The energy landscape is at a turning point.
This is an exciting time.
We must continue to respond to traditional needs
like renovating electricity grids
and ensuring a reliable energy supply
while offering solutions to new challenges
like integrating renewable energy into the grid,
self-consumption,
and electric vehicles.
At Schneider Electric,
we have developed interoperable platforms
and solutions under the name EcoStruxure.
EcoStruxure Grid, for grid operators,
connects communicating devices with software platforms
to deliver services to grid operators.
ADMS is a crucial component of EcoStruxure Grid.
It enables grid operators to manage all of these new needs
with a powerful software platform.
SICAE, the electric utility for France’s Somme and Cambrai regions,
saw the benefits of digital technology very early on as a way
to respond to emerging grid management challenges
and new ways of producing and consuming energy.
We set up a partnership with the utility.
We took the time to listen to their needs
and develop a custom solution to respond to those needs.
Welcome to SICAE, the electric utility for the Somme and Cambraisis regions.
This is our facility in Angest,
which helps us to effectively carry out
our missions of managing the electricity grid
and as an electric utility through our subsidiary Proxelia.
We provide electricity to 185 municipalities
in the eastern and northern Somme region,
for a total of around 30,000 customers.
We need to be very innovative
due to the fact that we have a lot of renewable energy in the area.
It can be really disruptive to grid operations.
In addition, the Linky communicating electricity meters
will soon be installed throughout the area we serve.
The meters will help consumers
take control of—and hopefully reduce—their energy consumption.
So, we need powerful,
innovative solutions.
Which is why it is so important to us to stay at the cutting edge
and why we partnered with Schneider Electric.
ADMS is part of a comprehensive project
to optimize our grid management;
it will respond the new challenges
we are facing as a grid operator.
This is where the smart grid comes in.
For us,
ADMS is the basic building block of the smart grid.
Above all it gives us a tool for supervision,
management optimization,
simulation,
effective scheduling of work on the grid,
incident management, and traceability.
We can do things like effectively optimize the grid
by integrating measurement sensors at strategic points:
at substations (the interface between transportation and distribution),
at wind farms
to measure what is happening
and how much energy is being injected into the grid,
and at sensitive consumption points.
The facilities on the grid,
whether they are wind farms or consumption points,
can also be geolocated.
ADMS tells us where an incident has occurred,
gives us a preliminary indication of where the fault is,
and lets us manually reconfigure the power supply
to areas not affected by the incident.
Therefore, we get an asset management system,
a technical management system,
and a management system that is innovative,
given the rollout of the Linky communicating meters
and electric vehicle charging stations.
We also get a management system
that responds to all of our grid optimization needs
and lets us communicate with all stakeholders:
the national high-voltage grid operator,
producers for the wind energy component,
and consumption points.
When you look at ADMS, it really is innovative.
We also get optimized management tools.
We had to be sure that from a technical standpoint ADMS
would be able to meet all of our future needs,
especially in terms of smart grid management.
We felt that Schneider Electric
was the best partner for us given the feedback we had
and our previous experiences working
with Schneider Electric technicians, engineers,
and sales representatives.