Be sure to sign into your Energy Central account (register for free here) to access this full post with the podcast recording.
In the GIS for the utility industry and as authors on Energy Central, few have quite the pedigree of Pat Hohl and Bill Meehan as experts in their field. While the series opener offered an intriguing view into how GIS can revolutionize collaboration and communication in utility management, this second episode finds Pat and Bill moving past the conventional view of GIS as just a tool for asset data storage.
The conversation offers a refreshing narrative of the broader implications of GIS, including the transformational capacity of the technology and highlighting its role as a robust facilitator for stakeholder insight in the utility sector. Curious about transforming your utility operations with GIS? Begin your journey here.
Prefer to Read vs. Listening? Scroll Down to Read Transcript.
Thanks to the sponsor of this episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcast: ESRI
In case you missed it, the full series can be found at these links:
Key Links:
GIS for Electric Utilities from ESRI
Pat Hohl’s Energy Central Profile
Bill Meehan’s Energy Central Profile
TRANSCRIPT
Matt Chester:
Hello and welcome to part two of the series of Energy Central Power Perspectives Podcasts where the Esri team takes over our feed. In this special Power Perspectives episode series presented by Esri, you're hearing directly from Esri directors, Bill Meehan and Pat Hohl as they exchange ideas and forecasts for the world of GIS as it relates to the power sector. If you missed out in the first episode, be sure to check out the show notes to catch up on that episode first, where Pat and Bill discussed the power of GIS to tap into utility data. In this episode, Bill and Pat now focus on how GIS can manage and optimize utility services, specifically spatial analysis capabilities and real world examples from asset management to wildfire and storm response to machine learning and more. We hope you enjoy.
Pat Hohl:
Hi Bill, welcome to the podcast. I have a question for you. We promised to talk about understanding and insights. What does understanding Fresh insights mean to you?
Bill Meehan:
Well, thanks Pat and welcome everybody to this podcast. Yeah, I think this notion of understanding and talking about insights is a very interesting one. And when we're talking in the context really of using GIS and Utility, whenever I think of this insight, I think of a guy that I worked with and his name was Stanley. And Stanley was one of these old, he used to be kind of a grumpy utility guys. He was a supervisor, he was an old lineman back in the old days, but then he became what was called the division manager. So he was in charge of a region and he was in that region for ages.
So Stanley knew every inch of that service territory and it was a rural suburban area. And I can remember specifically what would happen. The crews would come back from their daily work and Stanley would check the weather forecast and yeah, it might be a little thunderstorms. This is in the northeast and thunderstorms can be pretty bad, rain, a lot of wind and thunderstorms and stuff. It'd be miserable. So he had to figure out when these crews came back from their daily work, do I want to keep some of them on overtime just in case there's a problem or send them all home? Because of course if he kept them on overtime that was extra expenses and he didn't want to do that either. So what Stanley did is he would take, he would hit the weather forecast, he would check how the storms were coming in.
He would look at, he remembered, he knew when things were like trees were trimmed or old poles that were leaning over. He knew that area. So what he kind of did in his head was what we now call spatial analysis. So he layered information in his head, but then Stanley retired. And so you ask the questions, well now how is anybody going to know what's going to happen without Stanley being there? Well, that's what GIS is all about. It layers information, the weather, the tree trimming, open work orders, all of this stuff became a layer. And then that really creates this notion of understanding. Stanley knew understanding in his head, but we can't rely on people's just memories and it's incomplete. So now we have GIS, can give you a scientific methodology for doing exactly what Stanley did.
So what about you, Pat? What do you think about when you think about understanding?
Pat Hohl:
Bill, I used to work with a couple of guys exactly like Stanley and every utility has a Stanley. And I think what you've described there to me is a high level description of what has happened with the GIS and the utility industry over the last 20 years. We started out capturing a lot of information and as GIS capabilities have grown, we can now look at that information and gain some new understanding from it. We can see summaries of what is happening and put it on a dashboard. With analytical capabilities, you look for hotspots of where problems are occurring or where opportunities exist. We always like to focus on the 10 worst performing circuits that have the worst Sadie and we go fix those. But really, reliability is not a circuit level issue it's an area level issue.
