Meter Data Analytics—Enabling Actionable Decisions to Derive Business Value from Smart Meter Data

A utility’s meter data is a valuable asset that can be daunting to leverage. Consider that one household or premise can produce over 35,000 rows of information, consisting of over 8 MB of data per year. Thirty thousand meters collecting fifteen-minute-interval data with forty variables equates to 1.2 billion rows of data. Using SAS® Visual Analytics, we provide examples of leveraging smart meter data to address business around revenue protection, meter operations, and customer analysis. Key analyses include identifying consumption on inactive meters, potential energy theft, and stopped or slowing meters; and support of all customer classes (for example, residential, small commercial, and industrial) and their data with different time intervals and frequencies. INTRODUCTION Analyzing the health of a utility service provider, whether gas or electric, involves the collection of data in multiple sources in multiple formats and from several physical data repository locations. Using SAS® software for smart grid data analysis enables the utility to maximize value from disparate data sources that can be organized into analytical data stores, enabling utilities to gain thorough insight on customers’ consumption and behavior. With SAS® Visual Analytics, interactive visualization environments are optimized for discovery—a critical step for any analysis and an ongoing means of knowing what additional questions to ask and methods to try to distill more value from data. Discovery paves the way for the best problem formulation and helps reveal additional opportunities. SAS® Visual Analytics provides the following features:  Decision-making based on interactive statistical insights using advanced analytics and exploratory data analysis  A comprehensive set of advanced statistical analysis tools that produce repeatable results that are easily documented and verified  The ability to handle large, disparate data sources so that all available data can be leveraged for analysis  A point-and-click interface that leverages core SAS capabilities, including analytics, stored services, SAS code, reports, output, and integrated metadata  Visual querying, data filtering, and extensible visual analytics But why are smart meter analytics important? Consider the following:  Utilities now have the ability to see consumption patterns in granular detail, allowing them to identify potential cases of fraud or energy theft. This has a direct bottom-line impact on reducing bad debt of the utility.  Additional granular consumption data can improve hierarchical load forecasting and sharpen the financial pencil for both planners and traders.  Energy companies can now engage in more interactive demand management programs with customers, providing them with options for time-of-use billing or peak power incentives.  The additional insights from the data provide more ability to segment customers in areas of high load growth, leading to a better understanding of future capital expansion needs.