Case Study: Utility Decision Management
With the help of SmartWorks Compass, Dakota Electric is able to automate repetitive processes, resolve outages faster, reduce load on peak days and minimize energy losses while maximizing the use of assets to better serve its members.
Challenges:
The member-owned, not- for-profit electric distribution cooperative determined it was time to improve data reliability and pursue new technological solutions to track solar resources and monitor load control contributions.
As the power provider to homes, businesses and farms in parts of Dakota, Goodhue, Scott and Rice counties, the cooperative decided to update its response capabilities to track and monitor where losses are occurring throughout their Advanced Grid Infrastructure (AGi) network.
Solution:
The Dakota Electric team opted to utilize the SmartWorks Compass platform to automate workflows and streamline processes across multiple utility systems, all using different technologies.
Dakota Electric uses an extensive range of SmartWorks modules to improve the customer experience and increase operational efficiency. For example, virtual metering calculations are used to aggregate and track distributed energy resources and load control performance. SmartWorks Compass also identifies transformers that need to be replaced, for instance when load has grown too high for the transformer’s rating.
One of the items that Dakota Electric has been tracking since before the AGi meters were installed, is the number of meter reading issues. As expected with the clean meter reading data being supplied by the AGi meters, you can see on the following graph, the amount of estimated bills and billing adjustments has dropped considerably.
With these new insights, Dakota Electric is able to automate repetitive processes, resolve outages faster, reduce load on peak days and minimize energy losses while maximizing the use of assets to better serve its customers and members
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