http://www.gissmartgrid.com - A free ebook for utility companies to increase profitability through GIS Smart Grid technologies.

1. By: Jason Tuck
Providence GIS Solutions
http://providencegissolutions.com/

2. Revenues Lost: GIS Recapturing Lost Revenues for
Utility Companies
Electrical utilities lose profits due to line loss, outage restoration, utility billing, crews not performing
at 100%, wasted fuel, etc. In this ebook we are going to focus on three of the main areas of lost
revenue: Line Loss, Outage Restoration, and Utility Billing. We will also show how a Geographical
Information System (GIS) can help solve these issues.
First let’s define a Geographic Information System (GIS). GIS is organizes many different data sources
into one location. In essence the GIS becomes of the hub of the all the data sources and the output to
the users (the public, employees, and vendors). See Figure 1 below:
Figure 1
You will see this figure again in the chapter on Outage Management and Restoration. Notice how all
the data sources feed into the GIS. All the data is matched up through relational databases then output
to users (in this figure we reference the dispatcher but the GIS also out flows to engineering, meter
department, operations, etc.) inside the utility as well as the customers.
Line loss, outages, and utility billing issues are all sources of lost revenue. There are billions of dollars
lost over the course of a year due to estimated billing, unplanned outages not efficiently restored, and

3. just plain electricity loss across the lines as power is distributed from the power plant all the way to the
customer. How do we recapture these revenues? How do we become more efficient in the operations of
the electrical utility of today's informational age? As we push towards the full implementation of the
Smart Grid these are questions which need to be answered. Hopefully you will see how we can use GIS
to solve these issues in the coming chapters.

4. Line-Loss
Line-Loss is a constant battle for electric utility companies regardless of their size. What once was an
acceptable level for line-losses can no longer be acceptable. According to the Department of Energy1,
it is estimated that United States utilities lost 6.6% in 1997 and of 6.5% in 2007. In some cases the
percentage of line-loss reaches 10% - 15%. This can result in multi-million dollar losses.
In a letter to U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, National Rural Electric
Cooperative Association (NRECA) Chief Executive Officer Glen English had this to say about distribution
system line losses:
Resistance to the flow of electrical current in the distribution and transmission system causes
a portion of energy, typically 7 percent, to be lost in the form of heat, resulting in higher
emissions for the same amount of delivered electricity. Data from the USDA’s Rural Utilities
Service (RUS) show that cooperative distribution system line losses were consistently around
6% from 1994 to 2000, well below the industry norm. In fact, RUS reported cooperative line
losses at 4.96% during 2001. While electric cooperatives serve 12% of all electric consumers,
they maintain nearly half (2.3 million miles) of the nation’s distribution miles of line. With
their consumers widely dispersed (6.6 consumers per mile compared to 34 for investor-
owned utilities and 44 for municipals), cooperatives have maintained a high degree of
distribution efficiency under very challenging conditions. 2
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (eia) has created a table of the “State Electricity Profiles”.
The total for the United States is as follows:
Average Retail Net Summer Total Retail
Net Generation
Name Price Capacity Sales
(cents/kWh) (megawatts) (megawatthours) (megawatthours)
U.S.
9.82 1,025,400 3,950,330,926 3,596,864,866
Total
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration website, Date of Data: 2009, Published: April 2011.
Causes
There are numerous issues4 that cause line-loss for utilities including:
Inaccuracy of wholesale metering CT’s & PT’s
No-load losses within the electric system
Inaccuracy of revenue Meters (calibrations, multipliers, defective, age, sizing, etc.)
Energy Thefts
Un-Metered Errors, especially street and security lights
Billing System account set-up errors
Poor power factor
Phase imbalance
Improper primary/secondary conductor size.

