01-18-2013 BPU RPT 07 - Laserfiche WebLink

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W A T E R E N E R G Y L ! F i RIVERSIDE PUBLIC UTILITIES Board Memorandum PUBLIC UTILITIES BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITIES DATE: January 18, 2013 ITEM NO: 7 SUBJECT: APPROVAL OF DISTRIBUTION AUTOMATION PROGRAM - WORK ORDER NO. 1305568 ISSUE: The item for Board of Public Utilities consideration is approval for Work Order No. 1309568. RECOMMENDATIONS: That the Board of Public Utilities: 1. Approve the estimated capital expenditure of$960,000 far Work Order 1309568 to procure and install automated controllers,associated communication equipment and automation test/train lab apparatus; and 2. Authorize the Purchasing Services Manager to award Purchase Orders to ABB, Cooper, G&W, GddSense, SAC, Schweitzer, and Siemens not-to-exceed $220,000 for each equipment purchase. BACKGROUND: The recent September 2012 Strategic Planning Retreat confirmed the following goals: • Maximize the use of technology to improve utility operations—Three year goal. • Employ state-of-the-art technology to maximize reliability and customer service—Ten year goal. Decreasing an outage event duration and restoring customer service as quickly as possible is a designated high priority for Riverside Public Utilities (RPU) Energy Delivery. The next necessary and logical step in addressing this priority is implementation of a remotely operable and programmable distribution automation equipment to identify the location of a fault, isolate a fault area and restore service to customers. This is considered the initial step in eventually implementing an integrated,system-wide standard plan for distribution automation. Based upon outage history and the recognized potential to decrease an outage duration, four distribution circuits fed from La Colina, Riverside and Harvey Lynn Substations have been identified as pilot installation areas for distribution automation controllers and associated communication equipment to evaluate the operability of the technology, as well as its integration with our current system. Establishment of an automation test lab at Mission Square for training purposes is also an integral part of the pilot program. The four circuits were chosen due to their outage histories, age of apparatus and physical nature of circuit (e.g., above ground or below ground). The diverse electrical and geographical characteristics of these circuits will allow a thorough evaluation of the functionality and practicality of the equipment. The make-up and configuration of the circuits will give us the opportunity to install, test and evaluate both overhead and underground applications.