Microsoft Power and Utilities Blog : American Electric Power

Microsoft Partner ESS Makes Data Collection for EH&S More Efficient

MSPowerUtilities — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:51:00 GMT

Last month Microsoft partner ESS launched Essential Mobile™ for FEMS, an application that “collects fugitive emissions data wirelessly from a Thermo Scientific thermo vapor analyzer (TVA) via Bluetooth technology for upload into the Essential FEMS™ database for fast, efficient leak detection and repair (LDAR) reporting. It allows users to record leak detection, repair and calibration data and also delivers tagging, retagging and LDAR-related field auditing functionality.”

ESS provides Environmental, Health and Safety (EH&S) and Crisis Management software for enterprise sustainability and what’s notable here is how the company emphasizes that collecting data to comply with regulations can serve bigger operational goals that ultimately can deliver cost savings.

Here’s how ESS’ president says it:

"ESS' new wireless technology software makes EH&S data collection more efficient and affordable. In today's challenging economy, companies are looking for every opportunity to leverage EH&S processes in support of operational excellence. The ability to collect and monitor data across the enterprise is imperative," said Robert Johnson, ESS President and CEO. "Essential Mobile is one more way that ESS transforms EH&S sustainability reporting into a driver for reducing costs and increasing profitability.”

We’ve made this point before – that compliance collection can drive performance – when we noted how American Electric Power’s uses information technology to manage carbon emissions and then integrates this information into its operations.

AEP’s effort implements a compliance system that provides consistent and automated reporting, documents the compliance process, is accessible to all personnel needing access to information and keeps multiple and detailed reporting requirements for compliance in all the regions where AEP operates up to date.

The ESS announcement is similar because Essential Mobile allows utility workers to collect and process information from widely distributed facility locations using handheld mobile devices. The information is then uploaded via wireless connection to a centralized ESS Essential Suite® platform for environmental compliance management. The staff doesn’t have to return to a stationary PC to perform data collection or download. - Jon Arnold

Consultants’ Newsletter Touches on How Credit Crunch Fiasco Could Hurt U.S. Utilities

MSPowerUtilities — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:11:00 GMT

With global stock markets reeling in the last week, I found a report from Black& Veatch to be quite interesting and worth the read.

Specifically, the report notes how the growing credit crunch could hurt capital-intensive utilities. Constellation Energy and Reliant Energy are but two utilities that have recently suffered. More examples may be on the way.

Richard Rudden, the Senior Vice President of Black & Veatch's Enterprise Management Solutions Division, noted in the report that:

"Regulators will play a critical role in ensuring the appeal of utilities as sound investments and the source of new critical infrastructure. Without proper regulatory treatment of the costs of infrastructure investment all the good that utilities might do as safe havens for more conservative investors and pension funds could be negated."

It’s important that regulators understand the role they play in utility operations, especially given recent events outside their or the utilities control. We believe that utilities are more subject to the vagaries of “disruptive regulations” than many of the other driving forces on the utility landscape, including technology innovations, the aging workforce, fuel and resource procurement, and mergers and acquisitions, to name but a few.

Not only are utilities exposed to the harsh atmosphere of competition or regulation enforcement but on an almost daily basis management and boards of directors are being asked to change their business operations to cost effectively integrate the significant regulatory demands of national, regional and local governments. Companies must also comply with financial regulations from Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2003 (SOX), European Union (EU) directives, the Kyoto Accords, emissions trading and emissions rights, reliability requirements (e.g., NERC) and environmental mandates from governments.

Utilities are doing their best to comply with the regulations, through integrated, proactive approaches. We’ve written previously about AEP’s effort to harness Microsoft technology to comply with environmental emissions regulations. We envision regulators growing to appreciate how Microsoft and its partner community provide utility compliance solutions that are delivered on an enterprise ready, scalable and secure platform. We encourage utilities to convince regulators they are endeavoring to comply using solutions that take an enterprise-holistic approach. It’s a two way-street and now is a good time to look at improvements in the process. - Jon Arnold

Carbon Emission Management: Technology Systems Can Improve Customer Satisfaction and Employee Retention

MSPowerUtilities — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:45:00 GMT

Utility executives know implicitly that consumers judge their company by the amount and meaningfulness of the Utilities' community outreach and conservation programs. What’s been difficult to measure is just how much value is created by such efforts and thus how much companies should invest in them given all the competing interests for scarce investment funds.

Earlier in the year a J.D. Powers and Associates study found that “approximately 37 percent of business customers report being aware of their utility’s energy conservation and efficiency programs [and that] customer awareness of a utility’s community outreach or conservation activities raised overall satisfaction by as much as 108 index points in the 2008 study.”

Energy conservation, efficiency programs and other community outreach programs do pay off.

Around the corner, utilities will need to go beyond conservation and efficiency and begin informing their publics about what they’re doing in their day-to-day operations to manage carbon emissions. That is increasingly the topic of the day. Further, since companies are going to be making significant investments in their carbon emission management technologies they should make the most of them.

American Electric Power is an example of a utility taking a leadership role in sustainability and the use of information technology to manage carbon emissions. The company implemented a compliance system that provides consistency of reporting, automates the reporting process, documents the compliance process, is accessible to all personnel needing access to information, and keeps the multiple and detailed reporting requirements for compliance across all the jurisdictions where AEP operates up to date. Companies can’t manage what they can’t measure and having the right systems in place is achieving that goal for AEP.

According to one executive, "It is important that all employees of AEP see the overall picture, and that the picture is consistent and allows them to make progress against the goals that the company is committed to." AEP will probably reap additional benefit from their effort, in the form of increased employee retention, as today’s workers are very concerned about their employers’ sense of corporate social responsibility. (BTW, there’s your next study topic, JD Powers!)

The AEP story is an interesting one as it combines SaaS with internal software to form what we call Software-plus-Services which is the Microsoft approach for the next generation of computing. It is a confluence of multiple industry phenomena including SaaS, SOA, and Web 2.0. We think this approach reflects real world business processes as it is more compelling than just software OR service only approaches. It brings together the best of cloud-based services and the software that resides on a world of devices…We think this makes the most sense for your business.

We sponsored an IDC Energy Insights white paper on the AEP S+S story. Take a look at. - Larry Cochrane.