5. Federal Involvement
The federal government began the process of mandating Smart Grid technology with the Bush
Administration. The Obama Administration has not missed a beat in their push for Smart Grid
technology. On June 13, 2011 the Obama Administration released this press release “Administration
Announces Grid Modernization Initiatives to Foster a Clean Energy Economy and Spur Innovation” 5.
There are 4 primary goals mentioned in this press release:
1. Better alignment of economic incentives to boost development and deployment of smart-grid
technologies
2. A greater focus on standards and interoperability to enable greater innovation
3. Empowerment of consumers with enhanced information to save energy, ensure privacy, and
shrink bills
4. Improved grid security and resilience
In an effort to meet these goals the Obama Administration released these public and private-sector
initiatives:
$250 million in loans for smart-grid technology deployment as part of the US Department of
Agriculture’s Rural Utility Service, which is focused on upgrading the electric grid in rural
America.
The launch of Grid 21, a private sector initiative to promote consumer-friendly innovations
while ensuring proper privacy safeguards and consumer protections. Grid 21 will help
consumers get better access to their own energy usage information so that they can take
advantage of new tools and services to manage their energy use and save on their utility bills.
New commitments by the Department of Energy to focus on improving consumer access to
their own energy information, including the development of a crowd-sourced map to track
progress, a data-driven competition designed to harness the imagination and enthusiasm of
America’s students to encourage home energy efficiency, and new EIA efforts to measure
progress.
o Consumers deserve access to their own energy usage information in consumer-friendly
and computer-friendly formats. The Administration is committed to working with
States and stakeholders to ensure all Americans can take advantage of new tools and
services to manage their energy use and save on their utility bills. With proper privacy
safeguards and consumer protections, a smarter electricity system can benefit all
consumers.
Expanded partnerships to continue working with States and stakeholders, including an
initiative to share lessons learned from Recovery Act smart grid investments, a series of
regional peer-to-peer stakeholder meetings, and updated online resources available at:
www.SmartGrid.gov
The formation of a Renewable Energy Rapid Response Team, co-led by the White House
Council on Environmental Quality, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of

6. Energy, to improve Federal coordination and ensure timely review of proposed renewable
energy projects and transmission lines, to ensure that renewable energy can power cities and
towns across America, and to increase reliability and save consumers money by modernizing
the grid.
These initiatives are the focus of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 6 allocation to
Smart Grid issues. The Green Energy initiatives involving Wind and Solar power will play a role in
replacing the fossil fuel generation of the past as we move forward in upgrading our transmission grid
in the United States.
Upgrading the transmission grid is a necessary element that should have been started a long time
ago. If the transmission is not upgraded then maximum results cannot be achieved by the smart grid.
Possible solutions7 for transmission are High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC), Flexible AC Transmission
Systems (FACTS) devices, Gas-Insulated Substations, Superconductors, Wide Area Monitoring Systems
(WAMS), etc.
ABB7 wrote a white paper on these solutions listed above. HVDC has 25% lower line-losses compared
to the traditional AC transmission lines while having up to 5 times the capacity of AC lines. The
superconductors called HTS (high temperature superconducting) carry a line loss of .5% compared to
the 5-8% of the traditional conductors.
Distribution Solutions
ABB also listed other paths to improved efficiency. Here are those proposed paths:
Distributed generation/Microgrids
Underground distribution lines
Intelligent grid design (smart grids via automation)
Reduction of overall T&D transformer MVA
Energy storage devices
Three phase design for distribution
Ground wire loss reduction techniques
Higher transmission operating voltages
Voltage optimization through reactive power compensation
Asset replacement schedule optimization
Distribution loss reduction via distribution automation
Power factor improvement
Load management (e.g., smart metering or price-sensitive load control)
Power electronic transformers
AMR/AMI systems have been the first to attack the line-loss issue facing the electric utilities. Those
utilities who deployed AMR/AMI systems like Aclara’s TWACS metering, have seen an increase in
revenues due to more accurate meter billing. Solving these issues first will result in the highest Return
on Investment.
As the Smart Grid matures, more devices will be brought into the fold for monitoring. Transformers

7. are next on the list and are beginning to be tested. They should be ready in the next 5 years for
manufacturing and deployment to utilities. Soon to follow are other protective devices with
monitoring systems for the distribution conductors.
Data Generated by the Smart Grid
Now we have the question, how is the data gathered and organized. Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) becomes an essential tool for the organization and analysis of data. Without a GIS in place the
analysis of data, creation of reports, and gathering of data becomes difficult. It is important that the
data from the different sources is interoperable with each other. The best way to ensure this
interoperability is to require that vendors providing the Smart Grid components be MultiSpeak
(www.multispeak.org) compliant. If you have not heard of the MultiSpeak standard here is a
description from MultiSpeak’s “About” page8:
The MultiSpeak Specification is a key industry-wide standard for realizing the potential
of enterprise application interoperability. The MultiSpeak Specification is the most
widely applied de facto standard in North America pertaining to distribution utilities
and all portions of vertically-integrated utilities except generation and power
marketing. It is currently in use in daily operations of more than 600 electric
cooperatives, investor-owned utilities, municipals, and public power districts in at least
15 different countries.
The MultiSpeak Initiative is a collaboration of the National Rural Electric Cooperative
Association (NRECA), leading software vendors supplying the utility market, and
utilities. The Initiative has developed and continues to expand the MultiSpeak
Specification for Interoperability a specification that defines standardized interfaces
among enterprise software applications commonly used by electric utilities.
GIS is the foundation of the organization of data. From this foundation the utility can efficiently
perform engineering analysis, outage management (which we will discuss in the next chapter),
improve customer service, provide pay via phone or online using credit/debit cards, integrate
automated vehicle location (AVL), laptops with distribution system, etc. All of these activities create
more efficiency in the utility. Utilities are constantly being bombarded with accusations of rising utility
rates from their customers. With the reduction of line-loss those rates could come down. In order to
reduce line-loss efficiently the data must be organized, presented and analyzed in such a way that
issues on the distribution system are solved in a systematic approach. GIS allows this systematic
approach to be developed and shows trends and patterns graphically. If there is no GIS then some
patterns/trends could or would be missed.
As we move forward with the Smart Grid, the installation and use of GIS is becoming an essential tool
that utilities cannot live without. The utilities that see this vision before investing in Smart Grid
upgrades that are not interoperable, will have saved not only money but aggravation as well.

