An Introduction to ADMS

Advanced Distribution Management Systems are one of the first mature successful products from the information age. Over a 30-year period, a series of computer applications, all related to the real-time control of electricity distribution networks, were developed to meet the challenges of privatisation, deregulation and CO₂ reduction. These have evolved into ADMS, which now plays a major role in adapting traditional electricity distribution networks to meet the challenges presented by the transition to renewable generation and reducing our carbon footprint. The purpose of ADMS is explained and component functions of ADMS are described. The ADMS relationship with other corporate IT investments is also discussed. Furthermore, the maintenance needs of ADMS are described and direction is given on how to extract maximum value from an ADMS investment.

Derek Macfarlane is an electrical engineer, who spent 16 years helping software engineers develop the IT functions that have become ADMS. His role included technical advice on how the electricity industry operates its networks, assistance with bids and sales of ADMS around the world. The software product itself developed from single applications to the suite of applications involved in ADMS today. He gained experience of electricity utilities on every continent, and during this time, he wrote and co-authored several papers relating to DMS published by CIRED, CIGRE and IEEE. Prior to that, he spent 32 years working as an engineer and middle manager in electricity distribution and was a manager in the 1990s when the UK industry was being privatised. Privatisation introduced the drive to reduce costs and increase performance, and these influences opened up the industry to computerisation of their business processes. His last few years in the electricity industry were spent attempting to improve an in-house Outage Management software system (OMS). The experience and limitations of the traditional mainframe environment that hosted OMS, served to convince him that a modern solution, available from external IT vendors, was the correct way forward. He was then involved in specifying the replacement OMS, selecting the vendor and introducing the IT system into their operational environment. Having spent most of his engineering career designing, building operating and fault finding on the live HV, MV and LV networks, the opportunity to step back and analyse the business processes and seek better procedures with improved consistency in performance, efficiency and reliability was a refreshing intellectual and business challenge.