Background

Our electricity comes from the socket. The fact that a sentence like this is being understood as funny has to do with the fact that the provision with electrical energy is of such high quality in Northern / Central Europe that few people even think about it. This high quality is no coincidence. The electricity networks go to great lengths to ensure this. This includes regular measurement campaigns concerning the power quality.

Problem

In Switzerland measurement campaigns on power quality are carried out every year by the Association of Swiss Electricity Companies (VSE). These week-long series of measurements are carried out by each of the participating power companies. The results are transmitted to the VSE and after further processing integrated into a report.

At the start of the NeQual project classical methods of data processing with software from the early nineties were used in data collection and analysis. Data were transmitted electronically, but feedback to the parties involved was given only after the central evaluation.

The new solution was to bring more interactivity, and also allow addition to the annual reports of the individual companies, to compare their own data with anonymized data of the competitors.

Solution

Using modern web technologies a Rich Internet Application has been developed that allows each plant to store their own data in a central database and also directly evaluate it interactively.

The development was carried out interactively. By working closely with the client, the IEEH of the Technical University of Dresden and the power systems engineering specialist BCP AG, Staefa, the different requirements in terms of technology, accuracy and ease of use could be fulfilled.

Impact and benefits

Because data are not only stored centrally, but are also immediately visible to all users of the system, it is possible for individual companies to compare their own data in a kind of benchmark with the data of their competitors. In these comparisons, data of the competitors will be displayed anonymously so that both the requirement for benchmarking information as well as for confidentiality could be met.

Links

More information about zu NeQual you'll find on the VSE website.