POWER May 2022 Intl - 13

O&M
The 'Era of Location
Intelligence' for Utilities
Location-based information has played
an important role in the utility industry
for decades, but that history is just a
prelude to the dramatically larger role it
will play in the industry going forward.
Nearly every aspect of how utilities are
managed-from plant operations to
renewable energy initiatives, from environmental
compliance efforts to maintenance
programs-will be impacted by
the kinds of insights that are now possible
from location data. This is a technological
inflection point for the industry
that will usher in a new era in how utilities
use technology.
The scope of this impact, or the
" Era of Location Intelligence, " cannot
be overstated, and the timing of it
could not be better. The operational and
business insights gleaned from location
data are invaluable for tackling the
most complex challenges that utilities
face not only today but for the rest of
this decade, especially as the industry's
workforce ages and there is an influx of
younger tech-savvy employees. These
challenges include:
■ Sustainability and net-zero targets.
■ Public safety and emergency response.
■ Regulatory compliance.
■ Industry consolidation.
■ Accelerating market changes.
Simply put, utilities cannot solve
these challenges without the help of
location intelligence (Figure 1). The
organizations already taking steps to
embrace this new era have positioned
themselves for success, and those that
are slow to use location intelligence
will needlessly struggle to achieve their
most ambitious objectives.
To understand the significance of
location intelligence, it is important
to look at the humble beginnings of
location data and technology in the
utilities market. The science of location
data goes back decades, when
digital devices that incorporated location
information in their functionality
first emerged. Early examples included
wired sensors in industrial settings,
electronic reports filed by workers,
and digital maps for site planning and
infrastructure maintenance.
The utilities industry was a natural
May 2022 | POWER
Connected Plant
Conference Features
Digital Technologies
1. The operational and business insights
gleaned from location intelligence are indispensable
for solving the most complex
challenges that utilities are facing, including
how electricity is generated and distributed.
Courtesy: Locana
home for this technology because so
many use cases for location technology fit
into how utilities generate electricity and
deliver power, natural gas, and water. That
data and the software used to analyze it
were complex, though, so small departments
were established in utilities around
the globe to do this niche work.
Today, every utility has a geospatial
team, and those groups face intense
demands for collecting and analyzing
location data to support operational
functions across the organization. The
pressures on those departments have
grown exponentially because of unprecedented
growth in the sheer amount of
data, as well as increasing applications
of the data (see sidebar).
In fact, location-based information is
ubiquitous in utilities today. If your organization
is using sensors to monitor power
generation machinery, using wireless
tablets for workers conducting maintenance
checks, or using environmental
monitoring equipment to measure emissions,
then location data is already a critical
part of your operations.
Geospatial Software
While the volume of data and the number
of use cases has grown, the size of
geospatial departments has remained
relatively static. That's because the
complexity of working with geospatial
software and related technologies has
traditionally required advanced degrees
and hard-to-find skillsets. Those kinds
of professionals do not grow on trees,
which put an artificial limit on the impact
of location data and technology. The
potential to utilize location for an even
greater number of applications within a
utility was there, but the talent pipeline
www.powermag.com
Location intelligence, along with many
digital initiatives impacting power generation,
is among the topics that will
be featured at POWER's Connected
Plant Conference, taking place May
23-26 at the Renaissance Waverly
Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. The event includes
discussions about digital technology
improvements and the growing
field of applications that are reshaping
the power generation and chemical
processing industries.
served as a gating factor, limiting some
of location's reach.
That was then, but things are very different
today thanks to a convergence of
factors that are unleashing the potential
of location data and technology in the
industry. One of the biggest factors is
the democratization of software used
to turn raw location data into actionable
intelligence. There will always be a role
for highly credentialed geospatial professionals,
but new software applications
are available that utilize artificial
intelligence
(AI), user-friendly interfaces, and
simple-to-understand reporting features
that non-expert users can easily make
part of their everyday workflows. This
puts the power of location intelligence
into the hands of anyone with a smartphone
or a laptop, paving the way for dramatically
broader use of these insights.
Another key factor driving the era of
location intelligence is the availability of
robust datasets and AI-driven processing
power to turn data into information. The
combination of location data from a utility's
own internal information technology
(IT) assets with complementary opensource
datasets from external providers
is a powerful one-two punch that is serving
as a catalyst for the new era. Utilities
now have instant access to multi-faceted
data that gives them a breadth of information
related to every aspect of their
operations. The availability of this data
has been mirrored by major advancements
in AI and cloud computing-based
resources, able to analyze that data and
extract the right insights at the right moment
for the right department and employee
(Figure 2).
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POWER May 2022 Intl

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