Guidelines to introducing common information model in a distribution system operator company

1. INTRODUCING COMMON INFORMATION
MODEL “CIM”
IN A DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM OPERATOR
“DSO” COMPANY
Alaa Karam - Masters of Science Degree in electrical engineering
2019-10-31

2. PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
1. Digitalization requires close collaboration between
business and IT. Business and IT need to understand
each other more than any time in the past. Business and
IT need to have more control over the IT/ICT landscape
that getting more and more complex.
2. The planning, implementation and the maintenance of
the IoT and Smart Grid applications will require
Sustainable/Reusable/Cost efficient integrations. The
usage of Standard message types, Standard protocols,
Standard communication and infrastructure
technologies, will probably be increased.
3. And we know that Enterprise Application Integration
(EAI) is a complex activity. Developing a new integration
flow between two different applications could take
approximately 1000 h, especially if the applications use
proprietary and application-specific interfaces.
Smart Grid Architecture
Model “SGAM” is a way
to explore the
complexity

3. CIM AND IMPROVING COMMUNICATION –
PROBLEM NUMBER 1
1. Systems representing their management data in
different ways. Often these systems use own semantics,
terminology, data structures and protocols.
2. There are “silos” of data that must be translated,
interpreted and harmonized both on semantical and
technical level.
3. The CIM Models and Schema is about well-understood
and abstracted information. The schema is designed to
be "technology-neutral“ with respect to its repository
and access protocol.
4. We need to solve semantic inconsistencies across all
boundaries and support the technical, operational and
business objectives within the organisation and
between organisations.

4. PROBLEM NUMBER 2
1. Large-scale deployment of distributed generation and
storage are boosting the utilization of automation and
ICT.
2. The foreseen bidirectional energy and information flows
make the requirements for IT/ICT more versatile and
more demanding.
3. The SGAM is a key outcome of the EU Mandate M/490’s
Reference Architecture Working Group. SGAM provides
a structured approach for developing Smart Grid
architectures in three dimensions . Using SGAM and
UML representations make it possible to formally relate
SGAM elements with UML models, such as the CIM.

5. PROBLEM NUMBER 3 - EAI
1. Integration becomes more and more complex. We face
a growing number of interfaces. A DSO integration
landscape can contain many integration flows between
many internal and external systems that may have
application-specific message types.
2. When you want to replace an old system that has many
integration flows with a new system, then a large effort
will be required in order to establish the new
integration flows. Many hours will be allocated for
understanding, documenting the different physical
representations of the proprietary messages.
3. Dealing with new concepts like CIM and CIM-based
integration flows could be a complicated activity that
need to involve many resources that have time and
willing to show the way and get by-in, decisions and
alignment from different stakeholders in different levels
of the company.

6. WHERE CAN WE USE CIM?
• The main CIM standards are:
• IEC 61970 - network
• IEC 62325 - energy market
• IEC 61968 - assets and related IT/OT processes
• CIM is using Unified Modeling Language (UML) to create and
maintain the conceptual information models
• The main usage of CIM is to model the physical components
of e.g. a DSO business and act as common semantic model
• The information models are important to visualize, discuss,
analyze, communicate and take business and ICT decisions
• CIM can provide power flow calculation/state estimation that
is used in transmission systems
• CIM’s specifications as an ontology allows involved parties to
understand the meaning of the specified data

7. WHERE CAN WE USE CIM?
• CIM proposes a standardized vocabulary for data exchange
between different information systems and data within
electricity networks
• Possible exchange of data that could use CIM message types,
may occur between:
• Internal DSO systems
• DSO systems and transmission systems
• Between different TSO systems
• DSO systems an the electricity market Hub
• It is very important to analyse the integration use case before
designing or reusing a standard message type
• Systems that provides CIM-compliant interfaces requires less
transformations/conversions if we compare the CIM-based
integrations with the integrations that use proprietary and
application-specific interfaces

8. WHERE AND WHEN CAN WE USE CIM?
• It is important to analyse different ongoing and planned
projects’ needs for information exchange
• Starting from an As-Is situation and analysing the
possibilities of using CIM in different integrations
• Identify different findings and recommend solutions
where CIM is a suitable alternative
• Identify which adaptations may be needed to introduce
CIM into different integration packages
• Create guidelines, tools and architecture deliverables
that supports an easy implementation of CIM-based
integration flows

