ADMS (Active Distribution Management System) was a 2 year Horizon 2020 Fast Track to Innovation (FTI) project that productised and piloted an integrated family of low-cost products to assist electrical utility Distribution System Operators (DSO)s in the active management of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) by helping to (a) Improve their networks’ stability and predictability, (b) Safeguard regulatory compliance and (c) Achieve their 2020 and 2030 Low Carbon Emissions Targets.
A critical challenge for Smart Grid ecosystems is to optimise the Return On Investment (ROI) for Power Utilities. ADMS is addressing this with product solutions to help DSOs to achieve their carbon reduction targets by enabling them to actively manage their networks in a disruptively innovative, but coherently distributed way, right down to low-voltages (LV) in support of lower carbon footprint technologies and new energy generation business models from green RES.
Project research identified that the challenges that DSOs face in managing their grids include (a) Capacity Demand Measurement, (b) Regulatory Compliance, (c) Fault Monitoring / Detection, (d) Renewable Energy Management and (e) Network Power Quality. The ADMS solution is addressing these by providing the DSO’s with the following benefits: (1) Improved network stability, capacity and increasing RES penetration integration with reduced grid inertia (2) Cost effective tools, fast and a complete Active Distribution Management Solution, (3) Innovative cost competitive solutions and (4) A mass deployable cost-effective solution right to the grid edge.
ADMS provides these benefits by using a smart machine-learning Network Management System (NMS), that seamlessly monitors real-time data to the Grid Edge for LV/MV distribution systems, with (a) Smart LV/MV Power Quality Monitoring (PQM) that includes grid-edge processing of dynamic local event detection algorithms, (b) Low-cost micro Phaser Measurement Units (mPMU)s, in a high-accuracy Distributed Sensor Network (DSN). The NMS is a network modelling and predictive behaviour platform, that uses the real-time readings from the mPMUs and PQM units, together with Articial Neural Networks (ANN) technology, to provide real and predictive analysis of grid behaviour, for all points of the network with a minimal number of measurement nodes deployed. Thus providing a fully integrated ADMS solution for Network Stability and Predictability.
ADMS will be a commercial operational product solution on the market within a year, and will be sold collaboratively to DSOs and System Integrators, by Altea BV, GridHound UG and MAC Ltd, to provide an unique service that. “Nobody else can take you from a passive grid to smart grid in one contract”. This is more than any individual Partner could provide, and is to the mutual advantage of all Partners. The ADMS will support Europe’s 2,400 DSOs in the active management and maximisation of RES in their grids, enabling more RES on existing distribution networks by improving network stability while safeguarding regulatory compliance.
