How digital innovations will change the management of the power system

In preparation for synchronisation with continental Europe, Litgrid not only renews or builds physical infrastructure, such as overhead lines and substations, but also implements software and hardware innovations. Smart solutions will make it possible to manage the electricity transmission grid even more efficiently and reliably, contribute to the country's energy independence, integration with Europe, and data security.

Roma O?kutien? , head of Digital Development Centre, which implements these projects, says that certain systems and project management at Litgrid will change fundamentally in the near future. It will be more automated, based on data integrity, and will allow for increased flexibility and efficiency.

What are the main digitalisation projects currently implemented by the company?

Currently, the company is initiating and implementing a large number of digitalisation projects.

The implementation of new systems or modules promotes the creation and management of data, creates conditions for making decisions based on the most relevant data. We are implementing these projects to reach the 2030 strategic goals such as synchronisation, integration into the European electricity grid, ensuring the reliability of the transmission system, digital transformation.

Such systems as automatic generation control (AGC) and frequency stability assessment (FSAS) are one of the main conditions for the synchronous connection of the Baltic states and continental European electricity systems.

The AGC system provides automatic power system frequency recovery and balance control. It constantly monitors the parameters of the electrical network and determines every few seconds whether additional power needs to be activated and, if so, calculates its volume. Then the system sends reserve activation commands to the service providers and balances production and consumption.

FSAS will help engineers estimate the potential deviation of frequency stability parameters—how quickly and how much the frequency can change. FSAS will allow system analysis to be carried out in much more detail than before, as well as operational staff to monitor frequency stability opportunities in real time and determine the maximum permissible disturbance for the Baltic electricity system when working in isolation or synchronously with continental Europe. FSAS will help prevent disruptions in the electrical system.

We implement other digitalisation projects in order to modernize the electricity transmission network or document management.

For example, the renewable energy resources (RES) management system being developed is necessary to ensure stable integration of renewables and grid reliability. It will allow automatic management of renewable energy power plants, whose generated power exceeds the available free capacities of transmission network elements, from the dispatch control panel, as well as informing network users about planned restrictions on their production.

To achieve this functionality, we have created a process that connects the operator and the manufacturer, allowing to share generation data, perform analysis, and implement automated calculations in real time.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Common Data Environment (CDE) systems will help manage project documentation, which will later be transferred to operational work.

What changes await the company after the implementation of these solutions?

New software innovations, widely used in major economic sectors, allow smooth data exchange and management in the network, data storage in remote information repositories.

All this creates conditions not only for the intelligent development of transmission system management, but also ensures the integration of electricity consumers into network management, so that electricity consumers are properly and timely informed to encourage them to become active market participants.

All projects are implemented in pursuit of a strategic goal: the creation of an exchange platform and a data-based ecosystem by 2030. We have already started the data journey to analytics self-service and automation solutions, and in the future we plan to start applying machine learning (ML) or artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in our operations.

The development of AI, integrated information technology, digitalisation, increased application of ML solutions and manufacturing robotization are creating new product markets. It is very important for the company to be flexible, able to adapt and be at the forefront of this rapidly changing environment.

How are the company's employees prepared for these changes?

Digitalisation processes are already underway. Many employees now have to deal with important questions - how not to miss significant technological changes, which processes to implement in their activities, which ones to abandon, which competences employees need to acquire in order to be able to work successfully in a changed environment, which jobs to automate.

We are already paying a lot of attention to raising the digital competences of our employees. We organize trainings, solution testing sessions. We invest in data, its quality, we create the company's data ecosystem, employees are invited to discuss data, its use and openness. Branch ambassadors share good practices. We hope that this will make it easier for employees to make new decisions and adapt to changes.??