The new energy landscape is taking shape. Large solar, wind, and storage facilities are now an important part of any utility’s resource mix, but building the infrastructure needed to harness new sources of energy is no small undertaking. For example, building or upgrading new transmission lines can be multimillion-dollar, multiyear projects. The Institute for Progress estimates that the average transmission project lasts over 10 years, with some projects running up to 20 years. Building this infrastructure efficiently is critical.
Additionally, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that, in 2024, solar and wind accounted for 17% of power generation in the nation. This number will only go up for the foreseeable future as load growth increases and proliferates, underscoring the need for building out a utility’s infrastructure.
Any effort that utilities and their partners make to expedite the buildout and operation of this critical infrastructure adds value to the overall energy mix for any utility and, of course, for their customers. Fortunately, there are tools and solutions that can improve the efficiency, accuracy, and sustainable collaboration of large complex engineering projects. These solutions can unify the utility, their engineering and design partners, and the various construction entities across the lifecycle of a large project.
In a recent discussion with Dave Lewis, electric utility sector solution manager with Bentley, he noted some of the unique challenges in effectively managing and delivering on these large, complex projects.
“Having one version of the truth is critical,” Lewis explained. “Ensuring that everybody from the utility back office to contractors on a job site have access to the project information not only saves time and money, but there is also greater accuracy and fewer errors going from design to construction.”
Lewis noted that some common challenges emerge as a project moves forward. First, with so many utility assets installed at different times, seemingly simple tasks, such as ensuring that as-builts are an accurate reflection of what is actually on the ground, can become complicated. This is due to technology changes, evolving or lacking standards, and organization changes across this sector.
A second challenge is that not all people involved in a project are likely to be fully aware of the information needs of other groups involved in different aspects or phases of the project. For instance, people doing the design work might not have all of the construction considerations in mind when the time comes for field work.
One additional challenge is the frequent lack of accurate notes, and notes from designers, engineers, and contractors might all reside in a different places in different formats—such as design programs, spreadsheets, and handwritten notes on paper documents.
In these scenarios, there is an urgent need for an integrated solution that can manage documents and processes at a large scale across different users. Lewis spends his days focused on these challenges. He said some utilities and their partners are solving these challenges and keeping the energy transition moving forward.
“Breaking down siloes inside the utility and across traditional boundaries is key,” Lewis said. “People have historically been focused on just what is in their areas. Our Bentley iTwin and ProjectWise solutions help break down these siloes and enable people with different roles and different visibility needs to all work from a central common space. Every person knows the place to look for project related info.”
These capabilities were an important part of a recent successful project led by Exo, Inc., an engineering firm based in the midwestern U.S. Working with a large investor-owned utility, Exo used Bentley iTwin Capture as the platform for a project that ensured that power was still delivered across difficult terrain to critical customers, including hospitals, during the pandemic. This project was quite literally a matter of life and death.
The project started after a routine inspection revealed that a critical 161-kilovolt overhead transmission tower had been damaged by flood debris. The tower supported a transmission line serving several COVID-crowded hospitals in the central U.S. Exo’s role was to develop and implement a stabilization solution to avoid a catastrophic power outage.
To overcome the challenges of operating in a floodplain, which is a difficult geographic environment, and ensure accurate data acquisition and survey results, the Exo team utilized advanced data capture and processing technology, including imagery from drones, to survey and model the structure and create a digital twin to determine a feasible stabilization plan.
The project included using iTwin Capture and Power Line Systems (PLS) solutions, as well as other applications from the Bentley suite of tools and solutions, to design a digital twin to ensure accuracy and efficiency in developing the stabilization solution. Michael Miller, vice president of engineering services at Exo, said the project was a success.
“The use of Bentley software, and executing a flat boat launched drone-based photogrammetry survey over the flooded area, saved at least four to six weeks of time and possibly saved multiple lives by stabilizing the structure, avoiding a potentially long power outage,” he commented.
Lewis explained how utilities and engineering firms are working with Bentley tools and solutions to meet and exceed their design, engineering, and construction goals. “With a common platform, designers and engineers are not wasting time on finding and collecting data. The common Bentley iTwin platform also leads to a huge reduction in time- and resource-wasting mistakes often caused by too many people working from different data sources. This is a leap forward across the full spectrum of tasks, people, and organizations working on large electric utility projects.”
Watch for the next article in this series. For more information on the integrated design and engineering solutions making building a better reality, please visit Bentley's electric utilities and energy production pages.