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90 Percent of Utilities Aren't Prepared for Big Data Analytics
Green Technology Featured Articles
September 18, 2013

90 Percent of Utilities Aren't Prepared for Big Data Analytics

By Cheryl Kaften
TMCnet Contributor

Utilities today are very skilled at collecting data, but are still at the bottom of the learning curve when it comes to converting all of the incoming numbers on their dashboards into actionable information.

Indeed, a recent study by the Redwood, Calif.-based Oracle (News - Alert) Corporation found that fully 62 percent of utility managers believe that they have a “skills gap” around smart grid data analytics—a vital capability that would help them to minimize outages, identify trends, forecast demand, and improve overall grid reliability. Yet more than 70 percent of utilities said they expect predictive analytics to improve revenue protection, and 67 percent said they expect it to reduce asset maintenance costs.


While almost twice as many utilities now say they are completely prepared for the smart grid’s “Big Data” compared to one year ago, the majority still say they are underprepared. Specifically, in 2012, 9 percent said they were completely prepared; in 2013, that number has nearly doubled to 17 percent. 


Chart above courtesy of Oracle Corporation, from the report, “Utilities and Big Data: Accelerating the Drive to Value,” July 23, 2013. (Click for larger image.)

Old Dog, New Tricks

So why aren’t they up to speed, or getting there more quickly? According to the Marlborough, Mass.-based BRIDGE Energy Group—which just performed its own “2013 Utility Industry Survey on Business Intelligence & Analytics”—most utilities still are using conventional, 20th century tools to solve complicated 21st century challenges.

The company, which serves as a consulting and systems integration adviser to the utility industry, announced this week that most utilities are still hampered by managing data through basic reporting and dashboards (according to 55 percent of respondents) – making it impossible to analyze data beyond description, classification and clustering.

Further, the results show that only 10 percent of utility managers are leveraging new trends and tools in analytics; including applications that run on sophisticated analytical frameworks such as Apache Hadoop, an open-source software framework that supports data-intensive distributed applications.

Return on Investment

Respondents indicated that most of their utilities have limited experience in determining return on investment (ROI) for the types of analytics that would allow them to engage in predictive asset and reliability based maintenance. While 61 percent can demonstrate ROI for basic and dashboard reporting; only 13 percent can determine ROI for predictive analytics—a clear sign that help is needed with upfront strategy and business planning.

"The big business win for utilities is with predictive analytics, but because utilities don't have experience in determining ROI for advanced analytics, they haven't invested in more modern analytics specific tools," said Doug Scheller, vice president of Business Intelligence at BRIDGE Energy Group. "The benefits of predictive analytics are far reaching—including reliability based maintenance, load curtailment, better demand curve projections and more. The sooner utilities find ways to progress their analytics reach, the sooner they will reap the escalating financial and operational benefits." 

Of the 14,000 utility employees surveyed, respondents also identified key challenges related to investing in these new tools. Topping the list was the supply and availability of staff with the right skills (46 percent) and the integration of related systems and data stores (32 percent).

BRIDGE will reveal more of its survey results at a trade show next week.




Edited by Alisen Downey


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