8. Outage Management
The number one area of lost revenue in electrical utilities are outages, planned or unplanned. Outages
have been a constant in the past and will continue to be a constant into the future. We can manage these
outages more efficiently in the future by utilizing and analyzing the data provided to utilities during the
outage(s) from one location. This location is a GIS (Geographical Information System).
Data Sources
What are the possible data sources for the electrical utility?
Customer Information System (CIS)
Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) or Advance Metering Infrastructure (AMI)
Phone calls from the customers during the outage using an Interactive Voice Recording
(IVR)/Auto Attendant or calling into a Customer Service Representative (CSR)
Maps (Digital or Paper/Mylar) of the electrical facilities.
Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) or GPS in the vehicles
SCADA
Weather Radar
Figure 1
Notice in Figure 1 the data sources are not connected and have a person next to each source. When data
sources are not connected together seamlessly, more employees are needed to manage the data sources.
Not all utilities will have all of these data sources but all utilities have at least some of these sources.
All utilities have some sort of mapping whether or not the mapping has been converted into a digital
format depends on the utility. All utilities have customer information in some form or another. If the
utility has Smart Metering (AMR/AMI) then they typically have a CIS. We find that most utilities we

9. deal with have just the mapping and Smart Metering with a CIS but not much more. These components
are typically not integrated together.
Integration
Integration of data is the key to managing outages efficiently. GIS is the integrator of data sources. For
electrical utilities, it is important to note the how critical having all data sources MultiSpeak
(multispeak.org) compliant and interoperable. I cannot stress enough how important it is to make sure
all the software that is accessed by the GIS to manage not only Outage Management Systems (OMS)
but as well as the Engineering Analysis, Staking, Billing, Smart Metering, etc. If the interoperability is
there from the beginning the marriage of all the data will be seamless in the GIS making the integration
easier and more cost effective for the utility in the integration process.
GIS joins all the data sources together. It truly is the hub. From this hub the decision makers can make
decisions at a high accuracy rate and faster than ever before. The reason for this is because the data is
displayed on a map. So the trends and patterns become very easy to discern on the fly.
Figure 2
Notice in Figure 2 GIS is now the hub of the wheel and the data sources are the spokes. The number of
employees now allocated to managing the data sources has dropped from 7 to 4, saving money and
resources for the utility. Once the GIS becomes the hub creating custom reports for analysis becomes
very straight forward and also reduces man-hours in creating the report because the data is brought
together in one location.
Managing the Outages
Dispatchers for utilities process a tremendous amount of information during an outage event.
Who is out of power
Where are the crews (Tree and Line)

10. Which crews have been assigned to which areas
Are crews clear of a line being re-energized
Answering phone calls coming in from customers to report outages
Communicating with crews
Planning where to send crews as the outage event progresses
Without GIS this job can be chaotic at best at the beginning of an outage event. With GIS this job is
very hectic at worst. The GIS allows the dispatcher to remain organized resulting in clear decision
making, not to mention the correct decisions are usually made because of data being organized in the
GIS then being outputted to the dispatcher in a format he/she can easily disseminate very quickly.
See how a GIS makes life easier on the dispatcher by bringing together the data sources shown below:
Figure 3
As you can see in Figure 3, IVR and Web applications help in the communications with customers
improving the service customers receive from the utility. AVL allows the dispatcher to see where the
crews are located at all times to improve safety of the crews. The AMR/AMI and IVR calls also give
the dispatcher an accurate picture of the current state of the outage event allowing him/her to leverage
utility resources to restore the power to the customers in the most efficient manner.
To state the obvious, the less time the customer is out of power the more revenue the utility captures
and the higher customer satisfaction. Another benefit to having a GIS with regards to Outage
restoration is when it comes time to create statistical reports on the outage, man hours can be decreased
as much as 90% - 95% from my experience. This can translate into thousands of dollars in savings to
the utility.

