Smart Utilities: For a Sustainable planet

Increasing Customer Self Service Adoption in Utilities

2012-05-14T23:00:00Z

Most of us already know that properly designed Self-service channels are much more cost-effective and convenient than other traditional customer communication channels like direct calls to Utility's Customer Service Representative or communications through physical paper etc. Then what are the main reasons that self-service adoption rate is still very low?

There are quite a few reasons like unstructured organization of data and process flow, not enough information to make the customer feel confident about doing it on his own etc but if utilities who have all these corrected but still having low adoption rate the most important reason that I personally feel is the inability to attract customer for the first time.

I think everybody will agree that in today's world money is the biggest motivator for the general mass in order to attract them for doing something. But it is also true that incentives are never the best and efficient way to attract customers.

Do you know how utilities pass on the operational cost-savings to the customer that they are achieving with more use of such self-service channels?

As part of General Rate Cases (GRC) this cost benefit gets factored in the rate at which customer pays their utility bills. Can't we think about any alternate way to pass on this cost benefit and get additional advantages out of it without spending anything extra than what the utilities are already spending right now?

When operational cost savings is accounted for in GRC rates, the benefit gets passed to all customers even though there are only few customers (self-service users) who are directly contributing to some part (cost savings due to self-service use over other costly channels) of this cost saving.

Find below some of the options, advantages and ways of incentivizing the customer for more use of self-service -

Options

Estimate cost-savings for each of the self-service features over traditional use of the same feature like placing a move-in/move-out/transfer order online instead of speaking to an agent to place the order or getting paperless bill over paper bill etc. Then assign an incentive to each of these features (doesn't need to be all and utilities can decide which one to give incentive for) and provide a credit to the customer as part of their monthly bill based on some of the significant-cost-saving features that were used by the customer in that month/bill cycle.
Have lucky draw/sweepstakes for some of the minimal-cost-saving transactions instead of trying to give incentives in pennies.
Also arrange for some lucky draw/sweepstakes for customers participating in constructive discussions, content rating, idea generation etc in the utilities social media forum. This is not a direct cost savings for the utility but a very small portion of the money that utilities currently spend on marketing and research can be utilized here to start interactive engagement with customers and thereby getting valuable inputs from the customers.

Advantages

Incentive for Customer - Providing a greater incentive in a direct way to eligible customers rather than providing very minimal incentive to all the customers.
Increase Self-Service adoption - More number of customers will use self-service primarily for the incentive (I am not ignoring the ease of use factor though) and thereby increasing self-service adoption rate.
Increase Customer awareness - In order to get the incentives customers will try out self-service on their own and utilities will get a chance to provide sufficient educational content that the customer will come across during the process. Educating the customer about different aspects of his engagement with utility and increasing awareness like energy use, energy efficiency, different billing and payment options etc are major goals of current utilities.
Getting valuable inputs from customer - Utilities spend lots of time and money to generate new innovative ideas, getting feedback, doing research on marketing etc. But I think they will get much more better result if they can reach out to the mass through the social media forums and get direct inputs from the end-customers who can be considered as a wider resource pool for utilities own work.

Marketing about this incentive

The most common channel in which customer communicates with utility is by calling the utility. Once the automated system (IVR) identifies that the customer is calling for something for which he needs to talk to an agent rather than an automated system and the same service is already available in utilities web portal it can read out a brief message about that alongwith informing the customer that he will be getting an incentive for completing that transaction on his own from the web portal.
The most common channel in which utility currently communicates with the customer is the bill and the associated fliers. Even though many customers don't go through these in detail but utilities can inform the customer about this incentive through a message in the bills.

I would like to know what type of issues do you think are there which prevents utilities from using this approach.

Vehicle to Grid technology to help Ancillary Services like demand response and boost PEV sales

2012-05-08T03:26:44Z

The V2G (Vehicle-to-Grid) concept has been around for some time, but it's only now, due to the development of some very sophisticated technologies and some aggressive targets, that we can expect to see more electric cars on the roads enabled by the direct beneftis of V2G.

