Director of Digital Transformation "SO UES" Stanislav Terentyev - on the priorities of digitalization and the features of import substitution

Stanislav Terentyev: Digital transformation for the Company as a whole is a transition to a qualitatively new level of integration of digital technologies into the processes of operational dispatch management, ensuring the operation of markets and planning the development of the Russian energy system. In the information technology part, it consists in the radical replacement of the physical component of the DC infrastructure (dispatch centers) with digital ones with standardization at the level of architectural approaches and implementation, taking into account regional features, of a virtual software-defined infrastructure. The special role of the System Operator - a legally defined organization that monopolizes the operational dispatch management of the UES of Russia - to be the "think tank" and the main ideologist of the introduction of effective technologies - is not only preserved, but also strengthened in the process of digital transformation.

Since the functions performed by the company in the energy system are infrastructural, the transition to innovative digital models of interaction with other industry players is possible only if it is ready, one can say the "digital maturity" of the entities and facilities of the electric power industry. Our significant efforts to implement projects such as the Common Information Model (CIM) standardization of information exchange are aimed primarily at the joint achievement by all industry participants of the level of digitalization, which can have a significant economic and social effect, as well as ensure the geostrategic security of the unified energy system.

In other words, the digital transformation of the industry and the System Operator is interdependent and therefore must be interconnected.

Stanislav Terentyev: We have every right to paraphrase your question into the diametrically opposite one: "How far can the electricity industry allow itself to get ahead of other industries in the implementation of digital innovations?" Read the history of industrial use of information technology and, I think, be surprised when you find out that initially everything that is called "IT in industry" today was invented in the electric power industry. The first domestic computers, on which the most complex calculations were carried out since the end of the 50s of the 20th century - from atomic research to the state plan, were designed under the guidance of electric power specialists and were intended initially for calculating the electric modes of power systems.

There's nothing really surprising about that. Throughout the world, the electricity industry is one of the most important components of the country's economy, the development and sustainable activities of enterprises, the quality of life of the population and the security of the state as a whole depend on its functioning. Therefore, on the one hand, the electric power industry should be one step ahead to anticipate the needs of other industries in everything, including technological shifts, but on the other hand, when introducing new technologies, especially affecting the operation of basic equipment, power engineers do not have a "right to mistake," the solutions being implemented require a certain, sometimes long time of testing and testing.

Of course, the electricity industry is quite conservative, especially when it comes, for example, to the life of people or the safety of equipment. But this conservatism is based on an impeccable knowledge of the subject and a deeply rooted ability to bear full responsibility for the decisions made.

Stanislav Terentyev: Digitalization of the process of operational dispatch management in the electric power industry on the basis of advanced technologies for managing power systems and IT has been carried out continuously since the very concept of "IT," as I said. The development of digital technologies in JI occurs naturally with a corresponding change in our internal business processes and relationships with other industry entities in the following main areas:

• introduction of geographically distributed ICS in the dispatch centers, which we have almost 60, including operational dispatch control systems, adaptive stability inventory monitoring systems, centralized systems and local PA complexes, monitoring and analysis systems of transient modes in power systems based on vector measurements;
• digital modeling of the power system and its elements on the basis of open CIM standards using the national standards of GOST R 58651 series and the standards of the International Electrotechnical Commission IEC 61970 and IEC 61968 in the Company's business processes and in cooperation with the EIM UES entities;
• Development of the OPEM (wholesale electricity and capacity market), the system services market, including aggregate demand management. Separately, I wanted to note that the initiative on digital demand management of consumers of the retail market is a vivid example of the real digitalization of the company and the industry, where one of the effects will be a reduction in consumer costs for the purchase of electricity and capacity;
• development of technologies for remote control of power plant equipment and network facilities from the control center, which will reduce the production time of operational switching, that is, finding the power system in unstable or suboptimal condition by 10 times (from 30-50 to 5 minutes). The duration of the mode restrictions and the time of forced deviation of power plants from the planned load schedule for the execution of the mode measures are reduced by almost an order of magnitude.

