ArcGIS Utility Network Prepares for Grid Modernization

Turlock Irrigation District (TID) provides the Central Valley of California with reliable irrigation water and power. The region boasts some of the world’s most productive farmland due in part to TID’s strong commitment to its customers. Recognizing factors for load impacts in the coming years and needing to maintain reliability during droughts, TID wanted a grid modernization roadmap to prepare for the future.

The utility needed to analyze load flows more effectively and predict future water and power network conditions. Single-phase solar, battery, wind, and electric vehicle demands disturbed the balanced three-phase conditions of irrigation pumps creating a power quality challenge. Engineers spent months preparing accurate data models for subsequent system analysis. As a result, manual data adjustments were often necessary to overcome limitations further degrading the fidelity of the model. TID needed better insight into their networks to support advanced grid modernization applications.

TID selected POWER Engineers, Incorporated (POWER) to provide a grid modernization roadmap and upgrade its technology infrastructure. With POWER’s help, TID developed a grid modernization roadmap. The roadmap provided recommendations for modernizing its technology infrastructure to accommodate future impacts to the utility’s water and power networks. Recognizing a digital twin could help operations better visualize and analyze the system, TID chose the ArcGIS Utility Network as the basis for the modernization of their systems. ArcGIS Utility Network will provide TID with the necessary foundation to create integrations for their grid modernization needs. In addition, an extractor tool developed by POWER will allow the utility to quickly obtain an extract from the GIS to import into third-party applications such as its engineering analysis software and outage management system (OMS).

POWER offers a full suite of geospatial and asset management solutions for all utility sectors–implementing and integrating solutions that best fit operational needs. The global consulting engineering company also specializes in helping utilities achieve their grid modernization goals and has successfully utilized a proven approach and tools to transition numerous utilities to Esri’s ArcGIS Utility Network.

The utility network will allow TID to fully model all aspects of its electric and water networks, positioning the utility for the adoption of a digital twin. The utility will have greater visibility into the behavior of its systems with accurate up-to-date data. This data support its engineering analysis software, OMS, and other advanced applications. In the future, TID plans to further leverage ArcGIS in its grid modernization. ArcGIS will help bridge the gap between the utility’s information and operational technologies (IT/OT). As a result, it will sharpen insights on the performance and vulnerability of its water and electric systems. TID will benefit by detecting potential disruptions and necessary system improvements. Consequently, TID expects more reliable water and power service for its customers.