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Press Release: Oracle's "Big Data, Bigger Opportunities" Report: Smart Grids Increase Utilities' Data Collection 180x

Results of an Oracle Utilities survey released this morning show that electric utilities in Canada and the US are only in the early stages of putting smart meter data good use. But they could be doing a better job of using the data they are collecting. The survey was of 151 utility executives in Canada and the United States. The study, Utility Transformations - Big Data, Bigger Opportunities: Plans and Preparedness for the Data Deluge, shows that utilities on both sides of the 49th Parallel are collecting significantly more interval data from smart meters. The frequency at which they are gathering smart meter data is 180 times more than in the past - every four hours compared to once a month. And the vast majority of them are collecting information such as outage and voltage data. Linda Jackman, group VP of industry strategy for Oracle Utilities, tells Canadian Green Tech in an interview that despite the improvement on the data collection front, utilities aren't using the data as effective as they could be. She was surprised to find utilities collecting certain types of data, but then not using that data to inform business decisions. According to the results, 78% of utilities surveyed are collecting outage data with 59% of them using, meaning nearly 20% aren't correlating outage data with customer communications as an example. For voltage data, the levels are 73% and 57%, respectively. "In outage and voltage data, the fact that everybody is not collecting that data, I think is surprising. You've rolled out a smart meter and you're not collecting outage data when it has the ability to talk to you around outage data? Why am I not collecting it? But then only 60% of them are using it once they have collected it, I think is also surprising," says Jackman. "So what we're seeing is that utilities are still in this very early stage and very formative stage of collecting the data but actually don't know what [they're] going to do with

The Aug. 15 edition of GreenTechMedia includes the following article discussing the future of the smart grid. The article highlights smart grid expert Andres Carvallo's presentation from The Soft Grid 2012 conference, and notes his comments regarding utilities' adoption of cloud computing and the utility "big data" challenge. The article mentions that Austin Energy is working on with Oracle on an IT-based project. The article also includes a comment from Oracle Utilities' Linda Jackman noting that utilities have their own reasons to keep as much of their IT work in-house as possible, but investor-owned utilities in particular are under pressure to spend on IT capital expenses, which they can recover in rate cases, rather than on operational expenses like cloud services that do not offer such guaranteed payback.

The Aug. 14 edition of GreenTechMedia includes the following article highlighting the ten predictions and trends for what the utilities industry will see in the software and smart grid market in coming years identified by the keynote speakers at GreenTechMedia's The Soft Grid 2012 conference. The fourth trend sited in the article notes the increasing role of open-source platforms in terms of distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers. The article notes that legacy players in the industry, such as Oracle, are building solutions around new open-source platforms.

The Aug. 13 edition of Electric Light & Power includes the following article highlighting the results of Oracle Utilities', "Big Data, Bigger Opportunities: Plans and Preparedness for the Data Deluge" research study. The article includes comments from Oracle Utilities' Rodger Smith noting that the report indicates that the majority of utility executives are working to enhance their ability to glean real intelligence from smart grid data to ultimately create new opportunities to improve service reliability and deliver useful information to customers. The article also includes comments from Oracle Utilities' Brad Williams, who notes that the survey results show that there are opportunities for business improvement in utility operations.

The Aug. 17 edition of NTS Smart Grid Blog & News includes the following article highlighting the results of Oracle Utilities' "Big Data, Bigger Opportunities" report. The article notes that utilities, like most other industries, struggle to effectively manage data.

The July/August edition of Electricity Today Magazine includes the following article highlighting how utilities can handle information to better serve customers. The article includes results from the Oracle Utilities' "Big Data, Bigger Opportunities" report which examined how utilities use information generated by smart grid deployments to drive organizational efficiency, increase reliability and strengthen customer relationships. The article addresses how access to new data will change the way utilities drive their businesses and how predictive analytics could spur operational change.

Press release highlighting that AboitizPower, a power distributor, retailer and generator in the Philippines, has implemented Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to improve efficiency and enable compliance. The release notes that prior to selecting Oracle's solution in August 2011, AboitizPower's six subsidiaries were using unrelated systems developed internally and customized over several years. The release includes comments from Rodger Smith, senior vice president and general manager at Oracle Utilities noting that Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing will enable AboitizPower to streamline billing processes and allow the utility to meet privatization and deregulation requirement.