Dominion Energy is a leader in the clean energy transition, providing reliable, affordable power to nearly 7 million US customers. As part of their efforts to accelerate net-zero, the team was searching for a way to make sustainability data from across their grid available to customers in real-time. We worked with them to make it happen.

The team at Dominion Energy knew that their grid data could become a powerful competitive advantage. As consumers increasingly choose their providers based on their environmental footprint, having the ability to share energy source and performance information from across the network with stakeholders could help them stand out in a crowded field.

They came to us looking for cloud-based technology that would let them capture this data and share it easily and securely. They needed strong, scalable systems that could handle high volumes accurately and quickly — while ensuring cybersecurity.

We helped the team deploy AVEVA™ Data Hub and AVEVA™ PI System. Now, data from across the network can be captured in real-time and easily shared across the organization and with key stakeholders.

This, in turn, allows Dominion’s customers to prove their own net-zero commitments to investors and environmental, social and governance (ESG) auditors.

This data is now a crucial selling point for Dominion, encouraging potential customers to choose their services over other providers.

As an added benefit, AVEVA™ PI System has helped Dominion bring their vision of an autonomous data-driven culture to life.

Being able to rapidly pull different data sources and insights together has given teams the ability to quickly diagnose and return power-generation units to service. These technologies have also opened up monitoring of power station performance and early detection of performance issues and controllable losses. Today, Dominion continues to build on the system as they pursue their goal of reaching net-zero.

zGlobal is an energy consulting firm and solutions provider based out of Folsom, California. For 17 years, it has provided expertise and technical support to some of the USA’s largest power utilities, with a focus on California and the Western electrical grid.

As part of a new project with Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE), zGlobal needed a way to securely share real-time and historical datasets with multiple stakeholders and provide secure access to third-party power producers’ datasets in order to manage scheduling. AVEVA™ Data Hub and AVEVA™ PI System™ provided the answer.

SVCE is a public, non-profit agency that provides clean energy for 270,000 customers across Silicon Valley.

The region is a hotbed for renewable energy generation, with a new solar plant and energy storage facility able to achieve a capacity of 160MW — enough to sustainably power 64,000 homes. That’s equivalent to avoiding more than 315,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions, every year.

After reaching an agreement with the power producer to purchase more than half of the new plant’s power output, SVCE engaged zGlobal as their power scheduler and the combined teams started work on enhancing their data-sharing capabilities.

Safe, secure — and fast

Previously, sharing data between producer, purchasers and schedulers had been time-consuming and repetitive. Requested data was either sent by email or via a virtual private network — which came with its own cybersecurity risks. AVEVA Data Hub’s cloud-native capabilities increased security and simplified sharing.

Data is now available immediately, while community members can configure their own security to control access to datasets as business requirements demand. With no need for time-consuming system administration, training can instead focus on accessing and using the data.

Today, zGlobal and its partners are already creating new ways to use their data-sharing infrastructure to further their sustainability goals. SVCE, meanwhile, is preparing to expand its use of AVEVA Data Hub in a new project with another power producer.

Arizona Public Service (APS) provides the state’s inhabitants with essential utilities. Today, they’re responsible for delivering reliable electricity to 2.7 million Arizonians –
a vital service in a region known for its long, hot summers.

With some 50% of its 6,000-strong workforce approaching retirement, the team knew training new operators had to be a key part of its operational excellence strategy. But with teammates spread far and wide across the state, they needed a way to deliver world-class training remotely.

We partnered with APS to introduce cloud-based training using AVEVA™ Operator Training Simulator on our industrial cloud platform, AVEVA™ Connect. Using generic power plant models, the team could learn processes and procedures across plants, regardless of how they were configured.

Now, operators can train for all scenarios from their home plant, replacing the usual three days away from their role. With an effective, continuous training strategy, APS can ensure operational excellence without heavy spending – keeping electricity affordable for their customers and driving significant sustainability benefits from lower travel and more intuitive training systems.

AGL is one of the nation’s leading power providers, managing one-third of the energy generated for Australia’s eastern seaboard, where the majority of Australians live. Growth has accelerated in recent years, fueled by acquisitions and the adoption of renewables including thermal, wind, and solar power.

But visibility had lagged behind growth. When David Bartolo joined as AGL’s head of asset performance, the company was effectively data blind. To change that, he and his team soon settled on the solution: AVEVA™ PI System.

With the new system in place, anyone could access real-time data — empowering them to make changes that could benefit the bottom line. After a single day of training, people began creating new and innovative uses for the system. One engineer built a display to see the aggregate view of how two solar farm sites were performing. Chemists set alarms to add years to the lives of boiler-cycle assets. And other users built screens to monitor generator temperatures.

A non-engineer built a screen to monitor trends in small hydro units located 700 kilometers away. Immediately, he could see why his machines were tripping and remotely directed on-site subcontractors to the source of the problem. In just three months, the availability of those units rose by 7%.

AGL chose to move beyond real-time awareness to predictive monitoring with the launch of its Operational Diagnostics Center. Building on the foundation provided by AVEVA™ PI System, the team built 2,700 models that monitor 45,000 critical data points every five minutes, checking incoming data against historical data. When correlations vary, the team knows that something is wrong.

In just three years, the new system saved A$18.7m in reduced forced outages and optimized maintenance. The AVEVA™ PI System alarms even caught and avoided a catastrophic failure in a 560 MW hydrogen-cooled stator — preventing an outage that would have cost an estimated A$50-70m.

Today, AVEVA™ PI System is at the center of AGL’s resilience, efficiency and sustainability strategies, playing a crucial role in two new initiatives. The first, a thermodynamic performance-optimization system, aims to reduce fuel consumption by 0.5% and reduce CO² emissions — translating to savings of millions of dollars per year. The second, a wind-yield-optimization system, targets a one to two percent increased yield in AGL’s wind portfolio.