The V2G concept is actually very simple. The batteries of a PEV (Plug-in Electric vehicle) still have minimum energy stored even after fulfilling the average driving need of an user. These vehicle owners can participate in programs where grid operators will be able to control the vehicle's battery use during peak times and get some amount of electricity back to the grid, while crediting the vehicle owner for these grid services. In the end, the vehicle owners will also have control of how much energy he/she wants to put back into the grid considering his immediate driving needs.

V2G can play an important role in the following -

regulation services which helps in keeping voltage and frequency stable,
spinning reserves which helps in meeting sudden demand for power,
charging at night during low demand and providing power back to grid during high demand

Even though utilities are increasing their reliance on intermittent renewable generation capacity like solar/wind power but still additional backup options like V2G would provide greater reliability in the case sufficient wind and solar power are not available.

Based on different government initiatives and market traction increasing numbers of PEVs are expected to be on road within the next few years and this will create the tipping point for PEV. Larger numbers of PEV's will create a cost-effective alternative to stationary energy storage and traditional short-term power plants, which are currently used for these ancillary services. However, substantial infrastructure investments, strong growth in PEV sales and innovative vehicle based technology will decide the success of V2G.

V2G could be an additional incentive for increasing PEV sales where cost is a major factor. With this Vehicle owners can quickly recover the cost of a PEV by putting it into maximum use (regular driving need as well as selling ancillary services) which otherwise will take longer with just savings in gasoline. Note that most of the current generation PEV batteries will last long enough even with frequent charging than the normal life of a car's regular use.

Smart Grid - Regulatory Perspective

2012-05-07T10:25:00Z

Currently, Power Generation, Transmission & Distribution companies alongwith Power Trading Exchanges and End-Consumers are independent entities. The Smart Grid is expected to integrate these entities and allow them to interact with each other and respond to situations in real time. This will require huge infrastructure in terms of network, smart devices, field equipment, IT applications etc. and will result in massive cost of implementation.

A Smart Grid project entails heavy capital expenditure and the benefits are realized over a period of time. Therefore a stable regulatory framework is of utmost importance. This framework will devise a mechanism for achieving balance between the cost & risk involved in implementation of such a large project.

It is important to carry out Cost-Benefit analysis before deploying smart grid technologies. But due to lack of established and proven technologies of these kinds, it's difficult to calculate cost and benefits. We do not have benchmarks available across the globe which can throw light on the social impact of such type of implementations. However, decisions regarding cost allocation of smart grids versus grid upgradation make it tough to measure the returns besides other issues such as uncertainty about customer participation and effectiveness. Another challenge is the fact that benefits will accrue over a long period of time.

In setting a stable regulatory framework, utilities have two options with them. The first one involves sourcing external funding in the forms of loan, grants and Public Private Participation (PPP). The distribution utilities could partner with a smart grid technology company to invest in infrastructure and work out a revenue sharing arrangement, which will not put burden on accounts of utilities. The other option is to factor in the capital expenditure while calculating return on investments and increase the tariffs on a temporary basis. These tariff hikes will be offset by monetization of benefits accrued at a later stage.

Project viability could be exhibited through pilot implementations. This could help in setting the benchmark regarding cost benefit analysis, measuring social impact in terms of customer behavior, readiness of infrastructure to take such a huge load etc. Regulators could consider using time of use or variable pricing or a combination of both for tariff differentiation for a set of segment where the pilot project has to be implemented.

These options would be the stepping stone for the formulation of smooth and balanced regulatory framework and utilities could have a stable environment during implementation of Smart Grid Technologies.

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The end of CS Week and the beginning of Customer Empowerment

2012-05-04T16:26:35Z

After listening to Keynote Speaker, Chip Bell yesterday evening and sitting in the Customer Service Journey workshop this morning, I am excited to begin the journey toward customer empowerment!

