Hydro One Ontario Grid Control Centre (OGCC) - Facility Commissioning

In early 2002, Hydro One began building their central facility for monitoring, managing, and troubleshooting the provincial hydro network (distribution grid). The purpose of the OGCC was to consolidate resources so that Hydro One could effectively monitor the network in real time and provide immediate response to customers needs. As part of this mandate, the facility was to serve as the central hub for coordinating assets and resources for both planned and unplanned service interuptions.

Construction of the high-security facility began in 2002 and proceeded for two years. Because of the importance of the facility, there were many issues to address during this period, such as: accessibility, security, reliability, standards, contingency planning, resource coordination, testing and certification, maintenance and servicing, documentation collection, and information dissemination.

The Role of ExtenSys

ExtenSys was invited to assist Hydro One in commissioning the facility in 2002 and continued with on-site support until after the fall 2004 official opening. As part of the facility commissioning team under the Hydro One Construction and Asset Management divisions, ExtenSys employees provided the following services:

• generate a comprehensive maintenance program for all facility equipment.
• design and execute integration test plans for the facility and its components.
• deliver first-line support to troubleshoot equipment, software, hardware, network, or other system failures.
• assess functional parameters of facility equipment to ensure specifications were achieved.
• maintain a defect tracking database for monitoring and reporting on incomplete or substandard work.
• research and recommend acceptable standards and engineering designs for second tier equipment.
• catalog and inventory all facility equipment (e.g. mechanical, electrical, safety, security)
• review all technical documentation and write operational instructions for training and support purposes.
• create and administer a master library of all submissions and drawings.
• review all drawings to ensure they reflected the as-built status of the facility.