In This Issue
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After three years of nasty mainstream tales, the smart grid’s negative press has finally calmed down (though in Texas they are still arguing over whether—and how—customers can refuse smart meters). Because of those nasty tales, we’ve moved from talking about smart grid to talking about IT/OT integration/convergence, which—I’ll let you in on a little secret here—is the exact same thing as the... -
+Ice, wind, rain impact customers, infrastructure, culture
As we examine what we can learn from Hurricane Sandy in hindsight, it reminds us of other storms and weather issues that brought new challenges and exhausting tasks in the past. In the Tulsa, Oklahoma, area, we still talk about one particular ice storm from five years ago.The December 2007 eastern Oklahoma ice storm was the largest outage event in Public Service Company of Oklahoma's (PSO's)... -
+OK, TX, CA all represented
Energy utilities in the U.S. are making significant strides in educating and engaging their customers about how to better control the amount of energy they use, the resulting costs they incur and the benefits to shifting their consumption. New installations and activations of smart meters combined with the deployment of smart grid infrastructure and an ever-growing array of smart energy... -
+Can we close the cyber blinds
We're all concerned about privacy. If we weren't, there would be no market for window blinds and no need to have special settings on Facebook to keep out frenemies. Those concerns range from the personally creepy to the publicly insecure and involve both information we willingly share and information companies can gather without our direct knowledge.Within the power industry, privacy concepts... -
+ Technical activities strategic directions through 2020
The International Council on Large Electric Systems (shortened to CIGRE from its French moniker) serves as the largest international platform for exchange and preparation of technical information for the power industry. With its members in industry, utilities, universities and other related institutions, CIGRE is consequently right at the heart of these developments. For this reason, CIGRE's... -
+PG& E, Austin Energy Show off their programs
When temperatures soared into the high 90s last August, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) issued an alert to encourage conservation efforts among homeowners and businesses. As the state's main overseer of California's electric grid, CAISO was concerned that record use of air conditions would threaten the state's energy supply.Following up on the conservation request, Pacific Gas... -
Npower is among the least popular organizations in Britain. For the fifth year in a row, the British utility has been voted the country's worst energy supplier in terms of customer satisfaction by price comparison website uSwitch and for the second successive year by the Consumers' Association, more commonly known as Which?In recent years, Npower has attracted notoriety and heavy regulator fines... -
+the success of analytics still comes down to people
No matter how advanced technologies get in the analytics world, the success of those technologies still comes down to people. And, finding the right analytics personnel isn't an easy task. The Utility Analytics Institute publication, Analytics Personnel: Building the right team for success, discusses numerous questions facing utilities such as:Who are the ideal analytics employees for our company... -
+But customers don’t care
Utilities once labeled end-users as ratepayers. And, that moniker stuck for more than sixty years. What customers used to bring to the table was a steady income for a power company. These days, however, the smart grid and more competitive markets have changed the power game. Utilities are following more consumer-oriented trends, putting those end-user wants and needs at the front of analysis and...1 -
+Data, DA, customers and clouds all make an appearance
Where will our technology related investments be devoted in the coming five to seven years? In the last five to seven years, our industry experienced a dramatic infusion of new technologies with many related to smart grid, and I believe that fast pace of new technology introduction will continue, especially in the areas of data, distribution automation, customer-related solutions, cloud...
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