Digital Digest: Monthly Digest of Insights Shared by Your Peers in the Energy Central Digital Utility Group – January 22, 2021

Welcome to the Digital Utility Group roundup, Digital Digest. As always, your fellow group members are paying close attention to digital utility trends and sharing their insights. This month’s selection includes information about the use of modern demand response (DR) to prevent blackouts, the power of predictive analytics, and more. Be sure to like and comment on your favorite posts. Happy reading!

5 Winners and 2 Losers of Utility GIS

Bill Meehan

Link to original article: https://energycentral.com/o/esri/5-winners-and-2-losers-utility-gis

While working at a power company, Bill Meehan, Director, Utility Solutions at Esri noticed that decision-making was challenging because there were too many places from which to gather needed information. In this post, he notes that utility GIS can help solve this problem by providing a single portal of truth, spatial analysis, GIS mobility, web services, and other useful benefits.

AI Fundamentals for Power Systems

Miha Grabner

Link to original article: https://energycentral.com/c/iu/ai-fundamentals-power-systems

While artificial intelligence (AI) has become adopted across the power utility industry, many power engineers are unfamiliar with its basic concepts. In this piece, Miha Grabner, Data Scientist at the Electric Power Research Institute Milan Vidmar presents some of those concepts, including associated buzzwords like deep learning, computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), and speech recognition.  

Could Demand Response Be the End of California’s Blackouts?

Greg Wassel

Link to original article: https://energycentral.com/o/franklin-energy/could-demand-response-be-end-california%E2%80%99s-blackouts

With temperatures on the rise in California, and the amount of power needed to counteract the extreme heat, the chance that blackouts will continue to occur is nearly 100%. In this article, Greg Wassel, Innovation Product Manager at Franklin Energy asks what can be done to make sure the grid can keep up during times of oppressive heat, high energy demand, and little availability to import energy. He notes that one proposed solution is increased use of distributed energy resources (DERs) and modern DR, which also offer benefits beyond a more flexible grid.

Utilities Engage Machine Learning to Predict What’s Next

Andrew Braeger

Link to original article: https://energycentral.com/c/iu/utilities-engage-machine-learning-predict-what%E2%80%99s-next

We may be at the beginning of the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the resulting effects will linger for a long time. For example, suggests Andrew Braeger, Data Engineering Manager at Tacoma Public Utilities, utilities must become more intentional about leveraging predictive modeling and machine learning to proactively anticipate challenges and opportunities. Here, he explains how this method can work in four areas: customers, operations and workforce, assets, and financial matters.

Thanks again for reading this edition of Digital Digest! The authors listed above are eager to hear your thoughts and questions, so don’t hesitate to engage them. And if you want your content to be featured in this spot in future issues, be sure to publish your posts within the Digital Utility Community.

Make sure you don’t miss out on these shared insights in the future.

If you’re not yet a member of the EC Digital Utility community, follow the link to ‘JOIN NOW!’ Then select the “join option” in the top right of the group page.  If you are not yet registered, you will be prompted to create a profile first.

As a member, you’ll not only be able to read what your fellow peers are saying but also be able to join in on the conversations by sharing your insights (which might get featured in a future monthly digest!). Plus, you can start a conversation by discussing articles with peers in the comments section, and you will automatically be signed up to receive the Network’s weekly newsletter.

Already a member, but you are not receiving the Community Group’s Updates?  Log in, and then follow this link to manage your newsletter Subscriptions.