Running with Utilities

How buzzwords can distract from utility success

(written for Patrick Engineering, 4/24/2020)

Meet your customers where they are. It sounds so simple, but how many times are utilities approached with a solution looking for a problem? A cool technology, app, or widget that promises the world. A pitch that sounds like a who’s who of buzzwords:

“our elastic, cloud-based, big data, enterprise platform can ingest your petabytes of streaming, grid-edge customer data at scale to produce AI-driven insights using our proprietary machine learning algorithms…”

~Anonymous

This is using a backhoe to plant tulips. Most utilities are not looking for buzzwords and world-wide megatrends. They’re looking for tailored solutions to actual problems. Recently, utilities have struggled to show regulators that past grid modernization (grid mod) investments have been cost effective, while an increasing number of utilities are seeing their grid mod filings rejected or only partially approved based on the assumption that customers will not see promised benefits. Utilities need to crawl before they can walk and then run, and vendors need to meet them where they are.

One of our clients is deploying a complete grid mod solution. Each technology came with its own unique set of operational metrics and challenges. We began by asking questions and understanding where on the maturity curve the utility landed, what goals they were trying to achieve, and where our expertise intersected with their needs. We determined the utility needed simple visualization tools to deliver insights about their operations; they were in the crawl stage and we had a solution to match their problem.

Volt/Var Optimization (VVO) provides a nice example. VVO works by granularly monitoring voltage along a distribution line and, generally, lowering the voltage on the grid while remaining within the required voltage range. Voltage information from sensors is received, decisions are made by the management software, and a signal is sent to adjust the voltage on the line. We uncovered that the utility had no way to determine how the system was performing or how to report success to their regulators. To solve this problem, we gathered all the data coming back to the management system and created a simple visualization tool and reporting engine for the utility analysts. The utility analyst navigates through a series of screens showing increasingly detailed information about the operation of the VVO system. Through elegant design and sophisticated data and back/end processing, analysts can easily identify circuits that need attention and those that are performing well.

Now the utility is beginning to walk. Using the “AI” of a human analyst, the utility uncovered a few circuits where the system was instructing the voltage regulator to adjust too frequently. Because these voltage regulators are mechanical systems, they wear down with each voltage change. Too many adjustments and their useful life is cut short. It didn’t take artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to uncover this insight. All it took was a utility analyst and a good visualization. We could have used our in-house AI muscle to uncover this insight, but that would have been running and those insights were not ready to be heard.

What’s next? Our partnership with the utility is on-going and we have now graduated to walking together. The utility is continuing to uncover insights through our tools and we are starting to deploy a more advanced solution that includes, yes, predictive analytics. All of this next phase of work is based on the needs uncovered during the crawling phase. This is exactly how it should be. Few people run a marathon without first crawling off the couch and going for a walk. Similarly, had we presented the utility with an advanced solution, it would have been rejected because the solution’s problem was not yet known to exist.

We look forward to running with this utility partner, but for now, the customer is happy and successful as we walk side-by-side, together uncovering insights and optimizing their systems to the benefit of the utility and their customers. 

~Kevin