AboitizPower taps French company to advance GIS

CEBU, Philippines —  Learning the hard lessons from supertyphoon Odette, AboitizPower has tapped French company Schneider Electric to advance its Geographical Information System (GIS).

AboitizPower led by senior vice president and chief operations officer (COO) Anton Mari G. Perdices and Schneider Electric Philippines country president Ireen Go-Catane held a ceremonial contract signing of the partnership yesterday November 29, 2022, at the Aboitiz Corporate Office in Cebu City.

GIS is a location-based system that creates, manages, analyzes, and maps data. It connects the collected data to a map, integrating location data with descriptive information, ultimately providing a foundation for mapping and analysis that is used across industries.

According to Perdices, Visayan Electric consumers could expect much faster restoration response especially in calamities and other interferences of the electric distribution flow with the most advance GIS interface.

Perdices mentioned that the “Odette experience” has become the company’s turning point to employ the most advance GIS platform and automating the entire system.

The Visayan Electric will pilot the implementation of the system in the next 18 months. Davao and the rest AboitizPower distribution units will follow suit.

The entire new GIS system will be rolled out in the 24 months covering already other electric distributions units of Aboitiz Power, such Cotabato Light, and EnerZone Group.

GIS also plays a major role in determining the most ideal locations for identifying and developing renewable energy resources. and offers organizations a lens to understand different objectives and create an

environment for collaboration.

Schneider Electric's GIS System of Design Solution Suite called ArcFM is a comprehensive enterprise digital mapping solution that provides a map-centric, intuitive way to model, design, maintain, and manage facility and land-based information. It's used by utilities to digitally transform the life cycle of assets and recreate a digital twin of the distribution networks using ESRl's ArcGIS technology.

AboitizPower's initial plan is to enhance its current GIS system by integrating Schneider Electric's ArcFM Solution Xl Series, enabling AboitizPower to deliver increased efficiency, powerful data sharing, and data accuracy in the work environment. This integration also furthers sustainability targets- a shared value between AboitizPower and Schneider Electric--as this GIS platform serves as frameworks for multidisciplinary collaboration in designing, implementing, and administering sustainable practice policies.

“GIS solutions have been a key investment in improving the way AboitizPower operates," said Perdices.

By incorporating Schneider Electric's ArcFM Solution XI technology into AboitizPower's system, we will be able to operate more efficiently across all our locations, deploy faster in new areas, and improve time to recover in outages especially during calamities. Thus, we become more empowered in coming up with innovative and sustainable ways to serve our customers and partners,” Perdices added.

“As utilities shift toward more automation with real-time information delivered anytime and anywhere, organizations are driven to enhance data collection and digitize information through their GIS. Moreover, the technology not only allows organizations to improve the way they produce and deliver energy, but also reimagine the way they view and utilize the earth's resources." noted Catane, adding that through  this partnership with AboitizPower, “we hope to help users understand patterns, relationships, and geographic context, thus improving communication, efficiency, systems management, and decision making- while remaining sustainable.”

Moving forward, Catane pointed out that Schneider aims to extend its digitization initiatives to other industries through strategic collaborations with utility and telecommunications organizations.