c-plan® - Geo-Information Systems

Romande Energy Morges (CH)

How Romande Energy started to use TOPOBASE™

The people in charge at the Romande Energy based in the city of Morges didn’t decide quick and easily on their new GIS. Finally in July 2002, the contract was awarded to c-plan®.

After the excitement for this big order had calmed down a bit, c-plan started with the realization of this new challenging assignment. Reviewing the cooperation with Romande Energy the past 24 month, we can confirm, it is working perfectly!

The Romande Energy is one of the leading power authorities in Switzerland. The enterprise provides over 300’000 citizens in 322 communities with electricity. At the Romande Energy in Morges, they had early focused on the on-going deregulation of the Swiss energy market, and recognized that for a smooth internal information exchange the internal information system should be homogenized as much as possible. The existing, different information systems didn’t comply with the requirements to supply employees and customers with on-time and adequate information.
A new Geographic Information System should maintain the different information, currently located in multiple hierarchical databases, in one centralized database and enable easy, geographical supported analyses.
After a first selection based on the terms of references, the four leading GIS vendors were invited to Morges to present their solution. In July 2002, the decision was made in favor of TOPOBASE™.

Step 1: Transferring Attribute and Topological Data
Crucial was the development of the data model that could incorporate all the information from the existing databases and that links the data for quick analyses. For the experts of the Romande Energy, the functionality of the TOPOBASE™ application for Electricity is indispensable; however additional functionality needed to be developed in order to cover all the necessary requirements. Besides functionality for topological network analyses, that could for example assist to localize a failure in the electricity network, the development of the bi-directional interface to the SAP system was very important. Due to this development experts are able at the push of a button, to determine if a power failure at the customer site is caused by a technical problem or due to a not paid invoice.
In order to enable the possibility to connect as many operators to the information system at the same time, it was decided to implement web based GIS built on Autodesk Mapguide® in combination with TOPOBASE™ Generic Web. With this technology, all information systems have access to data and functionality by the use of a normal internet browser. Instead of normally 30, with this technology 150 employees can provide information at the same time.
As per many older Geographic Information Systems, also at the Romande Energy the costs for maintenance of the old information system were very high. Therefore, an on-time implementation of the system was an extremely important issue also for the controlling department. The critical point for an on-time implementation was highly determined by the speed (rate) of the data transfer. Many different transfer processes and various translation tables were thoroughly tested before the automated transfer of the data was started. The data conversion took one complete weekend but afterwards we could confirm that the translation was accomplished without any loss of data and that Romande Energy was able to continue working with the new system. Stephane Laurion was very enthusiastic; “ you know that 50% of all projects in informatics are never successful and 40% are realized to late. I’m very happy that our project belongs to the other 10% of successful implemented projects. This is for me, my colleagues and for the management an absolute positive achievement.”

Old and New Graphical Data
Despite this success, there wasn’t time to relax. After all, parallel to phase 1, the project team already initiated some tasks of the second phase. The goal for the second phase was to link the graphical data with the attribute data and transfer this data into TOPOBASE™. Available were existing overview maps, background images and plan definitions, which exactly determine the layout of certain maps. In addition many new data in various raster and vector formats were available. The federal office for topography supplied the national map in raster format, the federal statistical office delivered the boundaries of the communities and the canton Waadt supplied overview maps, zoning maps, archeological data and information on water protection zones. Linking the graphical information with the attribute information many of the functionality of the application TOPOBASE™ electricity could be used; however also in this part of the system the customer needed additional functionality. For security reasons namely, it is an obligation that all “active” elements in the electrical network appear immediately in the analyses and statistics. For this reason, Romande Energy operates differently compared with many other electricity companies. In the occasion that a new cable needs to be laid, the exact situation in the field is surveyed. After this, the electricity department establishes the geo-schema-plan on overview plans. In a next step, the relationship between the geo-schema-plan and the orthogonal-schema-plan is established semi-automatically using TOPOBASE™ functionally. Finally the geo-schema plan and the cable plan, which is based on the cadastral map, are linked. This workflow is realized very fast, and the results are immediately available at every information system. In case of problems the user can respond very quickly, network calculations are integrated. Parallel to the transfer and linking of the graphic data with the attribute data, c-plan employees in conjunction with experts from Romande Energy optimized the data structure. <Fortunately not so many adaptations were necessary>> Cedric Moullet, responsible for the technical implementation at Romande Energy, says,“ however, in the daily work with the system you always recognize potential for improvements.” “The good thing is that meanwhile we can modify many things by ourselves,” Stephane Laurion adds. “This enables us to modify the system exactly according to our needs. “
Existing cable plans, which were drawn with AutoCAD, are successively linked with attribute data, hence the information and possible analyses become more and more meaningful.

Interfaces to network capacity calculation
After the second phase was successfully finalized on time, for the third phase it was planned to establish the interfaces towards electricity network capacity software. This phase should be finalized by the end of 2003 and according to Stefane Laurion; I have no doubt, c-plan will do anything possible in order to finalize this phase as successful and accurately timed like the other phases. Fortunately he was right. Romande Energy today uses two software packages for network capacity calculation. The Canadian GYMDIST for the low voltage network and the French product EDF PROA for middle and high voltage network. Also here we were integrated to make the necessary adaptations in order to establish results exactly according the customers requirements. Today the users of TOPOBASE™ have a complete information system with powerful GIS tools to maintain their electricity network. For an optimal use of all that functionality, a comprehensive training program for all employees was scheduled. Meanwhile, a team of four experts around the GIS coordinator Stephane Laurion are working and maintaining the geo data serverTOPOBASE™, however, also the employees behind the over 150 information systems can’t miss their new GIS tool.

Conclusion:
Instead of the originally planned 32 workstations, today almost 40 workstations are installed and work with TOPOBASE™ . The web based information systems allow 150 employees to retrieve information from the system at the same time. These requests can be executed from the more then 500 workstations that are located in the company. “The cooperation with c-plan was wonderful”, Stephane Laurion says. During all the implementation phases, we had two contact persons, who stand up for our concerns. Due to such cooperation, we were successful and finalized the project on time.