Special attention is paid to the creation and continuous development of information security. Due to the fact that the management of the UES of Russia is based on the continuous exchange of technological data between electric power facilities and our dispatch centers, the company's active position on digitalization of its activities is one of the main drivers initiating deep automation processes of electric power facilities and large electric power consumers.

Global trends and conditions for the development of the electric power industry in Russia set a strategic framework for decision-making by all companies, including JI. At the same time, each company has its own conditions and interests, specifying its actions aimed at implementing the strategy. On the one hand, the variety of specific solutions supports the variability and adaptability of the system as a whole. On the other hand, the coherence of these actions between the main "actors" under the leadership of the Ministry of Energy is the key to the strategically verified development of the entire industry.

As an example, when developing digital transformation programs for CO, PJSC Rosseti, PJSC RusHydro, joint initiatives were developed on the use of remote control technology, the unification of information exchange based on a single CIM information model.

Stanislav Terentyev: In accordance with the rules of tariff regulation of the company, the preparation, approval and approval of the investment program covers a 4-year period. All initiatives included in the digital transformation program are on the list of IT projects as part of the company's investment program. Given the wide experience of the System Operator in testing for the subsequent use of new digital technologies and the existing high digital maturity of technological processes, the budgets of 2020 and 2021 are commensurate, in the future it is planned to gradually increase costs to maintain tariff solutions.

Stanislav Terentyev: I believe that the challenge posed by epidemic restrictions only accelerated the transformation of companies using digital technologies. In companies with a high level of availability of infrastructure and software solutions, the transition to remote operation was operational with the possibility of using almost the entire set of enterprise systems.

The system operator is a clear example of such a company. Since for us digital transformation, even when it was not so called, has always been an organic component of constant work to improve technological and non-technological processes, we did not even have to seriously revise our plans in this direction - we were ready.

Stanislav Terentyev: Readiness is provided by a set of technical and organizational measures, including financing in network and generating companies.

Today, at the level of facilities, technological parameters of operation are not fully recorded, transmitted and displayed in digital format. The current equipment of power plants, networks, switching, measuring and distribution equipment, protection and automation terminals with the traditional architecture of secondary circuits prevents the implementation of the idea of ​ ​ deep digitalization of energy facilities and the full use of the advantage of digital technologies on existing equipment.

The presence of a large number of disparate local monitoring systems for process parameters does not allow performing a comprehensive assessment of the technical condition of the equipment, which does not allow predicting a change in its state over time.

However, projects are already being implemented or planned as part of the developed strategies for the digital transformation of industry companies to digitalize the main areas of activity.

Stanislav Terentyev: Everyone understands that it is necessary to replace imports. But there are a number of issues that do not allow this process to be carried out quickly. There are separate software packages that are analogues of foreign products, but there are no complex solutions that allow you to implement without any additions, which usually lead to an increase in the cost of the implementation and ownership process. Separately, it should be noted that the functional, technical and operational characteristics of the produced domestic solutions do not contain information on the compatibility of products with previously installed elements.

It is difficult to replace when domestic analogues presented on the market do not meet functional requirements and are not embedded in the operating infrastructure. However, we see that the list of products that are difficult or impossible to replace is constantly decreasing, because import substitution processes have been going on since 2014 and the lines of Russian solutions are not in place, the market is changing dynamically, new products are appearing, something is improving, something appears or disappears from the Unified Register of Domestic Software.

By the way, if we talk about the registry, then we are faced with one problem of the methodological plan. Everything developed in the Russian Federation, but not entered in the register, is considered foreign. But we in the System Operator do not buy ready-made software for technological processes, it simply does not exist, it is unique and is developed on our order. And it turns out that we bear the costs in the development process for a year or more, but cannot call the "domestic" software product made by the Russian developer and report on the preferential use of domestic software included in the register. And we are discussing this issue in the process of coordinating the digital transformation program with the supervising FOIV - the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Energy.

Considering uniqueness of the SO functions, any management information system before introduction in commercial operation in JSC SO UES without fail passes test, approbation, check of compliance to the stated functional, technical and operational characteristics and compatibility with the existing infrastructure. This process takes from one year or more.

