State Technical University (NETI) is developing an intelligent loss accounting and resource saving system for energy companies and large consumers. The project was among the winners of the Student Startup competition of the federal project "University Technology Entrepreneurship Platform" and received grant support in the amount of 1 million rubles.
In electric networks, due to equipment failure and fraudulent actions, an imbalance of electric energy is revealed, that is, the generated electricity reaches the consumer in a smaller volume. Correlation analysis of large amounts of energy consumption data allows us to identify the causes of commercial losses and energy imbalances.
"Every year, energy companies that supply energy resources incur financial losses, their causes may be as follows: cumulative error of the utility resource metering unit, mismatch of accuracy classes of metering units in the system, non—simultaneous taking of readings, theft (impact on the metering device to understate readings), unaccounted-for use of electricity by private sector consumers, connection to inter-quarterly networks of the electric grid. All this leads to daily losses of utility resources. The total loss of electricity in the networks of industrial enterprises is up to 11%. The payment of excess losses is borne by energy supply companies and large consumers and is their direct loss. Financial losses of companies from under-accounting of electricity amount to hundreds of millions of rubles per year. This is what prompted me to start developing this system. The idea is to identify the causes of power losses," said Daniil Gorevoy, the author of the project, a 3rd—year student of the Faculty of Automation and Computer Engineering at NSTU-NETI.
According to him, the system under development includes the analysis of electricity consumption balances in an hourly data slice; prompt detection of consumption deviations in accounting nodes and transmission of an imbalance signal to the operator; taking into account retrospective data series when performing correlation analysis of deviations. This development is aimed at increasing the transparency and accuracy of accounting for mutual settlements between consumers and energy supply organizations. The product will be used to validate data for mutual settlements between suppliers and consumers of energy resources in order to identify energy losses for large manufacturing enterprises. The development will save significant funds for large consumers and energy supply organizations.
"The innovation lies in the principle of balance sheet analysis. The market for resource-saving automation systems in Russia is not developed, there are point solutions in different regions, but there is no information about commercial distribution. According to statistics, more than 50% of consumers of the retail electric energy market suffer losses of energy resources caused by inaccuracy of commercial accounting, errors of devices, unaccounted consumption," Daniil Gorevoy added.
Currently, a prototype of the system has been implemented, testing is being carried out on the initial data (retrospective readings of metering devices for 24 months). The grant funds are planned to finalize the system, create a commercial version and put it into operation.