Most people don’t know how much electricity they use until the bill arrives. But that one-way transaction will be changing thanks to the Smart Grid and Business Intelligence Tools, as people and companies generate power via solar panels and wind turbines or simply cut electric use.
A BI-tool enhanced Smart Grid will allow buyer and sellers to act, react and interact as never before. And companies will go a step further to analyze data and see the big picture. Regional utilities will know where power demand is greatest to avoid the kind of crippling blackouts that hit the U.S. in 2003, when some 40 million people lost power. A grid problem that began in Ohio caused outages as far away as New York because more than 100 power plants were shut down. They depended on each other for sharing electricity — but didn’t warn one another about potential overloads and shortages.
TIBCO Spotfire is a business intelligence tool that energy companies can use to identify emerging patterns, trends or hotspots and make pro-active decisions. By “seeing” supply and demand and other relevant details, companies can adjust to peak usage and pricing. Some companies call it “demand response” when customers turn off lights and monitor the electricity market — the same way those consumers watch regional weather forecasts and plan ahead by wearing a sweater when it’s cold.
Smart Grid has other benefits such as real-time remote metering, saving the cost of an employee driving out and reporting the numbers from electric meters.
The interactive future is on display in the lobby of Chapman Construction in Newton, MA, where an LCD screen shows graphs of the company’s electric consumption and how much power is coming from solar panels on the roof. Soon, “customers” will be power producers and share their excess power with the utility companies that used to have a monopoly on electricity generation because of Smart Grid and the business intelligence tools that underpin it.
GE Energy calls the Smart Grid an “energy internet” where you can get real-time information and knowledge. Even Google is in the game, working with utility companies to provide an online tool that lets people analyze their power consumption and offering advice for savings.
One estimate from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says the U.S. could cut power use by 20 percent by adjusting our energy use during peak periods. So instead of just paying for electricity, soon we’ll be negotiating with the electric company, offering to turn off lights in return for discounts.
David Wallace
Spotfire Blogging Team
