Executive Summary

SMART METER
MILESTONES

According to market forecasts, energy and utility industry

players were planning to invest US$7 billion on big data
and analytics in 2014 which represents one of the
highest cross-industry spending at 15% (ABI Research,
2014). Given an annual average CAGR of 25%, the same

The British government has

announced an ambitious plan to
install smart meters for each and
every household by 2020
(Source: gov.uk)
(Sou

figure is expected to treble to US$21 billion in another

four years time. Key business drivers behind the
ado
adoption of energy data analytics include cost reduction
through demand response and generation programs,
personalized customer care, the growing complexity of

50%
Smart meters already installed all
across the US representing

43%

customer data and an increasing need to comply with

regulatory norms.

... of all household

Major utility players are set to roll out millions of smart

(Source: Green Tech Media)

meters with the aim of generating actionable insights

even though as per the industrys own admission, any
serious effort toward monetization is being offset by a
lack of core IT capabilities, especially in big data
technology. This white paper will showcase how energy
and utility providers can unlock potential service
opportunities using a reliable predictive analytics
solution across all stages of the business cycle.

Background
With utility companies announcing smart meter roll-outs
in their millions (see infographic), consumers in the near
future will be in greater control of their domestic usage

70 - 72%
The roll-out target for smart meters
in the European Union
for 2020.

patterns and exercise greater freedom of choice on

(Source: Euractiv.com)

which utility provider should eventually get their

business. Clearly, theres an ongoing transition
happening from predictable business models to a

Figure 1: Smart Meter Statistics

cu
customer-centric model where utilities have to
concentrate on end user experience.

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It has to be remembered that other industries

such as telecom have successfully undergone this
transition, largely by integrating analytics across
their upstream and downstream processes. Utility
players are clearly in the throes of unique
opportunities and stepping up to the plate on
customer expectations is the only way forward to
address
business challenges.
add
The onset of smart meters marks a watershed on
the future direction of the energy business.
Pushed by increasing competition, cost issues,
deregulation, varying consumer choice and
environmental compliance, utility players
worldwide have shifted from the supply-side
business model to a data-driven, demand-based
approach.
It makes more business sense to
app
exercise real time controls over power
generation, consumption and costs rather than
blindly augmenting capacity or surprise end users
with bill shock. Capturing proactive intelligence
on consumer behavior not only helps stretch the
dollar through more frugal resource allocation, it
helps utilities stay ahead of the game by
also hel
leveraging consumption patterns to land end
users smack dab in the middle of lucrative pricing
models and tariff offers.

Current Challenges and

Application Scenarios
Compared to any other point of time in history,
utility providers have access to the largest data
set of consumer behavior which according to a
research by Edison Foundation, stands at more
than 1 billion data points on a daily basis
these information bytes include wattage,
demographics and even device-specific power
consumption.
consum

However, its not difficult to see that the utilities

arent doing much with the widely available data
since they dont have the knowledge set to
convert the data into meaningful business
intelligence. For instance, according to the Utility
Analytics Institute each year, rebates worth
millions of dollars are not communicated in time
to the customers
because most utilities struggle
cu
to keep track of information emerging at
customer end. An informed business decision
can only be taken when the disaggregated data
is somehow used to develop tailor-made products
and services to design a sales funnel for long-term
growth.
The key to pulling together all the disparate
information into a systematic revenue-generation
strategy requires the input of big data analytics.
Using predictive, statistical models based on
historical inputs, utilities are able to create
predictable load forecasting and innovative
pricing plans which differentiate their offerings
from competition. They can also identify
fr
boundary case and corner case scenarios
(outages, sudden spikes in power consumption)
and realign their entire business operations
around rich data insights.
At each and every node, the data generated at
smart meters should be accessible to business
heads for speedy integration into creative
business application scenarios.

PREDICTING DEMAND RESPONSE

It has been estimated that predicting demand
response can lead to up to 90 per cent cost
savings compared to other alternatives of
generation capacity.

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In order to predict demand response, utilities

should be able to integrate a wide stream of
information including weather data, individual,
non-intrusive meter readings at 15 minute
intervals along with the historical record of high
peak demands.

PREDICTING GENERATION RESPONSE

A typical cost of operating a medium-sized
thermal power plan of 500 Mw capacity is
$250,000 per day. Increasingly, utilities are
planning their per day generation for various
target markets well ahead of time based on a load
forecast of power demand. Clearly, predicting
generation response will go a long way in
accumulating supply side cost savings. Renewable
accumul
energy players can predict their own generation
response based on weather factors such as
ambient and dew point temperatures, cloud
cover, wind speed and precipitation.