It is very interesting to see the convergence of loyalty programs as they make the delayed transition from deregulated utilities to the regulated space. This transition has been non-existent or extremely slow in the past. Now I see a coupled merger between the activities of the regulated and deregulated ecosystems. The model for customer engagement that has become standard in the deregulated retail space is becoming common place within regulated utilities. Notifications, chat, social media collaboration are burgeoning areas with deregulated utilities, but there is a lot excitement to utilitize these channels to drive customer satisfaction in the regualted sector.

Client loyalty may be a foreign term for many utilities, but it is a huge portion of the typical consumer's consumption pattern. Today's consumers interact are increasingly driving the interaction with everyday purchases. These expected interactions must translate across their entire budget and all retailers whether they are CPG or regulated utility must strive to reach these individuals. Loyalty will be driven by influencers, detractors and advocates within these communities. How quickly utilities can address these consumer needs will not only drive loyalty but also savings with consumers.

Imagine a customer seeing a downed line in their neighborhood, snapping a photo of that downed line and uploading it to Twitter. The utility, with the proper listening and monitoring tools, could pull the geotag from the photo roll trucks and address this issue with a quicker response time, limiting potential exposure to outages and also customer safety. In addition, with a positive response through customer channels, the utility has the opportunity to drive customer loyalty.

I hope everyone had a successful week at CS Week 2012 and had an opportunity to learn as much as I did about ongoing trends. All the best until next year!

Live Blogging from CS Week Day 3

2012-05-04T15:13:03Z

The week has flown by at CS Week this week, with an amazing turnout and flurry of innovative ideas being circulated around the industry. CS Week has been the cornerstone of transfromation within the utility industry, especially from the customer standpoint.

With all the changes that have been made at the meter, the biggest change has been in the focus utilities place on meeting and exceeding customer expectations. I know that most of the work has been done to put a strategy in place to address customer expectations, but this this is a herculean effort compared to where the industry was five years ago, or even two years ago. The big focus is on how to mesh a technology strategy with customer engagement and how to align those two critical elements.

I wanted to relay this bit of focus pulled from Day 3 and I look forward to wrapping up the events with the Keynote address and the Customer Service Workshop in the final day.

Gamification - Energy Savings can also be so much Fun!!

2012-05-04T07:57:16Z

In today's environment, Energy savings has become a top priority for both utility and consumers. Today's customers are demanding and proactive. They want the right data to make informed decisions, and choices for themselves. Utilities are doing their bit by providing a lot of energy saving tips and information to customers on their website/ portals. However, customers are challenged with too much data, less time, and are overloaded by the monotony of searching through the avalanche of content.

So how do we make it interesting for the consumers?

Enter the fun and game quotient - Gamification as a concept is increasingly being used in multiple industries to promote work through play. The idea is to make the work interactive, point/score oriented encouraging competition.

So can we apply it to utilities interaction with their consumers to make it interesting?

Of course, let us look at a couple of examples.

Energize your home - Energy efficiency education through interactive games/tools

Rather than having multiple pages of static content on what can be done to save energy, the utility can implement an interactive visual model to impart the information. The visual model will show the customer's home profile information.
The customer can play a game by implementing energy saving tips like switching to CFL, or replacing an old refrigerator. Each change will show the cost, and annual possible savings with the change.
Overall Dashboard will have an 'Efficient home usage'score considering efficient appliances/heating/cooling, and 'My home usage' will change as the customers energize their home with more efficient energy saving devices.
The goal is how quickly the user can make his/her home energy efficient and closer to 'Efficient home usage' score. In the process, the user learns a lot of tips on saving energy.

Energy Champ -Foster energy savings and reduced bills through competition

Competition and peer pressure is a great way to drive people to achieve results. Utilities can encourage users to sign up for a forum/competition for improving their energy quotient - improve energy savings, reduce their bills.
Based on home profile information, display customer usage, similar home usage (in the forum), and ideal home usage. customers can be tagged into Red, Orange, Green categories based on their usage.
User can sign-up for reducing their average usage for next 'X' months by certain goals - XX%, and be rewarded for achieving results
Polls, blogs to share questions, and ideas on what worked - using social media for education

While all these game ideas are good, it is important to keep them simple, interactive, and at the same time play oriented. Even, 'bragging rights' in a forum is a great motivator, especially with the younger demographics in today's consumer base.