11. Utility Billing (Smart Metering)
Smart Metering started with Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) and has now migrated to Advanced
Meter Infrastructure (AMI). AMR allows for only one-way communication (Meter to the Utility) but
the AMI systems allows for the two-way communication between the utilities and the meters. AMR and
AMI have same benefits when it comes to getting away from manual reading meters, power outage
notification, and power quality monitoring. These metering solutions have been the first wave of the
coming Smart Grid technology. They are higher profile and contain highest risk/reward with the
customers. If the Return on Investment (ROI) can be proven at the customer level then the next phases
of the Smart Grid will be easier to sell to the customers, members, and/or stockholders.
Billing the Customer
As the smart meters come online the natural progression is for the customer to pay via online bill pay,
interactive voice response (IVR) as well as through the mail and customer service reps. Smart meters
allow utilities to get readings anywhere from every 24 hours to however often the utility desires to
receive the data. Just note the more frequent the meter reading the data server receiving the data will be
need to be scaled appropriately. The days of estimating are quickly becoming non-existent.
The City of Anderson Utilities have implemented Aclara’s Star AMR system for both the Water utility
and Electric utility. There are approximately 36,000 customers in Anderson. In conjunction with the
AMR system Anderson utilities installed Milsoft Utility Solution’s Telelink IVR product in September
2010. In the first 12 months since installation of Telelink $3 million in revenue was collected from
customers calling in on the phone. Telelink also allows the utility to reverse call customers who are in
danger of being cut-off. Once the automated system connects with the customers, they are given the
option of paying their bill via credit card to avoid being cut-off the next day. Telelink takes pressure off
of the utility billing office and the customer service reps through providing information to the
customers, arranging financing, taking payments, routing phone calls to different departments, and
many more functions.
Customer Relationship
Utilities must address their relationship with the customers. The installation of smart metering affords
the perfect opportunity for utilities to bridge the great divide between themselves and the customer.
Utilities must address their relationship with the customers. The installation of smart metering affords
the perfect opportunity for utilities to bridge the great divide between themselves and the customer. We
have seen Google (PowerMeter) and Microsoft (Hohm) come up with products to involve the customer
only to give up. Cisco in the last couple of weeks has bailed out of energy management for buildings.
IT companies just do not understand the utility industry well enough to make sense of the intricacies.
The electrical power industry needs to be the driver and developer of the technology Google,
Microsoft, and Cisco are trying to develop. In a world were smart phones are so prevalent customers
need a one stop app on their phones which interfaces with the thermostat and the meter data
simultaneously, allowing the customers to control the energy use in their homes remotely.
Smart meters must also interface with billing systems and the Customer Information System (CIS). To
go a step further it would be ideal for the smart meters to be interoperable with the billing system and
CIS of the utility, allowing for the customer service cost to drop. The Guardian newspaper in the UK
wrote an article explaining how the system works in a house and why it helps the earth.

12. Customer involvement at the beginning is essential. If they are not involved in the beginning there is a
threat of a backlash. In the Jan|Feb 2011 issue of Electric Light & Power, Stuart Ravens has this to say
about Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) in their smart meter roll out:
PG&E did not plan its customer advocacy program well, which led to many
complaints including the accuracy of meters, fears of overcharging, concerns
regarding data privacy, the security of smart meters and even health concerns about
radio frequency transmitters.
Significant and well-organized protests followed, including calls for a government
moratorium on PG&E's smart meter deployment until the issues were addressed.
To date the utility has spent about $4 per meter on consumer engagement. In more
successful projects, however, customer spend can be as low as $1 to $1.50 per meter.
Education need not be an expensive exercise, just well-targeted, with early and
sensitive implementation and sustained messaging.
This example should warn other markets that utilities must be on the front foot with
consumers when deploying smart meters to prevent a backlash from destroying
potential cash savings.
Social networking can be leveraged by utilities to reach out to customers. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
Google +, and other virtual communities need to be used by the utilities to offer information on rate
increases, outages, events, give-a-ways, etc. to build trust with their customers. Regardless of the size
of the utility their customers are heavily involved in the social network world. As the trust is built with
the customer the easier it will be for the utility to install the Smart Grid components and request higher
rates if need be to afford those components.

