EET&D: Steve, this year marks quite a milestone for QEI, doesn’t it? To remain an independent SCADA and substation automation supplier for 50 years is quite an accomplishment – one that may be yours alone to claim at this point. Just a little over two years ago we saw Advanced Control Systems (Atlanta, Ga.) acquired by EFACEC, a Portuguese company. They were, I believe, the only other independent SCADA supplier in North America with that kind of longevity, right?

Dalyai: Yes, that’s true. But to be accurate, ACS was founded in 1975 – fifteen years after Quindar, and of course, I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished during that time.

EET&D: One of the things I’ve noticed recently is that several of the areas that were being explored in the early days of SCADA are now key dimensions of the Smart Grid Era. A few of those that immediately come to mind are Demand Response, Volt/VAR Control and Feeder Automation. What can you tell our readers about the genesis of those applications?

Dalyai: Distribution Automation began its evolution in the early 1980s. Primary applications included Peak Demand Reduction – now called Demand Response – and coordinated Volt/VAR control. The communications challenge for distribution feeder applications was initially addressed with distribution line carrier systems that provided two-way communications between the substation RTU and the feeder devices. Peak demand reduction and automatic VAR control were two key applications we layered onto our SCADA platform.

EET&D: Was all of this internally developed?

Dalyai: Although we’ve developed the vast majority of our product line internally and continue to invest heavily in R&D, we made some strategic acquisitions to complement our offerings. In 1988 we acquired what was then General Electric’s Total Load Management System. That acquisition included a high-performance distribution line carrier system as well as a line of compatible load control receivers. To complete the solution set, we developed a variety of other feeder devices and became the first supplier of a fully integrated SCADA and distribution line carrier based system. In 2001 we acquired the automatic capacitor controller line of Cooper Power Systems and integrated it into our SCADA system to form a complete Reactive Power Management application.

EET&D: While longevity in the SCADA business certainly demonstrates survivability in what has proven to be an extremely volatile market, it can also be a double-edged sword with past sins sometimes coming back to haunt you. Has that been a problem for you?

Lavoie: Yes, I can vouch for that because a big part of my job is making sure that our customers always come first. That posture doesn’t always make my job easy, but as testimony to the fact that our position is more than lip service, we continue to support the telemetry products that we introduced in 1960 and offer functional equivalents using modern design for replacement and/or expansion purposes. We also have several decades-old SCADA systems in the field that have been brought up to current state-of-the-art functionality and specifications. Moreover, we have a separate dedicated customer service department that is ISO9001 certified, as is our entire organization.

EET&D: For most companies that have been around for any substantial length of time, keeping up with the latest standards, trends and technologies rapidly becomes an implicit – and expensive – dimension of survival. What advice would you offer to companies just starting out with today’s technology, but that will become the legacy installations of tomorrow?

Dalyai: First of all, I think it’s vitally important to stay connected to the industry through regular and active participation in industry professional associations, trade groups and standards-making organizations. Doing so is never easy or cost-free, but I personally feel that our participation has been a critical ingredient in our long-term success and sustainability.

Secondly, it is important to understand that electric utilities operate a critical infrastructure, the performance and reliability of which have major impli­cations for the economy, national security, and public safety. This means that new products integrated into the utility network must be based on technology that will remain viable and serviceable much longer than those ones used in general industrial applications. Our product development programs are based on this philosophy, and I am quite sure, have contributed to the company’s longevity.

EET&D: Can either of you offer some specific instances of why such participation is important?

Lavoie: Sure, I can give you several. For example, MultiSpeak® is an industry-wide software standard that facilitates interoperability of diverse business and automation applications, used mainly by rural electric cooperatives.

It was developed and is maintained by the MultiSpeak Initiative and provides a standard protocol for interoperable applications among various utility systems such as SCADA, Geographic Information Systems, Outage Management Systems, and so forth. QEI was the first SCADA system supplier to adopt this standard and pass the compliance test.

Another example is QEI’s participation in the development of the Electric Power Research Institute sponsored Utility Communications Architecture (UCA) initiative to provide a suite of communications protocols for seamless interoperability between the various utility systems. One of its components was the Inter-Control Center Protocol (ICCP) for applications between control system master stations such as SCADA and Energy Management Systems. ICCP was eventually adopted as the international standard, IEC-61870-6. The other component was UCA2.0, which was intended for communications between intelligent devices in the substation and between the substation and the SCADA master station. UCA2.0 was the foundation for another international standard, the IEC61850. QEI was an early adopter of both these protocols.

