Unified Cartographic Panel: when planning efficiency meets power grid service

The Unique Cartographic Panel (PUC) is a web application used by Enel to manage and modify the national electricity grid, including customers. The PUC allows the georeferencing of each element of the electricity grid using GIS and Geoserver technologies. It is a system created to interact with other applications and tools and maps that exploits 3D technology to scan the territory and everything that could be found around the ENEL network, and advanced virtual reality, which allows you to "physically" enter and remotely in the transformer substations.

Graphic interfaces

The PUC has three different graphic interfaces that enable operators to plan interventions:

• Design and Budgeting Platform: the purpose of this interface is to design the network in GIS-Driven mode and obtain the technical and commercial estimate on the SAP system (the ERP system of Enel Distribuzione, or a management system for the economic balance). It is possible to estimate changes to the network through real interventions by a technical team. It is possible to follow and indicate the progress of the field work for each project protocol and update (or publish them making them definitive and permanent) the changes to the operating network through increments.
• Network Editing: in this interface it is possible to rectify the topology and information of the operating network. You can collect the changes/corrections to the network in a project (or "draft") and save them to be resumed at a later time. These changes can then be validated, crystallized and finally updated by permanently making changes to the operating network.
• Electrical study: this dressing is very similar to the previous one, and compared to Network Editing only allows to validate the correctness of adjustments to the network, without making any changes to the operating network.

Results Achieved

Evolutionary Development project and application mainteinance services of the system of the Solution Center ICT Infrastructure & Networks (I&N), in the process of Network Development, Grid Topology&Quality and GIS with geographical coverage of Italy, Spain, Romania and Latin American countries, with particular reference to the Platformization scope area.

The main technologies and frameworks on which the solution is based are: Geoserver, Java Microservices, Java Reactive, SpringBoot, Kubernetes, Docker and Cloud AWS.

The project’s activities are performed in Agile rooms in the Platformization scope area, and include:

• backend development of the Unified Cartographic Panel (PUC) focused on 1) development of the possibility of creating thematic maps using the properties of electrical elements, 2) development of Backend services for editing the electricity grid;
• porting of Topological data to the Platform and development of SpringBoot microservices for their extraction and aggregation. These microservices make the topological network data they need for their use cases available to the Solutions;
• creation and maintenance of the CSM Italia incremental engine; support to electrical network design problems through technical-functional analysis of the network; creation of massive remediation on the spatial data of the network and infrastructural elements; data integration and migration between different platforms and heterogeneous databases;
• analysis, design, and implementation of microservices and business services relating to the new Enel GIS platform infrastructure; management of the cartographic catalog, and its integrations with respect to Enel solutions.

Benefits

Thanks to these tools, it is possible to implement a more efficient planning of activities, having a real vision of what the operatives will find on site. A mapping that allows to evaluate upstream the presence of any interference with other systems and that supports to put in place all the procedures aimed at ensuring the execution of all activities safely.

Even team technicians interact with these technological systems: thanks to applications designed for smartphones they are able to view maps, changes made by colleagues and above all know the characteristics of the network, knowing exactly the point on which to intervene (take action).

A set of tools, therefore, that facilitate and make possible the monitoring of the infrastructure to ensure a more efficient and continuous electricity service.