Let your customers' nJoy energy savings!!

Live Blogging from CS Week

2012-05-02T12:41:56Z

Checking in from CS Week 2012 here in Grapevine, TX. It has been tremendously busy at the show and there is hot topics that the every participant is talking about. The industry is buzzing about analytics, digital consumer enablement and even CIS Modernization.

With progress that has been made in Smart Grid, the speaker sessions have been extremely informative. These sessions have taken definite hard turn from the theoretical aspects of a "successful AMI implementation" to the true benefits of these projects. As a result, there is an obvious chasm between the early adopters of AMI and the laggards. With the hard numbers presented in these sessions, we could see some inertia generated in the next 6-9 months.

I'm hoping for another busy day in Day 3 for all conference participants and I look forward to checking in again during Day 3.

Welcome to CS Week 2012!

2012-05-01T12:32:10Z

Infosys, as the Gold sponsor of CS Week 2012, would like to invite all conference participants to come by and visit our booth at the conference. CS Week 2012, being hosted at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, TX, is the premier customer service-focused utility conference. Infosys is showcasing our targeted solutions to address customer service needs in Utilities. Please come by the booth to learn more about our experience and solutions. Check-out the link to find out more about our offerings at CS Week.

http://www.infosys.com/newsroom/events/Pages/CS-week-2012.aspx?soc=rssmed

What is Customer "Empowerment" anyway, and How Can Utilities Get Started?

2012-04-27T19:32:45Z

There has been much discussion about utilities needing to provide greater customer "empowerment" as a requisite for the emerging "smart grid" world we are now entering. But beyond this nice buzzword, what does "empowerment" really mean, and how are utilities supposed to start down this path of providing it? If we look at our industry today, energy and water consumers are generally not provided with a lot of information related to how they consume what utilities deliver - namely electricity, gas and water. We are typically operating within a paradigm of providing consumers with a monthly bill of "consumption" with no meaningful presentation of data that allows consumers to take action. Certainly there are many utilities that are well down the path here with some sophisticated programs, but generally speaking we are all just beginning this journey together. "Empowerment" is important on several fronts: 1) against the backdrop of more efficient production and consumption of resources, consumers represent a critical element to meeting these objectives, and 2) in an increasingly competitive industry landscape, consumers will be drawn to utilities (including energy retailers) that best "empower" them in how they can more effectively consume energy and water. Cost savings is one element, but the "green" element is also important to many consumers. There are many pieces that can be put in place to achieve a "big bang" approach to greater customer "empowerment." Over time, it seems pretty clear most utilities will embark on this journey. But for the large number of utilities that are just beginning these initiatives, what is a good place to start? From my perspective, deploying a web self-service portal for utility consumers is a relatively low cost - and low risk - starting point to go beyond the traditional paradigm. A portal, even as a deployment within existing legacy systems, will expand the types of customer service channels available to consumers, and can begin to "empower" them with greater and better information on their energy and water usage. The key of course is to select a portal that not only provides immediate benefits around account management, bill presentment and online payment, but also one that can adapt and expand as new components and systems like AMI, MDM and upgraded CIS are added to the mix. Deploying a portal in this manner provides the immediate benefits to utility consumers (and to utilities through lower live agent support costs), while providing the vehicle for more advanced "pilots" involving real-time analytics and energy efficiency/demand management programs which will take more time to mature in the market.

Smart Grid Hangover...continued

2012-04-27T12:20:43Z

In the second of a series of blogs developed to address the "Smart Grid Hangover" Bill Fenstermaker discusses required investmests for the future of Smart Grid.

