Join us on Wednesday, September 2nd for our webinar on Utility Content. We will be covering some of our newly added content as well as new search features.
To register for this webinar, please click the link below:
Utility Content: New Content and Search Methods Webinar
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020 at 11:00a.m. CST
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7166513844913089807
Watch our latest webinar on the newly released Automated Utility Design (AUD) 8.2!
Join us on Thursday, July 30th for our webinar on the newly released Automated Utility Design (AUD) 8.2! We will be showcasing the many exciting new features available in AUD 8.2 with a Q&A session.
To register for this webinar, please click the link below:
Automated Utility Design (AUD) 8.2 Product Showcase
When: Thursday, July 30, 2020 at 11:00a.m. CST
Register @ https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7937414431630932237
Latest release provides enhancements to Layout Tools, Overhead Analysis and Underground Modeling
AUD 8.2 is now available! We have been listening and made significant enhancements based on customer feedback. Among the many enhancements, we have improved the layout tools, overhead analysis, and underground modeling.
Layout Tools
The layout tools now allow auto path routing and split offset options for digitizing. The split offset option for point placement will automatically split and reroutes lines to new equipment. The layout tools also have a new optional drop-down menu in the ribbon control. This will give you an option to show placement buttons directly in the default panel.
Overhead Analysis
Many of the overhead analysis and modeling enhancements include sag analysis that now tracks and organizes the results by ruling span sets, allowing for ruling span based reporting, validation and custom analysis through rules. Overhead wire features can now be configured with models and used for analysis and now you can use new general purpose objects to model detailed equipment.
Underground Modeling
Underground modeling now has dynamic parameterized ports for trench and underground line offsets with duct and port assignments of contained lines.
This is just a few of the enhancements in AUD 8.2. If you want to know more, SBS will be hosting a webinar on what is new in AUD 8.2 to talk about these enhancements and more!
Automated Utility Design (AUD) 8.2 Product Showcase
When: Thursday, July 30, 2020 11:00a.m. – 12:00p.m. CST
Register @ https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7937414431630932237
For additional information on Automated Utility Design (AUD) please contact Stefen Dobrec, [email protected].
SBS is excited to announce our virtual booth at the Esri User Conference! Stop by “virtually” and learn how Automated Utility Design™ (AUD) is harnessing the power or Esri’s Utility Network for the ultimate in utility solutions for GIS/BIM integration at the world’s largest virtual GIS event!
SBS will be presenting at the Substation Design Solution Industry Consortium (SDSIC) Virtual 2020 on June 24th and June 25th.
Dennis Beck, President and CEO, will be giving a company update on the many exciting things going on at SBS. Trevor Scullion, Director of Emerging Technologies, will be giving an overview of the new Utility Content site and Chris Ducote, Substation Technical Consultant, will be giving an overview of our soon to be released product, AUD for Substations.
The Substation Design Solution Industry Consortium (SDSIC) is made up of member utilities that have adopted or are investigating for adoption the Autodesk and SBS suite of software products (Inventor, AutoCAD Electrical, Substation Design Suite™) with Autodesk and SBS, the software developers. This is a great venue for meeting and discussing best practices with other substation design professionals from investor-owned utilities, municipal utilities and electric cooperatives.
Join us on Wednesday, June 3rd for our webinar on the recently redesigned Utility Content service. Utility Content is a secure online library containing thousands of substation components and customer component configurators. We will be going over what’s new and various methods of using the service.
To register for this webinar, please click the link below:
Utility Content – What’s New & Methods of Use
Wednesday, June 3, 2020 at 11:00a.m. CST
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5954930094308390416
For utilities, design engineering can be extremely complex and time-consuming.
Armed with Spatial Business Systems design tools, engineers can streamline utility workflows, boost productivity, and even produce higher quality work. With the SBS engineering design suite, utilities were able to better utilize spatial and design data for their businesses.
Check out this graphic to learn more about our streamlining efficacy and learn about SBS Success Stories, too.
This new release provides a new bus tool that will give users new options in placing round bus. A new ribbon command has also been added to access Utility Content. Along with this release, SDS – Physical is now available for Autodesk Inventor 2021.
