Big Data Analytics Strategies for the Smart Grid

by Carol L. Stimmel

Overview

By implementing a comprehensive data analytics program, utility companies can meet the continually evolving challenges of modern grids that are operationally efficient, while reconciling the demands of greenhouse gas legislation and establishing a meaningful return on investment from smart grid deployments.

Readable and accessible, Big Data Analytics Strategies for the Smart Grid addresses the needs of applying big data technologies and approaches, including Big Data cybersecurity, to the critical infrastructure that makes up the electrical utility grid. It supplies industry stakeholders with an in-depth understanding of the engineering, business, and customer domains within the power delivery market.

The book explores the unique needs of electrical utility grids, including operational technology, IT, storage, processing, and how to transform grid assets for the benefit of both the utility business and energy consumers. It not only provides specific examples that illustrate how analytics work and how they are best applied, but also describes how to avoid potential problems and pitfalls.

Discussing security and data privacy, it explores the role of the utility in protecting their customers’ right to privacy while still engaging in forward-looking business practices. The book includes discussions of:

• SAS for asset management tools
• The AutoGrid approach to commercial analytics
• Space-Time Insight’s work at the California ISO (CAISO)

This book is an ideal resource for mid- to upper-level utility executives who need to understand the business value of smart grid data analytics. It explains critical concepts in a manner that will better position executives to make the right decisions about building their analytics programs.

At the same time, the book provides sufficient technical depth that it is useful for data analytics professionals who need to better understand the nuances of the engineering and business challenges unique to the utilities industry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781482218282
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/25/2014
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Carol L. Stimmel began working with "big data analytics" in 1991 while hacking code and modeling 3D systems for meteorological research—years before that combination of words ever became buzzword compliant. In those 23 years, she has spent the last 7 focusing on the energy industry, including smart grid data analytics, microgrids, home automation, data security and privacy, smart grid standards, and renewables generation. She has participated in emerging technology markets for the majority of her career, including engineering, designing new products, and providing market intelligence and analysis to utilities and other energy industry stakeholders.

Carol has owned and operated a digital forensics company, worked with cutting-edge entrepreneurial teams; co-authored a standard text on organizational management, The Manager Pool; and held leadership roles with Gartner, E Source, Tendril, and Navigant Research. She is the founder and CEO of the research and consulting sustainability company, Manifest Mind, LLC, which brings rigorous, action-based insight to advanced technology projects that create and maintain healthy ecosystems for people and the environment. Carol holds a BA in Philosophy from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College.

Table of Contents

The Transformative Power of Data Analytics. Putting the Smarts in the Smart Grid. Building the Foundation for Data Analytics. Transforming Big Data for High-Value Action. The Benefits of Smart Grid Data Analytics. Applying Analytical Models in the Utility. Enterprise Analytics. Operational Analytics. Customer Operations and Engagement Analytics. Analytics for Cybersecurity. Implementing Data Analytics Programs for Sustained Change. Sourcing Data. Big Data Integration, Frameworks, and Databases. Extracting Value. Envisioning the Utility. A Partnership for Change.

Editorial Reviews

This book provides an in-depth analysis that will help utility executives, as well as regulators, investors, large power users and entrepreneurs, understand some of the tectonic changes coming to an industry that from the outside can seem impervious to change. Making sense of a chaotic future, Carol charts a path where everyone can benefit.
–Amit Narayan, PhD, CEO, AutoGrid

After more than a century providing a mission-critical resource to consumers around the world, traditional energy providers are realizing the power of big data and predictive analytics. Not only will adopting these technologies improve the transmission and distribution of energy, it more importantly will enable providers to adopt a services mentality. In her exceptional book, Carol examines these trends and breaks down very complex topics into prose that is easy to understand. I highly recommend this book to anyone in the energy industry looking to grow and evolve their business.
–Adrian Tuck, CEO, Tendril

Carol Stimmel defines utility data analytics as the application of techniques within the digital energy ecosystem that are designed to reveal insights that help explain, predict, and expose hidden opportunities to improve operational and business efficiency and to deliver real-world'situational awareness. She then provides the framework, methodology, insight, and experiential observations to help utilities conceive, plan, implement, enhance, and sustain the imperative smart grid analytics required to achieve the inexorable change taking place in the energy delivery ecosystem. Volume, velocity, variety, and value—the characteristics ascribed to ‘big data’ will aptly characterize the reader's and practitioner's view of Ms. Stimmel's book.
–Ivo Steklac, GM Residential & Commercial Energy Solutions, SunPower Corporation

The author has done an excellent job of leveraging her experience in the industry and her strong technical background to create a book that is a very easy-to-read, useful tool for anyone trying to get started in applying big data analytics to the utility industry. She not only provides the reader with a solid base knowledge and background but provides solid examples of how data analytics can be applied within a utility environment and the advantages that can be gained by doing so.
–Ron Gerrans, CEO, Genus Zero and former CEO, E Source

From the Publisher