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE
More and more utilities are facing pressure from
environmental groups and governments to
comply with norms which endeavor to simplify
the accessibility of utility reports at the end user
level. As per government regulations, utilities will
now have to provide customers with detailed
information about their electricity consumption
patterns
pertaining to time of day, device usage
pa
and more.

REDUCING CUSTOMER CHURN

With deregulation in effect and the widespread
availability of smart meters, customer
expectations are undergoing a phenomenal
improvement. Utility providers are in a race
against time to offer personalized plans and

BI-based loyalty programs without increasing

tariffs.

A BI/Analytics Framework
to Visualize Energy Data
In order to transform BI data into actionable
intelligence, utility players need a unifying energy
management framework which can remotely and
precisely capture at each and every stage. A
predictive analytics system, hosted either on
cloud servers or local servers, drives the
necessary logical, computational and statistical
algorithms
to analyze large volumes of event
al
data, e.g. correlation, data clustering, regression
analysis. The various stages of the BI/analytics are
represented in the diagram shown in next page.

Data Collection
Utility companies receive source side data
through sensor integration at various points of
the energy flow matrix starting with power
generation comprising both coal-based thermal
power plants as well as renewable energy
sources.
At the distribution stage, each and every
transformer, substation and electric pole is fitted
with an intelligent electronic device which
transfers data to a wireless mesh network. Smart
meters available at end user location as well as
new sensors transfer the final information to the
Cloud using protocols like ANSI C12.18; IEC 61107,
Protocol (OSGP) and TCP/IP
Open Smart Grid P
communications.

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Improve
Interactivity
Prioritize
Response

Collection

Automate
Action

Discovery

Aggregation

Map Alarm /
Predict Failure

Visualization
Service

Analytics &
Visualization
Advanced
Analytics

Analysis
Platform

Energy Optimization
Framework

Data to Actionable
Intelligence Flow

DATA ANALYSIS

Predict
Patterns

DATA
VISUALIZATION
& REPORTING

Figure 2: BI/Analytics Framework for Smart Energy Analytics

Here are a few examples of data records that can prove useful in driving monetization use cases:
Fire/smoke alarms
Floods
Weather-driven network outage
Voltage dip/short circuit/overload
Peak demand
Temperature control -- HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning)
Smart home alarms

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 Data Analysis
The applications are designed to integrate data
from countless programs and systems for the
utilities including real estate, work order, energy
spend and utilities use. The data is then brought
together in one place and normalized so it can be
used by various applications across multiple
vendors and types of devices. The analyzed data
is then delivered
to two types of applications:
deli
facility data applications and business intelligence
tools for further processing. Predictive Analytics
tools like MongoDB and Reporting tools like
Tableau enable pattern creation on the demand
side with an aim to improve overall distribution.
In order to derive actionable intelligence flow for
aggregated data, the analytics protocol leverages
various tools including geospatial processing,
complex events processing, classification,
machine learning, forecasting and
multidimensional processing. At this stage, it is
possible to visualize the answers to all possible
5W questions.
que

Data Visualization and Reporting

At this stage, the analytics system should improve
interactivity through a graphical, map-based,
high-level overview of the whole real estate
portfolio along with the ability to drill down to
individual regions or facilities for more focused
views of performance. To enable prioritized
response, the operations dashboard organizes
performance
information in prioritized order so
per
that its easy to see which efforts will have the
greatest impact tied to specific goals, and with
the least amount of effort. In order to automate
action, the operations dashboard offers a simple
workflow for responding events and alerts.

Alarms and failures have to be mapped very

precisely using a meter analysis tool application
which includes a collection of visualization
widgets to explore and uncover irregularities
within energy and other metered utilities.
Demand patterns have to be created based on
real-time data integration with weather and
geographical
locations.
geog

Performance Benefits and

Monetization Smart Home
Use Case
In order to transform BI data into actionable
intelligence, utility players need a unifying energy
management framework which can remotely
capture data at each and every stage. To explain
the performance benefits of smart analytics, we
will review an Internet of Things deployment
performed by eInfochips for a leading smart
homes utility player.
Smart homes were installed
pl
with sensors, smart meters, thermostats and
integrated security devices with the Control Unit
running on Zigbee and Wi-Fi. Events were
monitored for a month, 6 months and 1 year. The
following figures will help explain data volume
and velocity in a smart homes scenario.in a smart
homes scenario.
1million devices installed X 100 events per
device per day = 100 million records a day
The events that occurred in 1 Month, 6 months
and 1 year
100 million records per day X 30 days = 3
billion records a month
Time needed to individually profile 3 billion
records = 2 minutes x 3 billion = 10000 years!