At the same time, when selecting and implementing new ICPs, priority is given to Russian technical solutions. In order to increase the efficiency of the Company's activities in the field of ensuring a planned and phased consideration of the possibility of replacing foreign products with equivalent Russian products, improving the quality and speed of decisions taken on the implementation of import substitution measures in the field of information technologies, SB UES JSC has established a Commission on import substitution in the field of information technologies, which coordinates work on testing Russian solutions and their introduction into business processes.

As part of its activities, plans of measures for testing and testing domestic solutions available on the market are approved and implemented annually, according to the results of which, if a positive conclusion is made, work is organized to implement them.

Stanislav Terentyev: The automated dispatch control system (ASDU) of the UES of Russia is built as a hierarchical system that provides the solution of operational dispatch control tasks at all levels of dispatch control. The most important task of ensuring the sustainable functioning of ASDU is to create a distributed software and hardware infrastructure, as well as a communication channel infrastructure that provides information exchange between dispatch centers and electric power facilities with operational technological information (tele-measurements, television signals, telecontrol commands) and non-operational technological information (oscillograms of emergency events, settings of RPA devices, results of determining damage locations on VL, etc.).

The main sources of process information for ASDU, as well as software and technical complexes implementing the execution of telecontrol commands generated by ASDU at electric power facilities, are automated process control systems (APCS). Traditional solutions for the integration of APCS into ASDU provide for the use of IEC 60870-5-101/104 information exchange protocols.

The disadvantage of this solution is the need to manually configure the composition of transmitted and received data at facilities and control centers, which with large data sets can be associated with human errors, lead to inaccurate telemetry data, and reduce the reliability of control systems in the UES.

The digital transformation of control systems should be aimed primarily at improving the reliability of the operation of the ASDU of the UES of Russia, including the elimination of the possibility of errors that arise during the setup of information exchange. This can be achieved by automatically forming information exchange settings based on the harmonization of information models used at electric power facilities and control centers.

The first steps have already been taken - in the expert environment, proposals have been formed for the application of the standards of the GOST R 58651 series "Unified Energy System and Isolated Energy Systems. Electric Power Information Model. " The fundamental standards of this series were introduced in 2020, they defined a unified format for the exchange of regulatory reference information in the electric power industry. A number of standards on private information models are under preparation and discussion. Implementation of the solutions provided by GOST projects will allow:

• ensure harmonization of information models of APCS of the electric power industry facility and ASDU in relation to process information available in APCS;
• implement automatic configuration of information exchange of operational and non-operational process information based on data contained in the information model in ASDU;
• completely eliminate errors in setting of information exchange within the framework of ASDU by automation of setting of information exchange protocols.

The proposed solutions will ensure the end-to-end integration of APCS of electric power facilities into ASDU at all levels of operational control. The implementation of GOST R 58651 series standards will give a powerful impetus to the digitalization of the electric power industry, will provide a reliable software and hardware infrastructure of ASDU UES of Russia that meets modern challenges.

Stanislav Terentyev: In the JI in 2019, categorization was carried out, information systems included in the list of critical information infrastructure (CII) were determined, and categories of significance were assigned. At the moment, we are in the process of creating an integrated system for ensuring the safety of significant KII facilities. Given the fairly strong interconnectedness of these processes in the industry, our constant business meetings and discussions with other companies in the industry, I can say that the dynamics of my colleagues are similar.

The intensity of the release of new regulatory norms in the field of CII protection is impressive, while these norms are formed in a general vein for objects from different industries. This situation leads to the need for iterative study and detailed procedures to bring such norms into line. Difficulties arise with different interpretations by companies with which interaction can be carried out within the framework of the functioning of the OKII itself, for example, with joint categorization.

There is an increase in costs and it is due to the specifics of the requirements. However, it is often a difficult task to distinguish measures emanating from the assignment of objects to CII from the total flow of costs in the framework of information security processes, since we, as advocates of an integrated approach, try to add them to a slender connected system.