SBS will be hosting a webinar on the new SDS – Physical release next week.
Wednesday, April 22, 2020 11:00a.m. – 12:00p.m. CST.
If you are interested in registering for this webinar, click the following link https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4263796547464473101
Among the number of new enhancements for SDS – P&C, the rollover tool now displays cable information, including length and estimated voltage drop. The user interface has been improved for both Schematic and Wiring Diagram terminal strip insertion tools. Additional enhancements have been added to the new three part ergonomic SDS Tools ribbon that made it debut in our last release. Along with this release, SDS – P&C is now available for AutoCAD Electrical 2021.
Last summer we had the opportunity to hear from a number of our Automated Utility Design (AUD) customers at the annual SBS Peer Utility Group, held at Puget Sound Energy in Bellevue, Washington, USA. One of our partners, Atwell, LLC gave a particularly interesting presentation on an innovative use of AUD for the design of wind farms.
Atwell is a full-service consulting, engineering, and construction services firm and their experience in engineering design combined with their long history in power and energy systems formed a great combination to provide a creative solution making renewable energy an affordable reality.
AUD has an excellent track record for performing integrated distribution design for electric and gas utilities. The product, based on AutoCAD Map3D, can natively perform design layout, voltage drop analysis and a nearly unlimited set of custom design checks when rules are configured within the system. Now we have learned that it can also be a great tool for designing the collection systems that support the design of wind farm systems.
The design of wind farm collection systems can be a challenging task. Traditional electric distribution system designs performed by AUD typically span a few city blocks; a wind farm can stretch 50 to 100 square miles, or more. The collection system, which consists of medium voltage cables between the wind turbines, in the Atwell design project exceeded 80 linear miles. These large-scale geographies are further complicated by numerous design constraints such as non-participating properties, environmentally sensitive areas such as wetlands and cultural sites and transportation corridors such as underground gas pipelines, railroads and roadways. It is not uncommon to have hundreds of crossings that need to be managed as part of the design and construction process.
These competing constraints make the design process complex and if the design is not properly optimized project costs can spiral out of control causing the well-intentioned goal of achieving renewable energy standards to be cost-prohibitive.
To understand how AUD can streamline wind farm design it is important to understand the current, semi-manual process. A wind farm project typically involves initial studies which then support creation of preliminary collection system layouts. The layouts are analyzed to determine groupings of turbines for purposes of defining conductor pathways as part of the collector system. All of these steps are subject to numerous constraints mentioned above. Many of these constraints can have very significant impacts on overall system costs. And they can get complex quite quickly – a moderately sized project can easily have hundreds of constraints that can impact an optimal design.
The Atwell team had been using a combination of AutoCAD, multiple spreadsheets and digital maps to perform the layouts and associated analyses. By using AUD they were able to include cable sizing, cable
loading along with the wide variety of constraints involved in the projects. These were then processed dynamically to generate summaries of the conductor designs. High-cost constraints such as borings can be included in the costing summaries. The results allowed Atwell to create a highly optimized design with greatly reduced manual effort.
Other benefits included auto-generation of callouts, sequential naming of splices over long conductor runs and optimal splice locations which all help to improve constructability in the field.
Using Automated Utility Design provides the opportunity for numerous, real benefits when designing wind farms. Here is what the team at Atwell, LLC has experienced:
· AUD greatly reduces interdependencies and manual data entry
· AUD provides design change flexibility
· Routine tasks become highly automated – a typical manual iteration can take 1 ½ days to implement but can now be accomplished in just minutes.
· Material usage can be much more highly optimized
· Overall design time is significantly reduced, while improving overall quality
· Better designs support better construction, reducing field construction costs and project changes.
Automated Utility Design has a highly configurable set of modeling constructs along with a powerful rules engine that can streamline many aspects of utility construction. We look forward to hearing about the design challenges you are having and will welcome the opportunity to discuss how AUD might work for you. Please contact SBS at [email protected], or feel free to meet us at our next Peer Utility Group event. Visit the PUG site at http://spatialbiz.comm/support/peer-utility-group/.