Energy and Utilities Industries - Incident Detection and Response Alarming Best Practices

Energy and Utilities

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Introduction

Energy & Utilities industries share the mission to deliver abundant, safe and affordable natural resources to the communities they serve. These industries encompass a wide range of activities, from the exploration and production of hydrocarbons to the generation, transmission, distribution, and retailing of electricity, gas, and water.

The Power & Utilities (P&U) industry

The Power and Utilities (P&U) sector focuses on the generation, transmission, distribution, marketing, and management of electricity, natural gas, and water supplies. This includes the operation of power plants, grid systems, and distribution networks that ensure reliable and efficient energy delivery to residential, commercial, and industrial consumers.

Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) on AWS for Utilities:

DERMS (Distributed Energy Resource Management System) is a software solution that enables utilities to monitor, forecast, and control various distributed energy resources (DERs) such as solar panels, energy storage systems, and other "green" energy sources improving grid resilience, reliability, and sustainability. By leveraging cloud-based services and advanced analytics, DERMS enables utilities to efficiently integrate renewable energy sources, implement demand response programs, and provide grid services like frequency regulation and voltage support.

• Reference Architecture for DERMS for Utilities

Renewables Data Lake & Analytics:

A Renewable Data Lake on AWS enables renewable energy operators to centralize and analyze data from their distributed assets such as wind turbines, solar farms, and hydroelectric dams, gain insights through advanced analytics and machine learning, optimize operations, and make data-driven decisions to improve efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of their renewable energy infrastructure.

• Reference Architecture for Renewables Data Lake & Analytics

Generation Interconnection Simulation

Generation Interconnection Simulation (GIS) refers to the process of simulating the interconnection of a new power generation facility, such as a wind farm, solar power plant, or natural gas plant, with an existing electric power grid or transmission system. This simulation is typically conducted to assess the potential impact of the new generation source on the grid's stability, reliability, and overall performance.

This architecture diagram linked below shows how to use AWS services to host generation interconnection simulations, such as production cost modeling, on AWS. Due to the variability and unpredictability of renewable energy sources, integrating them into the grid requires considerable analysis.

• Reference architecture diagram for Generation Interconnection Simulation

Electric Meter Analytics

Electric Meter Analytics solutions on AWS integrate data from multiple sources, preparing utility companies for the massive data volumes that Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) 2.0 will generate. These solutions offer predictive maintenance, energy efficiency recommendations, volt-var optimization, improved forecasting accuracy, and anomaly detection, helping to modernize systems at the household, circuit, and grid levels.

• Reference architecture diagram Electric Meter Analytics

The Oil & Gas (O&G) industry

Production Monitoring and Surveillance

This Guidance helps oil and gas companies build a modern data management system to monitor oil and gas production. Data is brought into the cloud from physical infrastructures, centralized and standardized for customers to easily access, manage, and consume their operational data. Oil and gas customers can use this data to monitor, forecast, and increase production.

• Reference architecture diagram Production Monitoring & Surveillance

Refinery Monitoring & Surveillance

This Guidance helps downstream energy operators deploy a secure and modernized industrial data environment. It uses independent software vendor (ISV) partner products and AWS services to ingest plant sensor data, then route, store, and analyze the data for visualization and reporting. Data from disparate sources, such as refining and petrochemical industrial data, can be brought into a centralized repository in near real-time to help refineries with a comprehensive, real-time view of operations, enabling proactive maintenance, optimized processes, improved safety, and increased efficiency.

• Reference architecture diagram Refinery Monitoring & Surveillance

Equipment Health and Maintenance

Downstream Equipment Health and Maintenance solutions help industrial energy customers derive near real-time visibility into early indications of equipment failure and equipment performance. This yields additional lead time to drive field action, such as equipment optimization and proactive maintenance planning. Customers can reduce unplanned downtime while optimizing equipment lifecycles, helping them improve maintenance planning and the associated costs.

• Reference architecture diagram Equipment Health and Maintenance

Connected Field Work

Connected Field Work enables efficient and effective operations in remote field locations, such as well sites, pipelines, and offshore platforms. By leveraging various IT infrastructure components and communication technologies to connect field workers, equipment, and systems, it provides a way for field workers to visualize, consume, collect, and collaborate on operational data, as part of daily rounds, maintenance, construction, inspection, and turnaround workloads.

• Reference architecture diagram Connected Field Work

Recommended Metrics to Monitor

We recommend using the below metrics to create and configure alarms based on the above sample architectures and advise to follow the Practices for Observability from the AWS Well-Architected, Operational Excellence Pillar located here.