As the "Smart Grid Hangover" gives way to renewed analysis and scrutiny of new and ongoing capital investments required for Backhaul Infrastructure to support Smart Grid initiatives, it seems only natural for utilities to take a hard look at the massive investment that public wireless carriers in North America have already made in terms of infrastructure. And with the hype of 4G and the promise that this will bring to businesses and consumers in the next 3-5 years, I have to believe that at some point there will be a ceding of the need for control and management of the infrastructure by individual utilities to more of a shared risk model between these utilities and the public wireless carriers that have already deployed redundant infrastructure within their service territories. After all, why would a utility continue to heavily invest in Backhaul Infrastructure when in many cases it is a) already in place with significant failover and redundancy, and, b) an increasing number of the public wireless carrier(s) are more price-competitive than ever and willing to sign up for guaranteed SLA's with performance penalties. For those utilities stuck in the traditional meter reading mindset, there is clearly opportunity on the horizon. It will definitely be interesting to see how quickly this as well as other "disruptive" technological capabilities enter our markets in the coming years.

Smart Grid Hangover?

2012-04-26T15:34:59Z

Please welcome Bill Fenstermaker to the Smart Utilities blog. Bill Fenstermaker is a Senior Client Services Executive with Infosys and has been involved in the Smart Grid community from the inception of AMI and smart metering. The following is Bill's insight into current industry inertia and customer service hurdles:

I recently overheard a prominent industry analyst use the expression "Smart Grid Hangover" in a conversation. What an interesting description for the state of grid transformation in our industry today. Clearly in the US, the last of the DOE/ARRA stimulus monies are waning, and there has not been a whole lot of new procurement activity so far in 2012 relating to "Smart Grid" as many utilities are completing smart meter deployment rollouts and interconnecting the back office IT systems to support these initiatives. Clearly the flood of stimulus dollars spurred much activity and a rush to deploy some/many elements to improve grid intelligence and "smart metering initiatives," yet there are equally as many utilities that are watching and learning from the experiences of their peers. You might even say that the spending binge is over and the "hangover" is setting in. I clearly think the market in North America will see a quiet period for 18-24 months as the utilities that have made investments in "Smart Grid" learn lessons about their vendor and technology choices, and focus on the next phases of their journeys. What, then should we be looking to as one of the next things in terms of challenges and opportunities? How about Customer Engagement, and Data Analytics?

Now, more than ever, utilities must begin to treat ratepayers as "customers" and there is significant opportunity for utilities and vendors at all levels to improve on customer engagement - via social media, improvement to the customer portal, and via smart devices like mobile phones and tablets. This is all about leveraging technology to give customers more choices and options for interaction with their utility.

On the Data Analytics front, the sheer number of increasingly intelligent instruments, controls and intelligent sensors that utilities continue to deploy within all areas of their T&D infrastructure is generating a tsunami of data. And I have yet to hear a utility say they are truly effectively leveraging the data they have. Every one of them will say something like this - "we are really good at collecting data, but we are horribly inefficient at making sense of the data and we can't truly turn the data into "information." Now there are varying degrees of utility maturity in this area, but I do believe this presents a great opportunity in the marketplace for everyone. Utilities are spending money on Decision Support, Data Warehousing, Real-time Analytics, and Big Data Solutions today, and I would expect that as the industry in North America gets over its "Smart Grid Hangover" in the coming Quarters we will see accelerated investment in complementary, enabling domains like Customer Engagement and Data Analytics.

Why not to enable the customer self-service in traditional way...

2012-04-24T14:04:25Z

Customer self-service areas have been dominating by the "custom" work done by utilities since last decade. Traditionally it is being preferred to deliver the self-service by utilities' "own way" rather than leveraging the best practices across industries....of-course choices & options were also limited.

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But these areas are rapidly transforming, perhaps at the same pace as smart grid is shaping up. There is emergence of some new products & platforms in this space that enable utilities to offer the self-services in more innovative ways that too in low cost & reduced time to market. These products / platforms are proven in multiple ways; provide scalability with benefits of future trends such as Cloud etc. So why to follow the traditional way of attempting to build / enhance the self-services by own?

Infosys has been a great contributor in this space and had been serving the industry for last 15 years. Leveraging the best practices and research done, one such product "Infosys Customer Self-Service Energy Manager" is available to serve these areas.

