At this year’s GITA Ontario Chapter Fall Forum there were a number of fascinating presentations on topics such as smart grid, mobile work force, managing electric distribution systems with enterprise GIS, and asset management in utilities and local government. 

The day started off with a Industry Trends Analysis Forum, similar in intent to the ITAG session at the annual GITA Conference in the US.  I found this one run by the Ontario GITA Chapter to be particularly effective.  People were grouped by tables, each table with 3-6 people, and 30 minutes was allotted for round table discussions with the goal of each table coming up with a consensus on paper of they saw as the most important 2 or 3 applications and technologies.  A few facilitators circulated to help if tables needed help or suggestions.  After the 30 minutes was up, a few tables were selected to report orally and then the paper notes were collected from each table to be used to prepare a summary report.  I found the exercise very effective, because there was 100% active participation.

Some very interesting information that I collected at the talks I attended.

Smart grid

A smart meter read rate of 99.8% is the provincial goal in Ontario, which means that 99.8 % of meters need to be readable over the network at any given time.

Municipal utilities are not only deploying smart meters, but also demand response devices, which can shut down appliances to reduce load at peak.

A WiMAX communications network is being built by electric utilities across the province of Ontario to support deployment of the provincial smart grid.

Time of use billing for electric power is being implemented in Toronto, a city with a population of about 4 million, right now.

Reportedly smart device manufacturers cannot supply smart devices fast enough to meet demand.

Standards

Smart grid is going to make industry standards much more critical. In several talks the standards Multispeak and CIM were mentioned as critical for of sharing data among different applications.

Microsoft’s vertical Smart Energy Reference Architecture (SERA) for smart grid devices with a common plug-in standard is starting to get some attention.

Mobile

Even small local governments are implementing mobile solutions.  Applications described include enabling editting in the field.

Data Quality

Improving the quality of asset databases is a high priority for most local governments in Ontario because of PSAB3150.  Unlike GASB 34 in the US, PSAB 3150 appears to have real teeth.  It not only requires local governments to dramatically improve the reliability and completeness of their asset databases by Jan 1, 2010, but also to implement systems for maintaining their asset data at a high level of data quality.

One utility has implemented a novel way to improve the quality of their network facilities database.  $10 will be paid for any verified correction submitted by a field worker who uses their geospatial field viewer.  They guarantee that 100% of these corrections will be on the monthly DVD within three months.  They are actually finding that 90% of corrections are being included on the DVD within a month.  They are also noticing that the frequency of “line hits”, instances where mains are being hit during excavations is decreasing.

Data Volume

Typical smart meters are designed for 24 reads per day.

With smart grid the volume of data is expected to grow astronomically.  Chatham-Kent Energy, with tens of thousands of customers, is expecting data growth of 4 terabytes per year.

Reportedly PG&E with millions of customers is planning on 4 petabytes data growth per year.

Reportedly one local government in the US is dealing with a million data reads per second.