Dalyai: Without making the investments in time and resources that were necessary to participate in the evolution of those standards, I can’t even imagine that we would still be around. As I’ve said, being part of those activities is both time-consuming and expensive, but to not be involved puts you on the outside looking in – not where you want to be in these fast-paced times.

EET&D:  I know that you originally came from the legendary Bell Telephone Laboratories and as a result, your roots are squarely in engineering. As an engineer with over four decades of experience, what are some of your thoughts about the Smart Grid initiative and grid transformation?

Dalyai: The Smart Grid initiative is of great interest and a long awaited opportunity for QEI and other suppliers to the utility automation market. As currently envisioned Smart Grid has a strong focus on managing energy usage at the end user level. However, it must also include management of the electric power network itself. The reliability and the security of the network are essential for providing quality service to those same end users, and without both parts, the results will probably fall short of expectations. 

EET&D: There’s a rising controversy over whether the Smart Grid label itself sends a wrong message – especially to the general public – about the present state of the grid. To an average person, I can see how talking about Smart Grid transformation can sound like we’re emerging from the Dark Ages. Are we?

Dalyai: The concept of an intelligent grid is not new since the key components of it date back at least three decades. During that time, minicomputer-based control centers and microprocessor-based RTUs were introduced, creating the first intelligent and flexible automation platforms. That might have qualified as emerging from a fairly simplistic era, but what we are embarking on today – while certainly exciting, innovative and long overdue – is not really a huge leap technologically, at least not in the areas that seem to be getting the most attention, such as that being attributed to smart meters.

For example, a fully functioning remote meter reading proof-of-concept pilot project was implemented in 1970 while I was still at Bell Labs – and that was forty years ago! The system utilized the switched telephone network facilities and a central office based Electronic Switching System in Holmdel, New Jersey to read utility meters in Hawthorn, Illinois. Since then, the technology has been updated, of course, but the funda­mental difference today is the deployment scale and especially the level of investment. This is very much an economic issue, far more than a technological one.

EET&D: There appears to be a seemingly endless set of objectives for the Smart Grid, some of which are obvious and intuitive and others of which are quite aggressive. Still others seem to miss the mark entirely and are simply taking advan­tage of the opportunity to ride the Smart Grid wave. What do you see as the key areas that should top the list of Smart Grid objectives?

Dalyai: As currently envisioned, Smart Grid encompasses a wide range of functions and applications with a particular focus on smart metering at the customer premise. However, I believe – as do many of my colleagues – that priority should be given to the upgrade and automation of the system that delivers electric power to the final user, which is of course, is the distribution network itself. 

EET&D: Another popular notion is that Smart Grid is mostly about transmission. Is there any validity to that?

Dalyai: Early applications of SCADA systems were focused on transmission systems because of the impact of transmission system faults on the reliability of the grid. Subsequently, besides basic telemetry and control functions, other applications such as Automatic Generation Control and later, Energy Management Systems with advanced applications, were introduced for transmission networks as well as early applications of IEDs in the substations. Here again, these and other advanced tools have been around for decades. So, while I don’t know that there is a disproportionate emphasis on transmission, there is certainly plenty that can be done to improve the bulk power transmission network in terms of technology employed as well as from a regulatory and economic perspective.

EET&D: Is there anything else on the distribution side beyond metering that you feel warrants special attention or emphasis?

Dalyai: Again, the use of voltage reduction and load shedding to manage peak demand were the forerunners of today’s Demand Response systems. I expect that as we go forward, other demand-side management applications will also be more widely deployed. These include optimal Volt/VAR control and fault location, isolation and service restoration – applications that directly improve the efficiency and the reliability of the distribution network.

EET&D: These developmental trends have helped usher in a rising level of attention on power delivery, but are there other factors that will cause this trend to continue?