13. Communications
The communication pipe line and the security of this pipe line will be crucial in the expansion of the
smart meters in the Smart Grid. We are talking about massive amounts of data flowing from the field to
the data center in near real-time now and in the future. This is data carrying information about our
customers and information which is sensitive in nature as well as vulnerable to cyber attacks. The other
item to consider is the interaction of the Smart Meters to the customers' smart phones or tablets through
applications.
Utilities must improve the two-way communication with the Smart Grid facilities then work on passing
this technology on to their customers. Interoperablity has to be required by the utility as different
software solutions are brought together to solve the two-way communication issue. Multispeak
(multispeak.org) being required is absolutely required to make this interoperablity a reality. We do not
have money anymore to spend for software companies to charge the electric utilities for development
costs to marry software together initially and every time there is an update to the software or Operating
System at the client site.
In the rural electrical utilities there is a need to have both RF (Radio Frequency), FTTH (Fiber To The
Home), and Wireless. See the case study of Pulaski Electric System as laid out in an article in
PowerGrid International Feb 2011:
Pulaski Electric System (PES) is a Tennessee-based electric utility that combined the
reach of radio frequency (RF) technology and the speed of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) to
a customer base that spans both urban and rural service areas.
Pulaski implemented a FTTH network in 2007 to provide in town residents and
businesses with high-speed Internet access, as well as high-definition video
entertainment and high-quality digital phone service. Extending FTTH to remote
communities and isolated farms, however, was not practical given the low density of
potential subscribers.
For this reason Pulaski selected a system that could operate in both wired and wireless
worlds.
A hybrid approach enables Pulaski to use both its FTTH network and 220 MHz RF for
rapid and reliable two-way data transport. The utility gets more value from FTTH by
using it for triple-play media and as its AMI backbone. Furthermore, it can quickly and
easily bring smart grid functionality to customers on the edges of its service territory via
the wireless network, where customer service costs are highest. This minimizes truck
rolls, removes high-cost reads and ensures that all customers receive the same high level
of service, regardless of location.
The wireless RF network provides rural reach and redundancy for the FTTH network,
which helps ensure a high system reliability level.
Although the system PES chose operates in both Internet protocol and RF environments,
at its core it is a single network. This simplifies integration to other critical applications,
provides a comprehensive coverage solution and facilitates migration from RF to FTTH
as the fiber network is expanded. It also gives PES the freedom to evolve according to
its own business goals and operational priorities
As a result, PES avoids the costs and complexities that would have resulted from
deploying, managing and maintaining two separate AMI networks.

14. The hybrid network offers the scalability and capacity that will enable PES to implement
demand response, energy-efficiency programs and in-home displays to whatever degree
is desired without retooling the entire network—or worse still, starting over from
scratch.
Communication to the smart meters is not only crucial for Outage Management but also for analysis of
the current data model of the electrical facilities. Up-to-date readings from the meters allows the
utilities to do current day of or the day after load allocations, voltage drops, fault currents, etc. will rely
on information coming not from the smart meters but also the SCADA systems, and in the future
transformers, reclosers, capacitors, and other elements on the electrical system.

15. Closing
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) is a powerful tool to have your tool belt. It is the hub of the
data wheel. All the spokes of the different data sources reach out from the GIS hub. GIS is essential to
the organization, analysis, and distribution of the data whether we are speaking of data in the quantity
we are accustomed to now or the amount of data we will be processing in the future.
As you have seen in this book with the 3 issues (Line Loss, Outage Restoration, and Utility Billing),
GIS is an absolute must in order to truly reduce the cost and revenues lost across the board in these
areas. Without GIS there will be some revenues recaptured but at the end of the day to fully maximize
the benefit of the Smart Grid GIS must be implemented and fully functional. By fully functional we
mean there being complete interoperablity between all components of the GIS allowing even flow of
the data from all the data sources. Without this interoperablity efficiency cannot be accomplished.
Providence GIS Solutions is best suited to solve this interoperablity issue which many of the utilities
have not been able to solve completely.
Providence GIS Solutions is here to serve the electrical utilities as well as water and gas in the
implementation and the expansion of their GIS. Each utility is different; each utility has their own

16. unique challenges. In these unique challenges Providence GIS Solutions thrive in designing and
implementing GIS tools to move the utility to a more efficient and stream lined operationally.
Contact Providence GIS Solutions at:
Phone: 765-734-3001
Email: info@providencegissolutions.com
Website: www.providencegissolutions.com
Blog: gissmartgrid.com
Twitter: @gissmartgrid
Thank you for taking the time to read this ebook. As time passes we will be adding and revising as we
gather more information and adding more chapters to address the challenges utilities face with lost
revenues. Please contact us at Providence GIS Solutions with any comments, feedback, and questions.
We would love to hear from you.