Use Case 1: A Utility Company in Canada
What if you could predict and counteract the impact of a solar storm by analyzing data from sensors across the grid?
A utility company in Canada uses predictive analytics and high-performance computing to solve the industry’s most pressing challenges, including grid reliability in a volatile environment and requirements to expand renewable energy.
The Opportunity
This utility company has the most extensive transmission network in North America, and it is one of the few utilities to maintain its own research institute. Receiving approximately CAD100 million each year, the research institute is charged with improving the safety and reliability of power generation and transmission while fueling innovation. That includes planning for disruptive events such as solar storms as well as making incremental improvements in transmission efficiency, incorporating new sources of renewable energy into the grid and analyzing growing volumes of data from an increasingly smart grid. The sweeping scope of these challenges, however, can sometimes make it impractical for organizations to tackle them alone. Hoping to broaden its perspective and accelerate innovation, the company decided to join a portion of its research efforts with other providers in the energy industry and IBM.
What Makes It Smarter
Dramatic changes are reshaping the energy and utilities industry. Smart grids. Renewable energy. Electric vehicles. Innovation is the name of the game. That’s why this utility company in Canada joined a visionary global research collaboration, applying advanced predictive analytics and high-performance computing to solve the most pressing energy challenges facing the industry. In one project, the company is investigating how to incorporate more renewable energy sources into the grid and meet government targets without sacrificing reliability. With sophisticated scenario planning, it will be possible to understand and compensate for the intermittent nature of wind power to balance supply and demand. In another project, the utility provider is finding ways to analyze streaming data from grid sensors in near-real time to understand why outages occur and spot patterns that may signal an impending failure. For example, using coupled predictive models, the company would be able to forecast the impact of a solar storm on the grid, days in advance, and take preventive steps to avoid an outage.
Solution implementation
The utility provider joined IBM Research in launching a new research institute, a first-of-its-kind collaboration intended to accelerate innovation across the global energy and utilities marketplace. It is an enormous milestone for the industry; it promises to uncover the insights that will define the next phase in smart grid transformation. Members of the institute will apply predictive analytics and high-performance computing to the most pressing challenges facing the energy and utilities industry. The collaboration represents a significant IBM investment in Smarter Energy, a way of both solving real-world utility challenges and creating a powerful, integrated analytics and optimization platform based on IBM technology.
Using this powerful combination of advanced technologies, the research institute will build on the industry’s collective knowledge in five areas of joint research:
- Outage planning optimization: Reducing the amount of time customers go without power
- Asset management optimization: Improving the allocation of capital and operational expenses for upgrades and maintenance
- Integration of renewable and distributed energy resources (DER): Meeting regulatory requirements and industry targets for incorporating renewable energy and DER into the grid while ensuring stability
- Wide-area situational awareness: Detecting anomalies across the grid in real time to prevent cascading failures
- The participatory network: Transforming the relationship between provider and consumer by building a participatory engagement model
Each research institute member focuses on two areas of research. For this utility provider, the emphasis is on wide-area situational awareness (WASA) and the integration of renewable energy sources and DER.
Solution Components
- IBM® Cognos® Business Intelligence V10
- IBM Decision Optimization
- IBM InfoSphere® Streams
- IBM InfoSphere Data Architect
- IBM Informix® TimeSeries – Real-Time Loader
- IBM Intelligent Operations Center
- IBM Netezza® Analytics
- IBM Rational® software
- IBM SPSS® Modeler
- IBM WebSphere® Application Server
- IBM STG Lab Services
Benefits
By joining this research institute with IBM, the utility company aims to improve the safety and reliability of its power grid and transmission systems in an environment of constant change and innovation. Indeed, the WASA project should give the organization the tools to predict and prevent outages by detecting patterns in the transmission network that could signal an impending outage. In particular, by combining real-time monitoring with solar activity forecasts, the project should help avoid outages caused by solar storms. And its work on integrating renewable energy will help the company meet government targets to increase wind generation capacity while accommodating growing demand. The collaboration also gives the organization access to IBM expertise in simulation code optimization and modeling as well as a powerful technology stack. In addition, the company will have usage rights to all the algorithms, software, patents and other innovations created by the institute and its members. These advantages will enable the utility to accelerate its research program and realize the business benefits of a smarter grid sooner.
Instrumented – The research involves collecting and analyzing an enormous amount of data from grid sensors, or synchrophasors, which record and transmit the state of transmission lines in real time. This time-stamped data includes power flows, voltage, frequency and phase angle, recording the state of the grid at any given point in time and space.
