Microsoft Power and Utilities Blog : geospatial systems

Lost Power? Con Ed Tool May Help...

MSPowerUtilities — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 01:53:00 GMT

As a follow-up to the blogs on Geospatial Systems on Steroids, there is a posting concerning the iFactor Virtual Earth solution at Consolidated Edison of New York on the NY Times Blog site. The title is: Lost Power? Con Ed Tool May Help (if Your Battery Is Charged) You can find it at: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/lost-power-con-ed-tool-may-help-if-your-battery-is-charged/

Of course if you don’t have power then you won’t be able to view the site but then again, you already know you have a problem J. The point is that a lot of people uch as regulators and businesses need to monitor power outages and the site helps them stay informed.

So why is Virtual Earth ( (http://www.microsoft.com/virtualearth/ ) so attractive for these real world applications?

Here’s a few points about what VE offers:

the most up to date aerial (roof top) imagery
the exclusive Bird’s Eye imagery (45 degree super high resolution, rotatable imagery)
24/7 Support
a 99.9 % guaranteed uptime service
the advantage of being in the Microsoft stack offering and part of the Enterprise offering
browser-based 2D and 3D offerings within the same set of application program interfaces.

These are just some of the reasons why VE is a very attractive offering to enterprises (weather channel is another example: http://www.weather.com/weather/map/interactive/) in need of an integrated mapping, imaging, search, and data visualization platform. - Jon

Geospatial Systems on Steroids – Part II

MSPowerUtilities — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:25:00 GMT

In a previous blog I discussed how geographic information system technology is reshaping certain utility industry operations. Another area where we are seeing a ton of activity in is merging GIS data with the Virtual Earth web based mapping application to provide an easy way to provide outage information online to customers through storm center Web sites. This merging allows utilities to visualize and navigate through information and services. Chartwell research highlights this in one of their recent reports entitled “Electric Utility Storm Web Sites and Online Outage Strategies” (see press release at: http://66.179.185.37/pressrelease.cfm?pressrelease_id=167).

A great example of this is the work that iFactor Consulting (www.iFactorConsulting.com) is doing in creating these “storm center” Web sites for Utilities.

Storm Center provides real-time reports on power outages (including both planned maintenance outages and unplanned outages caused by storms, traffic accidents or equipment failure). It is available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Storm Center leverages a utility’s outage management system investment by presenting current outage information to customers, utility personnel and regulators. From the utility website, customers/regulators/news agencies can obtain critical information about how an outage affects their business, home, children’s school and monitor the progress of a utility’s efforts to restore power.

It is also important to remember that what you see on the public side is only one part of the overall solution. Most customers also deploy one or more internally facing applications which support information delivery to enterprise, including executives, call center staff, and operations personnel. Some also add portals for the media, emergency services, etc…

You can see some real life examples at Nebraska Public Power District, Consolidated Edison Company of New York and Progress Energy.

Checkout:

http://www.nppd.com/StormCenter/default/default.aspx

http://www.coned.com/sm/outageinfo.asp#

http://www.progress-energy.com/shared/outages/fla/index.html

In these examples we see innovative products and new tools coming to market aimed at helping Utilities rapidly deliver innovative customer service solutions on the web and put their Geospatial Systems on Steroids! - Jon

Geospatial Systems on Steroids

MSPowerUtilities — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:10:00 GMT

Utilities and other companies are no strangers to geographic information system technology as it is part of their resource management, asset management, environmental impact assessment and emergency planning and response operations. Utilities have been using geospatial systems for years and one of the first industries to adopt the technology.

As we look around at global utility industry trends we see many companies combining traditional utility GIS systems with new web based solutions that offer high-resolution satellite and aerial imagery, dramatically faster response times, and easy integration with data sets. In some cases we are seeing very sophisticated “mashing up” of information from many different sources into new ways that leverage data visualization and location intelligence, all around composite applications.

Probably the best example is some of the work that IDV solutions (http://www.idvsolutions.com/) is doing using Virtual Earth and SharePoint in utilities and oil and gas. I strongly recommend your gaining a stronger understanding of this revolutionary technology by checking out our BP case study at: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2007/mar07/03-07crisisresponse.mspx. Make sure you view the video. - Jon

Too Much Data, So Little Information

MSPowerUtilities — Sat, 17 May 2008 03:52:00 GMT

In terms of industries that that are rich in data rich and poor in information, Utilities and Power Companies are probably at the top of the list.

That doesn’t need to be the case any longer.

I remember about 4 years ago asking Rick Nicholson of IDC Energy Insights (Meta Group at that time) at an internal Microsoft meeting about his view on the low hanging opportunities for Utilities in terms of improving their operations. His answer: Business Intelligence, converting data to information.

It has taken a while but over the past couple of years we have seen an explosion of BI/EPM in the industry. Take a look at these case studies on the topic for Power Generation and Trading.

Some of the recent work that is very interesting is the work that Enspiria Solutions (http://www.enspiria.com/) is doing around Business Intelligence.

They have what they call a spatially-enabled business intelligence framework. It allows customers to take data from disparate sources and view their assets, vegetation-tree management, track outages, maintenance and integrate all of this under a SOA environment with collaboration and business intelligence. In a nut shell it introduces a spatially enabled business intelligence environment for asset managers, leveraging utility information from systems such as ESRI and OSIsoft.

It’s pretty cool stuff that will help Utilities drive high performance through increased operational efficiencies. Plus it should help with regulatory compliance and increase business transparency issues. – Jon Arnold