmly established Western Power as world leaders in this field.

"We are very proud of what we have achieved with DPA and the ENMAC system and believe this award acknowledges Western Power's best practice and worldwide leadership in distribution management," Mr Aberle said.

Western Power was also represented in the same category and the Environment category with the submission outlining the Eneabba to Moonyoonooka transmission line corridor selection process. 

Partnering with Sinclair Knight Merz, we were recognised for implementing a process that not only received acclaim from government authorities and stakeholders, but delivered the best result measured on environmental, social, technical and economic factors.

"Both examples demonstrate a shift in the way the business is responding to our community and customers," Mr Aberle said.

As category winners of the WA Engineering Excellence Awards, Transforming Electricity Distribution Management also qualified for the national awards.

Western Power was one of 36 finalists, of which eight received awards.
 
"To be in the running for the same award as the Beijing Water Cube is a significant achievement and one which the whole of Western Power is very proud," Ken Brown General Manager Systems Management added.

More information about DPA

DPA is an integrated module of Western power's ENMAC Distribution Management System and a power flow analysis tool developed by Western Power enabling the Control Centre to make more informed decisions when operating the network.

DPA was developed and implemented over a four year period and has several modes of operation which include:

• Load Flow Analysis - allows the operator to check the power flow situation before, during and following a switching sequence and determines the best configuration for a quicker and more efficient restoration.
• Fault Level Analysis - allows the operator to check the fault level and suitability of switchgear before, during and following a switching sequence.
• Periodic Manager - a stand out feature of DPA, it performs calculations periodically (every 5 minutes) automatically updating the network status and storing data for trend analysis and fast retrieval.

The successful development and integration of DPA into Western Power operations is recognised as a worldwide application benchmark.