Oftentimes the utility industry focuses on residential customers and energy efficiency programs -- and the analytics involved with those efforts -- but today H. Christine thought it would be fun to mix it up and look at the role of energy efficiency analytics for commercial and industrial customers. And to do this, she brings you some snippets from the Institute's latest report, Energy Efficiency Analytics. ...more
Insights
Excerpts from our just-released energy efficiency publication
Your data has something to say and analytics can help
Kim Gaddy explores how accessible data and an analytics toolset in the hands of people with the right skills -- and a sense of curiosity -- can do amazing things. ...more
Utilities are only part of the story
It is hard to open a newspaper, watch television, or do just about anything on the Internet these days without having the advent of the analytics era stare you down. Accordingly, the opportunities to wrestle this monster into something that makes sense for utilities to apply are becoming clearer each day. While recently putting some information together for a project at the Utility Analytics Institute, we came across a few examples that merit mention in this week's column, especially in light of their applicability for utilities. ...more
A project profile from Institute archives
Attending CS Week in rainy Tampa, Florida (more on what I learned here next week) inspired me to pull out a customer analytics story about credit and collections from our Utility Analytics Institute project profile archives. ...more
The role of cloud-based analytics at utility companies
Over the past couple of years, cloud-based solutions have become pervasive across multiple industries and consumer markets. Are utilities ready to do the same and open up their data for cloud-based analytics solutions? We talked with Christopher Behme and Doug Picadio of SunGard about cloud-based analytics and how they can fit into a utility's analytics efforts. ...more
The Masters can teach us a lot about winning with analytics
At first glance, there does not seem to be too much similarity between the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia and utility analytics initiatives. Even so, there are a number of parallels between beginning an analytics project and a trip down Magnolia Lane. ...more
Technology, innovation and success along the way
It has been said that utilities that venture down the smart grid and smart metering path must understand that it truly is a journey, not a destination. In many cases, the smart grid is built. Done. But this is just one stop along the journey. A critical mass of North American utilities are entering the value phase of the smart grid era dominated by data-rich applications that leverage a utility's investment in the smart grid. This point in the journey is where we pick up the Avista story. ...more
Geo-enabled applications move into the mainstream
With advanced analytics, we now have an opportunity to change the asset management paradigm. Mike Smith talks with Esri's Bill Meehan about one element that might be a game-changer: the ability to apply spatial analysis to an asset type, fleet or system. ...more
A Utility Analytics Institute working group update
We’ll explore the mysterious data scientist in our next analytics personnel working group meeting on April 17. ...more
Analytics infrastructure to support corporate strategy
Can an enterprise analytics infrastructure ultimately provide the glue between tactical and strategic efforts? We recently took some time to chat with Emmett Walsh, chief enterprise architect at Rolta International, about the tactical and strategic approaches that utilities can take when starting their enterprise analytics journey.
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Analytics Speak
The hardware, software, professional services, business processes and people needed to successfully support and implement analytics initiatives across the enterprise that are not specific to either customer analytics or grid analytics. Examples within this area include.
- Analytics hardware, such as analytics-specific servers
- Software and middleware that support analytics applications or offer enterprise-wide analytics capabilities
- Communications networks
- Professional services, such as data management and integration