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Instead of 100 million, the MongoDB tool inserts

only 1 million records and retrieves 300,000
which contributes to saving valuable time, costs
and productivity in data analysis (see below).
Sample reports are captured with monthly view
for real and false alerts, number of devices being
captured, state wise threat alerts and installations
to alarm ratio.

Figure 3: Smart Retrieval using MongoDB

Potential Business Areas for

Utility Players
DEMAND RESPONSE SERVICES
With a smart analytics capability percolating to
each and every consumer household, utility
providers are in a better position to offer demand
response services based on individual usage
pattern. This puts the end user in control of their
actual consumption. Based on forecasted power
consumption situations, utility providers can warn
their consumers about their peak demand well
ahead of time encouraging them to save on
energy expenditure thus, reducing their energy
bills, eliminating bill shocks and black-out
situations.

COINCIDENTAL PEAK DEMAND

PROGRAMS

Figure 4: Pre-aggregation of Data in

MongoDB for Faster Query Processing

Coincidental peak demand prices are higher than

peak demand charges and have seasonal
patterns, these charges not being in control of
individual consumer but a large number of
consumers. Utilities have access to operational
demand response programs to generate historical
data enabling accurate prediction of coincident
peak demand with clearly articulated
short and
articul
long-term patterns.
Coincident Peak Predictions can be further
improved using factors like weather, renewable
supply such as Solar PV system.

EXPENDITURE MODELING AND

COSTING
Figure 5: Don't Waste Time in Query Processing!

There are two kinds of expenditure models:

Power Supply model and Power Demand model.
The former consists of public grid, local power
and renewable power generation and sits at the

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heart of consumer demand response algorithm

for consumers participating in CPP (Coincidental
Peak Program). In contrast, the Power Demand
model consists of flexible and non-flexible
continuous and batch type workloads.

PREDICTING RESOURCE DEMAND

Using smart analytics tools, utilities can predict
future resource demand originating from
historical data thus, preparing a sequence of load
patterns for all given locations. This helps avoid
service disruptions as well as overcapacity
concerns which can greatly reduce energy
expenditure for users from anything between 20
to 30%.

eInfochips Smart Energy

Analytics Solution
eInfochips offers smart analytics solution support
for the energy and utility industry across
development, QA, reengineering and sustenance
cycles with IoT, M2M connectivity and
device/sensor integration and video and data
analytics integration. We also perform custom
application development for alerts and controls.
Our expertise in energy/utility sector touches
across the following areas:

Smart Homes
eInfochips smart homes framework comprises of
a data integration module with events and device
data processing performed by MongoDB and an
analytics module with Tableau used for creating
charts and reporting.

unstructured data from all entry points, and

performs predictive analytics by integrating with
Hadoop, CRM/ERP and MongoDB. It also provides
custom service BI and ad hoc reporting using
Tableau and integrates on Cloud/SaaS framework
over mobile apps, custom web and desktop apps,
Google Computing engine, Amazon Web Services,
Microsoft
Azure and other high end systems.
Mic

Internet of Things
As a MongoDB IoT solutions partner, utility
players can apply eInfochips software and system
development capabilities to deliver operational
insights, reduce costs, improve customer service
and create new revenue streams. MongoDB
greatly helps in text search and aggregation with
full, flexible Index support and rich queries
perform analysis in real time. Our IoT
helping per
framework encompasses design expertise in small
form factor, lower power wearable objects,
wireless SoC and IoT gateways, prototyping
boards and platforms, integration with sensors,
rich web and mobile apps, analytics and BI.

Cloud Enablement
Operating across public, private and hybrid cloud
environments, eInfochips supports device
integration across millions of device endpoints
with security features like role-based access,
HTTPS and crypto-secure tokens, Spring security
framework. Through web access, the
administrator can manage all connected devices
from
a single interface.
fr

SMAC
eInfochips SMAC framework intelligently
integrates application, device, online and

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Conclusion
Utility players are struggling with a deluge of intelligent customer data which will hold the key toward
their future business growth. It has to be added that without resourceful analytical tools and strategic
partners, making sense of customer data is analogous to finding a needle in a haystack. Potential
business growth areas in revealing business insights are astounding: utility players can leverage smart
analytics to create price packages and custom deals similar to those being offered by telecom carriers
such as AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. They can further diversify their revenue streams by delivering high
value in emerging
growth areas such as Internet of Things, clean energy solutions and smart grids, and
eme
collaborate with smart home system players to capitalize on consumer demand for intelligent homes. In
summary, the usage of smart analytics is a win-win for both utilities and their customers.

References

HQ: Sunnyvale, CA, USA

Tel: +1-408-496-1882
markeeng@einfochips.com
www.einfochips.com

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