Utilities need to know the “ground truth” One of the utility’s primary missions is to minimize outage frequency and duration. Outage prevention is even more important during the COVID-19. Until recently, storm-related outage prediction has been limited by lack of data and the use of spreadsheet-based models. The good news: Up-to-date granular data (geo-referenced weather […]
A microgrid is an electrical distribution network with underground wires that serves two or more buildings in a local area. Microgrids can enter ‘island mode’ and separate from the larger electrical grid when there is a major outage – self supplying with locally generated energy. You may have seen the recent announcement regarding the activation […]
Power transmission has rarely been the hottest topic in the utility industry. With the integration of large-scale renewables and the drive to decarbonize, this segment of the power value chain has received more attention, and the focus on data is not to be underestimated. Moves to electrification are raising questions about whether new transmission infrastructure is […]
Performance-based regulation (PBR) has been in the news, with Nevada approving legislation calling for a PBR process. Hawaii just approved a Phase 1 of a ground-breaking PBR initiative, deciding what “performance-based rates, tariffs, and other regulatory mechanisms were most critical for the island state’s efforts to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.” Utilities are relying more […]
With an uptick in literacy in Python and R, utilities are hearing the term “open source” more often. But, open source has already become ubiquitous in many industries. The 2019 Open Source Security and Risk Analysis Report found that 100% of the software operating at in the energy and cleantech has open-source code. It stands to reason, […]
Duke Energy has a reputation for deploying analytics to solve business problems. The Data Science role at Duke was defined in 2014, with the first Data Scientist hired in 2015. Duke Energy now has over 80 data scientists across the enterprise. One senior data scientist, Miguel Sanda, has been exploring how the self-organizing maps (SOMs), unsupervised […]
Once a niche product, EVs are coming into the mainstream. In the United States, registrations for EVs have grown at an astronomical 55% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2011 to 2016 . According to a recent AAA survey, one in five U.S. drivers desires an EV for their next car. For utilities, EVs offer […]
A grassroots approach, combining coursework and “learning by doing” has helped two utilities – Exelon and Consumers Energy – to embed analytics into the work culture. To read more, go to Embedding Analytics from the Ground Up: Training and Projects, UAI, December 2019. Data governance is like motherhood and apple pie. Everyone thinks it is […]
Ever since the 2003 blackout, vegetation management has improved, largely due to FERC regulation. Still, improvement has been mostly in transmission. The “last mile” of distribution has not achieved maturity. The good news is that analytics infrastructure – monitoring, data access, analytics and operationalization – could bring more wisdom to managing distribution line vegetation. To […]
Amazon made big news last September when it announced a deal with well-funded startup Rivian to deploy 100,000 medium-duty electric box trucks by 2030. There are a lot of incentives for companies to adopt electric fleets. Still, there are a lot of unknowns – which class of trucks will be adopted first, when will substantial […]