Dalyai: The advent of intelligent field devices and computer based master stations provided the enabling technologies for automating the distribution network. Several pilot projects have been implemented, and there are some broad deployments but, in general, Distribution Automation still hasn’t proliferated as extensively or as quickly as many of us had expected. There were, and perhaps still are, issues that prevent widespread deployments. Power quality and reliability are the two main issues that are routinely associated with distribution network performance, so I hope that continued focus on those issues by utilities and regulators will provide the driving forces needed to sustain that trend.

EET&D: Conversely, what do you feel are the impediments to the expansion of Distribution Automation?

Dalyai: The lack of availability of appropriate protocol standards – required for interoperability – was initially an impediment to the widespread deployment of DA systems. To be effective, DA must be an integrated system that aggregates information from the intelligent subsystems and processes it for various automation applications. To their credit, technical experts from utilities and vendors have recently joined together to address this issue, but other barriers still exist.

In my view the major impediment to the widespread deployment of DA has been the reluctance of utilities to make the necessary financial investments in the absence of a clear return on investment. Without the ability to forecast the bottom line benefit resulting from the complex infrastructure investment required, widespread adoption of DA will be protracted. 

Lavoie: As Steve points out, a full range of interoperable protocols and interfaces were developed over the past several decades that have now been field-tested in numerous pilot implementations. With these developments, all technical barriers have been removed, clearing the way for full commercial deployment of integrated Distribution Automation systems. Even so, the deployment of DA systems still lags significantly behind expectations and needs. 

EET&D: What do you see the Stimulus Bill doing for the electric utility industry overall?

Dalyai: Over the past decade – and particularly since deregulation – utilities have become very cost conscious
with a strong focus on profits and short-term gains. Of course, this pervasive trend has permeated the entire business community as well as many budget-strapped governmental organiza­tions; not just utilities. The result is deteriorating infrastructure, ranging from roads and bridges, to the electric power delivery network.

However, the health and well being of the electric power network is an absolute imperative for an industrialized society, and no industrialized nation can effectively survive in the 21st century without it. In today’s brutally competitive and globa­lized free market economy, safe, reliable delivery of electric power is not a luxury, but an imperative. Therefore, I think this is one area where there’s a strong argument for the government to encourage and even underwrite corrective action if the private sector is not able to adequately address this critical issue in a timely manner.

EET&D: So can I assume that you feel ARRA funding is going to positively affect the Smart Grid effort?

Dalyai: Yes, I believe that the government led – and partially federally funded – Smart Grid initiative is just what our industry needs to move forward with innovative projects to bring the grid up to 21st century standards. To accomplish this, fully developed, field-tested, ready for deployment DA technology can be further augmented with emerging technologies in IT, communications and software applications that have been developed, tested and standardized. However, while the government action may provide an initial impetus, in the longer term, utilities need to be incentivized to continue investing into the modernization of their assets. I believe the vendor community is waiting for this with full readiness and great anticipation.

EET&D: Lately there has been quite a bit of controversy about whether Smart Grid funds targeted to Advanced Metering Infrastructure projects are appropriately placed. In your opinion, should Smart Grid initiatives be driven primarily by utility-centric or customer-centric objectives?

Dalyai: To me, that’s almost like asking whether we should build good highways or smart cars. The obvious answer is that we want and need both. However, if funding is available for only one or the other, I would think we would follow the path that’s been taken all across the industrialized world, which is to develop a modern highway network first. In other words, if we don’t address and correct the root causes first we’ll just wind up driving smart cars on inferior roads, so it will be vitally important to address these objectives in the proper order.

EET&D: I suppose one could argue that all initiatives should be customer-centric, at least in the sense that the business case should be based on customer benefits. But when it comes to the targeting of Stimulus funds, should the primary objective be to improve the distribution network or make the customer premises smarter?

Dalyai: I think the situation very much parallels the transportation example. The fact is, utilities are in business to serve customers, but if the service is not reliable and affordable, inevitably customers will suffer. Clearly, it will be those same customers that will pay for smart homes, but if outages and inadequate service prevail, smarter homes will not provide the return on investment that those ratepayers are entitled to expect and receive – and in that case, nobody wins.

On balance, I feel that regardless of how the funds are applied, automation will play a central role in the ultimate outcome. Just how fast it will all happen is really the big question mark in my mind – but I’m very sure of one thing: we can’t get started soon enough!