9. APPLYING CIM IN SOME BUSINESS PROCESSES/USE CASES
Business process CIM-based Use case Changed in Project
Contracting and billing
(Move in/Move out)
Obtain meter readings on demand Project X and Project Y
Obtain scheduled meter reading Project X and Project Y
Infrastructure
maintenance
Meter commissioning and registration Project X and Project Y
Manage events and alarms Project X and Project Y
Disconnection and re-connection of the consumer’s premises Project X and Project Y
Replacement of Billing/MDM= Project X New Generation AMR = Project Y

10. CIM FOR METER RELATED FLOWS
Current Message Type
Corresponding CIM standard
message type (XSD)
Need For
extensions in the
CIM standard
Meter change MeterServiceRequests Yes
Meter Point change UsagePointConfig Yes
Meter Infrastructure change
EndDeviceConfig Yes
UsagePointConfig Yes
ServiceLocatoinConfig Yes
Meter Values MeterReading No
Event EndDeviceEvent No
Connect/Disconnect Request
EndDeviceControls No
EndDeviceEvent No
Connect/Disconnect Reply
EndDeviceControls No
EndDeviceEvent No
MeterReadings No

11. WHAT KIND OF METHOD AND TOOL(S) SHOULD BE USED TO GENERATE CIM DELIVRABLES
1. Start by developing/analysing the processes
2. Identify the use cases that can be linked to the usage of
CIM
3. Identify the required information
4. Review the required/available CIM packages
5. Identify the corresponding CIM classes
6. Create/reuse a CIM profile
7. Test the CIM profile
8. Generate (or reuse already existed) CIM message types
9. Design and implement the CIM integration flows
10. Test and deploy
The CIM Tools
Requirements
CIM Packages
CIM UML Classes
CIM Profile/
Contextual Model
Generated CIM/
XML/XSD
Information
Requirements
Design and
Implementation
Possible
Extention of the
CIM
Use Cases
Based
on
Based
on
Based
on
Based
on
2
3
4
5
6
9
8
Interoperability
and conformity
tests
7
Processes
1
Test Cases Based on
Enterprise
Application
Integration and
System
Capabilities
10
Adapt the
Capabilities
Organisation’s
CIM Repository

12. APPROACHES TO USE CIM
Approach for usage of CIM Advantages Disadvantages
Project-Based decision to chose CIM 1. Business Case/Time plan-based
approach.
2. Freedom of choice both for the project
and the organisation. No need for a project
to apply for an exception if the project will
not use CIM.
1. Difficult to achieve an agreement
without a strategic decision about the
usage of CIM in the company.
2. Old way of working by developing
integrations that use proprietary and
application-specific interfaces
CIM as a Strategic decision
1. Easy to decide when you have a decision
about the usage of CIM in the company
2. Possibilities to reuse and decrease the
complexity in the business and in the IT
landscape.
1. The implementation could take long
time if the company does not have the
required skills and experiences in
developing CIM-based integrations.
2. The project needs to apply for an
exception if the project will not use CIM.

13. WHERE WE ARE USING CIM TODAY
We are using CIM in the following areas:
1. Harmonization and standardization of the entity
statuses and event types
2. Event and measurement Messages from Substation
converted to CIM via a Enterprise Service Bus platform
“ESB”
3. Standard Entity Codes (e.g.):
• Meter Event Codes (General, Missing Value,
Realtime)
• Meter Register (Counter) Codes

14. A SIMPLIFIED INTERNAL MATURITY MODEL
• In step one and in step two of the simplified maturity
model, please se the provided figure in this page, a DSO
company could have a very weak connection/traceability
from the conceptual/logical to the physical models
• With help of the ongoing projects a DSO company should
try to implement:
• CIM message types in the defined integrations (where
this is possible)
• CIM codes and CIM statuses in the databases or/and
in the integration flows
• Incremental development approach, with both top-down
and bottom-up design
• CIM repository in our BI platform
• Start to map the organisational conceptual models to
CIM models 2015 2019
Using common
”organisational
language” => Better
communication for B2B
and for architect2B