Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management, announced today that Turkey’s largest natural gas distributor, GDA , has chosen the Schneider Electric Gas Day Operations (GDO) solution for planning its natural gas requirements. Over the past year, the gas distribution company, which supplies the city of Istanbul, studied the advanced gas application during a limited, pilot installation. Successful performance and positive evaluation resulted in the company electing to install the solution to serve its entire gas distribution system.
The Schneider Electric gas technology comes at a time when Turkey’s Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA) is requiring all of the country’s local gas distribution companies to implement a means of forecast management that meets international practices. Because Turkey imports its natural gas supply from neighboring countries, the authority looks to assure the country’s distributors manage the vital resource efficiently and effectively. With its deployment of the Gas Day Operations application, GDA becomes the first of Turkey’s local distribution companies to apply a solution complying with the EMRA mandate.
The Schneider Electric GDO solution creates a solid gas day plan using contractual commitments, weather data, consumption history, and other relevant forecasting criteria. Built-in analysis tools work with real-time data from the field, collected by the distributor’s supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system. This automated and reliable analysis will support the purchasing, movement, and storage decisions necessary to meet the plan – and avoid significant penalties that might be imposed by the EMRA.
The decision by GDA to implement the GDO application was based not only on a positive pilot project but also on successful performance of the Schneider Electric OASyS supervisory control and data acquisition system, installed in 2004 and providing reliable information management for the company’s daily operations since then. The implementation – which included GDA-specific advanced management applications for operational analysis and simulation, along with metering, control, and communications infrastructure – has helped the distributor substantially improve its response capability as natural gas demand in Istanbul continually rises. Straightforward integration of the new Gas Day Operations application with the legacy control solution will facilitate implementation. According to Schneider Electric’s Smart Infrastructure Division Executive VP, Ignacio Gonzalez, “Our ultimate goal is to deliver the solutions that energy providers need to meet their operational needs, today and tomorrow, and realize the most efficient and reliable energy supply possible.”