And when you can break that down and look at things spatially where they're happening in an area, you can help address those areas that have the worst problem, even if they're not on one of the top 10 worst performing circuits. So let's bring it down to something that's tangible. What's a good example, a leading example of where utilities are doing things like this, Bill?
Bill Meehan:
Well, the one that comes to mind is a company that I had a chance to visit and actually work with in, and it's called Power Code and it's in New Zealand. And Power Code did some really, really fascinating work. What they did is they took their service territory and they broke it up into little squares or hexagons, little areas because they were concerned about equipment failing, but it seemed random.
It was fail over here, over there. They couldn't figure it out. But what they did is they discovered, hey, wait a minute. We are seeing patterns. We're seeing things that are showing sometimes I like to call them big red blobs. Oh my goodness, this is really where some of the real problems are. So they were able to do what we now call asset management, looking at, okay, where do I really want to spend the money? Where do I want to prioritize the replacement of some of these, and some of this equipment that is failing in pockets? So they used this notion of spatial analysis of taking geography and breaking it up into little pieces to figure out where are the pieces really bad. I'm going to go back to your example where you talk about these 10 worst circuits. And what sometimes utilities will do is they'll take a really bad circuit and they'll break it up into pieces and put the really bad parts into good circuits to kind of make everybody a little bit more equal.
But the problem is the people who live in those areas, you're still going to get the same reliability, whether it's on a good circuit or a bad circuit, because the factors have to do with where they really are. Trees, curvy roads, people crashing into poles, stuff like that. And that's really the power of visualization. You look at a spreadsheet and you can figure things out. But when you see it on a map and you see a big red blob boy, you say, oh, we got to take care of that right now. How about you? I bet you have some really good examples of utilities using spatial analysis and some advanced GIS technology to help figure these things like this out.
Pat Hohl:
Absolutely. One of the things that has really taken off this year, at least in the public eye, is artificial intelligence, with the rise of chatGPT and AI that's creating things with images and video.
And so I don't think any discussion of fresh understanding and analysis would be complete without at least touching on that. And I worked with a company a year or two ago, Radius in Denmark, and the problem they had is that they possessed a lot of photographs of their equipment, but they didn't know the characteristics of those equipments. And what they were seeking to find out was where did they have open ports in these secondary cabinets? And so they utilized machine learning to examine those photographs that they had and then calculate where they had opportunity to plug in additional customers on those secondary connections. And that saved them from having to go out and physically look at those every time, not only saving man-hours, but also speeding up the process by which the customer could realize a new connection. And Esri just recently released a new deep learning model on a topic that everybody seems to be very interested in, and that is looking at drone imagery, photographs to detect insulator problems and classify those defects.
So that is just a great example of where the technology is moving in terms of being able to use new capabilities. When I think about the fact that it's July, it's storm season, it's fire season, who's doing something in this regard related to the summertime, Bill?
Bill Meehan:
That's a real issue. And this is a perfect example, using spatial analysis and machine learning to figure out what's going on. Now, one of the companies up in the Pacific Northwest called Avista, they're in Washington around Spokane. And what they did is some fascinating things, not that unlike what Power Code did for asset management, but really looking at wildfires. So what they did is they took their area and they said, okay, what areas are going to be most prone to wildfires? Which ones have had history of some wildfires? And they looked at that and they also looked at, okay, if there was a wildfire here, how close would an area with a lot of people or a lot of equipment to be damaged transmission lines?
So they did some like pre-work to a planning sense of what's going to, what could happen in an area. Where could there be wildfires, and if so, how can we mitigate some of that? They could put in some equipment maybe for some sectionalized and some switches to be able to figure out if they had a wildfire, they could get that area isolated from the rest of the area. That was great for a planning sense, but then also when they had a wildfire, then they used, again, a spatial analysis, where's the wind blowing? How close is it to certain areas, to certain equipment, certain populations? So Avista did a beautiful job. In fact, just I think probably a couple of weeks ago I worked with them on what they call a customer success story, which you can find online. I guess you can find one also on Radius and Power Code, just go searching the internet and find it.
And that's a great example of how do I understand? And it's not just about one thing, but it's about taking lots of data that are in different places and putting it together to go, aha. And if I would think of that's not sure that's even a word, is it Pat? Aha. But that's what this understanding is all about. You take all this data, you go aha, using machine learning, using imagery, really, really interesting things to do. So this is like you say, the storm, fire season is coming up and I know here in California it is so hot, everything is dry. And so looking at GIS that will really help to mitigate some of the issues for fires and help people figure out how to fight these fires or prevent the fires from spreading.