Infosys is going to make available this product available along with social media & advanced analytics during CS week 2012 conference where Infosys product team, domain consultants will be available for the demo & discussion.

Customer service is not a department, it's everyone's job!

2012-04-23T10:24:11Z

Think of the phrase 'Customer Service Strategy' in terms of the utility, does it really mean only having higher Customer Satisfaction, or keeping end-consumers happy? The answer is a resounding 'No'.
In the world of de-regulation, increasing energy demand, and emerging technologies (like AMI/Smartgrid), utilities have become the center-point of market interactions with multiple stakeholders having their own demands.

Who are the stakeholders and what do they want?

Consumers want lower tariffs, more rate options, efficient and reliable service
Regulators want to ensure that utilities are maintaining a reliable grid, offering fair prices to consumers, and participating in energy efficiency programs to encourage energy conservation
Employees want job enablement, and efficient tools and processes to perform their job
Shareholders want increased revenue and controlled costs, for higher ROI
Competitors influence marketing/cross-selling and rollout of new products/services

Often the demands from different stakeholders conflict with each other, and it is important that the Utilities address these issues while defining their 'Customer Service Strategy' and new initiatives. While addressing the needs of multiple stakeholders, it is important to proactively measure value for each group because many of these initiatives can also lead to high investment costs.

Let us focus on a critical piece of technology, implementation of a new Customer Information System (CIS) to better understand balancing the needs of stakeholders. Implementing such a large system is a tremendous investment. In such a scenario the consumers could be affected by this in ensuing rate cases while the shareholders could be hit by lower profit margins. So it is important that the utility justifies this initiative with a proper business case by setting definitive targets and by measuring value of improvements it will bring to different stakeholder groups. Below are a few illustrative examples (with illustrative target numbers), which can be used to measure the value delivered to different stakeholders.

Consumers

Rolling out new tariff options will take 2 weeks compared to 6 months
Improvement in first call resolution(FCR) for customer calls by 25%
Reduction in average handling time (AHT) for customer calls by 25%.
Proactive communication/alerts for outages

Regulators

System uptime of 99.8% from current 95% for legacy CIS
Reporting/alerts for regulatory compliance

Employees

Reduction in training time from 10 days to 5 days
Workflow intuitive application with reduction in manual processes

Shareholders

Reduction in contact center operations cost by 20% due to lower AHT and higher FCR
Reduction in IT operations cost by 20% due to better maintainability of systems

Competitors

New CRM systems allow more flexibility for cross-selling new products/services
More marketing channels like web, mobile, etc.

If the utility can justify its CIS replacement initiative by explaining it in terms of the measurable business value it will bring to different stakeholder groups- it guarantee funding as well as success.

Finally, defining the right 'Customer Service Strategy' is a fine balancing act for the utility to keep multiple stakeholders satisfied and engaged. As someone rightly said 'Customer service is not a department, it's everyone's job'.
Infosys is showcasing its Platforms and Solutions @ CS Week 2012. To know more about our participation at the event, Click here

Plan B for Utilities

2012-04-18T23:33:46Z

In my earlier blog Coming Full Circle, I talked about how the traditional electric utility model of centralized generation, transmission, distribution is under threat due to self-generation and various other factors. I presented a scenario where utilities are not able to align with these new trends and get stuck in a downward spiral. What is the Plan B for utilities in this case.

First of all, there is a need to recognize that a Plan B is needed. There are regulatory provisions (decoupling etc) to avoid rate base impact due to decrease in energy consumption because of DSM measures. However, no such provisions will be built if the utility electricity sales drop due to other better options available to customers, like distributed generation. No argument can be built to capitalize the cost due to this drop. Utilities are truly on their own here and mostly on unchartered territory of uncertain revenue.

Opportunity or threat? I think both. Smart utilities are already recognizing this threat and using it as an opportunity to bring changes in a business model that has served well for over 100 years but needs adjustments now. Successful utilities of the future might be the ones that move fast to identify opportunities beyond electricity sales and leverage their core capability to build new services and products across electricity value chain.

