Load Management in the GIS
To highlight how difficult it is to share information, a normal process may occur as described in the following paragraphs. A marketer receives a call from a new chemical factory that needs new energy service. The marketer visits the factory, meets with the factory manager, and sums the potential load for the customer. The marketer then phones the planning department to verify that the system capacity is available. Unfortunately, the system planner is not available, so the marketer must tell the factory manager that approval will take a few days—essentially leaving a potential customer with no indication whether the utility can provide the service.
Upon returning to the office, the marketer fills out a paper form for the load approval and routes it to the planning department. The planner locates the factory in the hydraulic model and determines if the new service can be served. At this point, the planner can approve or reject the new service. If the planner rejects the load, the marketer will be frustrated at the wasted time and effort in chasing the new account. If the planner accepts the load, the planner will next fill out an approval form and any supplemental information that is needed, which is then routed back to the marketer. The whole process has already taken several days from the time the marketer visited the site until the time the form reappears on the marketer’s desk.
At this point, the marketer returns to the factory with the good news. However, upon arrival, the factory manager informs the marketer that a representative of the local oil company stopped by and offered to sign up the factory on the spot. The factory grew tired of waiting to hear back from the gas supplier, and therefore the utility lost the customer and its revenue.
To further compound the issue, the marketer never informed the system planner that the factory rejected the service. System planners cannot afford to over-allocate the capacity of the pipeline, and therefore must assume the factory is coming on line until informed otherwise. Therefore, the planning department continues to believe that the factory load is real. As a result, when additional new load approvals near the chemical factory are submitted, there is an increased chance the approval will be denied. The amount of revenue lost by the utility could significantly increase due to the loss of other potential customers.
This is a simple but common example of what occurs at some utilities. The islands of data, compounded with the complexity of multiple departments working toward different goals, create a process that, in many cases, is ineffective. Now the question is asked, “How can the process be improved?”
How can Spatial Data Help
In an effort to streamline many of the processes involved in load management, many utilities are turning to their current investments in GIS. Today, the GIS at most utilities is mature and easily accessible by all departments. It is a common application that is easy to use and contains a majority of the company’s asset information. So why not start by using what data is there?
The GIS already contains information that can be used by both marketers and system planners. Available data includes current infrastructure type and location, current customer locations, and building footprints that will show potential available customers. With this data, marketers will know what the saturation level is in any section of the city, as well as the infrastructure that is available.