The other thing that you mentioned about Radius was, and machine learning, so what's the business value of doing all of this? How do I actually create value? Well, one of the biggest issues is utilities have got to cut costs. And if you think about using machine learning, I don't have to have a lot of contractors out there walking around trying to figure things out. Using machine learning, we can automate much of this and that's really great. What about you, Pat?
Pat Hohl:
Well, I want to just go back to your Avista story because I want to make the point that this is being used not only by large utilities, but also by small utilities. I worked with Core Electric Cooperative in Colorado, and they did a very similar process where they were not only planning ahead for wildfires to look at potential ignition sources, potential weather patterns, and then potential impact from those things, and use that to prioritize their hardening efforts around their system.
And of course, watching the weather when they do have events, they alert all of their crews to provide them with information and even implement some temporary measures for fast trip and clearing various problems in those really important areas. But before we wrap up, I just do want to mention that another area that's getting a lot of attention in terms of analysis is electrification and electric vehicles. And there's such an opportunity here to overlay many kinds of information and derive new insights in terms of customer patterns, impact to the utility, even looking at that through a lens of social equity and determining how best to proceed.
And we will have a webinar coming up on August 29th, so we'd encourage everybody to participate in that. We'll put a link in the description. And Bill, I think what we'll do is we'll put links to these customer stories that we have mentioned right in the description so people can find them. All right. So join us next time where we're going to be talking about capturing new types of data and applying those to be able to gain new insights and share them with other customers. Thank you, and we'll see you next time.
About Energy Central Podcasts
The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ features conversations with thought leaders in the utility sector. At least twice monthly, we connect with an Energy Central Power Industry Network community member to discuss compelling topics that impact professionals who work in the power industry. Some podcasts may be a continuation of thought-provoking posts or discussions started in the community or with an industry leader that is interested in sharing their expertise and doing a deeper dive into hot topics or issues relevant to the industry.
The ‘Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast’ is the premiere podcast series from Energy Central, a Power Industry Network of Communities built specifically for professionals in the electric power industry and a place where professionals can share, learn, and connect in a collaborative environment. Supported by leading industry organizations, our mission is to help global power industry professionals work better. Since 1995, we’ve been a trusted news and information source for professionals working in the power industry, and today our managed communities are a place for lively discussions, debates, and analysis to take place. If you’re not yet a member, visit www.EnergyCentral.com to register for free and join over 200,000 of your peers working in the power industry.
The Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast is hosted by Jason Price, Community Ambassador of Energy Central. Jason is a Business Development Executive at West Monroe, working in the East Coast Energy and Utilities Group. Jason is joined in the podcast booth by the producer of the podcast, Matt Chester, who is also the Community Manager of Energy Central and energy analyst/independent consultant in energy policy, markets, and technology.
If you want to be a guest on a future episode of the Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast, let us know! We’ll be pulling guests from our community members who submit engaging content that gets our community talking, and perhaps that next guest will be you! Likewise, if you see an article submitted by a fellow Energy Central community member that you’d like to see broken down in more detail in a conversation, feel free to send us a note to nominate them. For more information, contact us at [email protected]. Podcast interviews are free for Expert Members and professionals who work for a utility. We have package offers available for solution providers and vendors.
Happy listening and stay tuned for our next episode! Like what you hear, have a suggestion for future episodes, or a question for our guest? Leave a note in the comments below.
All new episodes of the Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast will be posted to the relevant Energy Central community group, but you can also subscribe to the podcast at all the major podcast outlets, including:
- Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/energy-central-unnamed-podcast-series/id1488804391
- Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5jiUn8vzSq1t99WtECLn1j
- Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOFTK18LIdud8gULyJPpWh-GXO45OXviN
- Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast on Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e573c7f0-cbe6-49af-9b46-16fbcb8dbaa7/energy-central-power-perspectives%E2%84%A2-podcast?-podcast
- Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast on TuneIn: https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Energy-Central-Podcast-p1274390/
- Energy Central Power Perspectives™ Podcast on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/energycentral