While there are big opportunities that need some serious investment and course correction, it is possible to find low-hanging fruits. At the end of the day, nobody knows how to run electricity operations better than a utility and there are utilities that do certain things better than others. Why not a utility-to-utility market? A utility that is just starting its AMI program, might want to have domain consultants from another utility that has successfully done it rather than spending millions on 3rd party consultants at many times the cost. Further, utilities are rich with intellectual properties built over a century of generating and supplying electricity. This is the time to evaluate all those data models, use cases, processes, procedures and work with an alliance network to explore other operating revenue opportunities. These can be leveraged to build joint go-to-market solutions in partnership with product vendors or system integrators.

There are bigger opportunities in emerging market segments like energy management and microgrids. Going beyond the power value chain, assets like towers, power lines, transportation fleets, communication network etc present immense commercial potential.

One may say that the utilities are in the business of selling electricity, not products or consulting services. But then, isn't it precisely the change that is needed as long as it does not alter the core mission of supplying safe and reliable power? Easier said than done. We are talking about some serious capability and direction re-alignment for utilities as well as their ability to garner support from regulators for these changes. It will be interesting to watch.

Role of Data analytics in Smart Grid

2012-04-13T11:22:59Z

Data is the lifeline of any business. We all know that most of the organizations, whether public or private take day to day business decisions or strategic decisions based on data generally stored in large data repositories. The Power distribution utilities are not an exception to this. Smart Grid envisages to deploy several integrated critical applications / systems like advanced metering infrastructure, robust billing engine, various avenues of collection of receivables, geographical information system, asset management systems, field force management systems etc. leading to generation of tons of data. The smart move would be to convert this data into useful information to benefit the power distribution utility.

In a power distribution utility there are several sources of data. Mentioning some of them for reference purpose. One of the major sources of data is Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), where most of the energy related data comes from. The deployment of smart meters on power transformers, distrbution sub-stations, distribution transformers, High tension feeders and consumer homes enables the distribution utility to collect data related to voltage, current, active & reactive power, energy consumption, demand, power factor etc. This data is not just for instantaneous in nature but also for load profile, cumulative and tamper. Another source of data is the distribution automation system (Control and automation system fitted on various feeders and control equipments). This data would be about the normally on contacts, the normally off contacts, the faulty feeders etc. and the status of the various equipments connected to the power distribution system. One of the other major sources of data is robust billing engine which houses data on individual meter readings, consumption history of consumer, applicable tariff, payment pattern, cheque bounce history, credit history, seasonal variation etc. There could be several other sources of data like supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), Geographical information system etc. These systems / applicationed mentioned above are indicative and there are definitely several other applications functional in a power distribution system which also generate data.

The core challenge faced by the power distribution utilities today is to make the right decision about where to cut spending and where to invest? How to make the consumer satisfaction index go up? How to manage peaks within the given power constraints? How to optimize the operating expenses? and the list goes on.

The million dollar question is what the power distribution utilities are doing in order to make the best possible use of the plethora of data. How is this information being made use of in the day to day decision making? How is this inforation being displayed in form of a dashboard? How are the discrepencies in the system being highlighted or brought to the attention of the higher management? These are some of the questions which need to be answered along with the smart grid implementation.

Some of the benefits that could be derived by the power distribution utilities are listed below.
1. Cost reduction (Reduced operational cost on administrative, maintenance, repairs etc.)
2. Better consumer services (Faster restoration of no-supply complaints, More avenues for paying bills etc.)
3. Improved consumer satisfaction indices (Happy consumers)
4. Reduction of peak demand (Better pallning and control)
5. Controlled and balanced use of electricity by consumers (Energy consumption)
6. Proactive load forcasting (Better planning)
7. Improved regulatory compliance

In a nutshell, Smart grid data analytics offers valuable information about the performance of the power distribution system and its various assets in order to help achieve several benefits as listed above. It all depends on how the utility makes use of this golden opportunity.

In my next blog I would talk about the various KPI's that could be measured and monitored based on the pool of data that is getting generated.