Interconnected – Data from grid sensors is correlated with solar storm forecasts as well as information from the company’s GIS system and grid topology and asset database, providing a comprehensive view of grid operations.
Intelligent – The research collaboration is addressing several challenges associated with the adoption of a smart grid, including the integration of renewable energy sources and the ability to predict and prevent outages. Using what-if scenario planning, utility companies will be able to incorporate intermittent wind and solar energy into the grid while maintaining stability and accommodating rising demand. And, by monitoring the grid and analyzing data in near-real time, companies will be able to detect patterns that could signal an impending failure and take steps to prevent it.
Real Business Results
- Expects to increase grid reliability by detecting signs of failure in the near-real time stream of data
- Anticipates helping meet regulatory requirements for expanded use of wind and solar power
- Lays the groundwork for a smarter energy grid, using advanced analytics to predict and prevent failures while adapting to rising demand and a shifting energy mix
Some Other IBM Decision Optimization Use Cases
Company | Industry | Business problem | ROI | Public Reference |
---|---|---|---|---|
UPS | Logistics | Air Network design | $87M / 2 years + 10% fewer planes | yes |
Logistics Co. – US | Logistics | network design | > $5M / year cost saving | |
Logistics Co. – US | Logistics | routing application | $0.6M / year reducing cost | |
Dairy Co. – APAC | Logistics | Dairy distribution | $15M / year cost saving | |
Brewing Company – US | Transportation | Manufacturing sourcing + distribution | $150M / year transportation cost saving | |
Continental Airlines | Transportation | Crew rescheduling | $40M in a year | |
Railway Co. – EU | Transportation | Scheduling / pricing | $16M / year + Revenue 2% (of EUR 1.5B = EUR 30M) + lower OPEX | |
NS Reiziger (Dutch Railway) | Transportation | Timetabling / rolling stock optimization / crew scheduling | $27M / year reducing operational cost + $54M / year increase of fare revenue | |
Hotel Group | Hotel | Hotel planning | some customers reduced cost by more than 10% ($50M) | |
AT&T | Telco | network recovery | 35% reduction of spare capacity | yes |
Media Co. – US | media | sales process planning | In 1996-2000 increased revenue by $200M, reduced rework by 80% | |
South African Defense | defense | Force / Equipment planning | $1.1B / year | yes |
Bank – US | Finance | Cash inventory management | Reduced replenishment cost by 55% + reduced cross-shipping fee by 63% (daily cash dispersion is $200M) | yes |
Indeval (Mexico) | Finance | Security trade settlement | reducing the amount of cash that banks must have on hand to cover trades by 52% and saved Mexican banks more than $240M in interest in 18 months | yes |
Investment Co. | Finance | Portfolio planning | For 600 clients with $185B valued portfolio > $100M saving on transaction cost | yes |
Grant, Mayo van Oterloo | Finance | Portfolio optimization | $4M / year | yes |
Energy Co. – US | Energy | Hydro-power generation | Minimum $0.8M / year reducing cost | |
REE (Red Electrica) | Energy | Unit commitment | $130k / day cost reduction | yes |
Motorola | Manufacturing | Procurement management | $100-150M / year | yes |
Samsung Electronics | Manufacturing | Semiconductor manufacturing | 50% reduction in cycle time | yes |
Mining SW Co. – APAC | Manufacturing | Mine production planning | 5% (> $35M) cost saving | |
Mining SW Co. – APAC | Manufacturing | Mine operation planning | >$20M value increase (2-3% increase of mine value) | |
Car manufacturer Co. | Manufacturing | planning of sourcing | > $50M / 5 years cost saving + $40M upfront investment savings | |
Car manufacturer Co. | Manufacturing | Car manufacturing | saved the cost of building a 3rd production line + investment payback in 3 days | |
Soft Drink Co. | Manufacturing | Production sourcing | $6M inventory reduction + 2% fewer miles | |
Steel manufacturer | Manufacturing | Steel manufacturing | reducing 30-40% stock ($10B/year revenue) | |
Brewing Company – US | Manufacturing | Production planning | > $1M / year reducing cost | |
US Water Products Manufacturing | Manufacturing | Inventory optimization | $6.2M working capital reduction | |
2 Chilean Forestry firms | Manufacturing | Timber harvesting | $20M/year + 30% fewer trucks |