Johannesburg, 08 Feb 2011
OG&E recently licensed SAS Forecast Server to help analyse smart meter interval data from 782 000 accounts in Oklahoma and western Arkansas. The more than 100-year-old utility launched a three-year system-wide deployment of smart grid technology in February 2010.
Year one of a two-year demand response study involving thousands of customers in the Oklahoma City area is complete.
SAS, the leader in business analytics software and services, will enable OG&E to operate more efficiently and leverage more than $350 million in smart grid investments. The Cadmus Group, a leading energy and environmental consultancy, designed an analytical solution for OG&E based on SAS technology.
"We launched our smart grid initiative as a partnership with our customers to increase energy efficiency," said Craig Johnston, Vice-President, corporate strategy and marketing at OGE Energy Corp. "SAS and Cadmus tools allow us to analyse increased customer interval and system load data from the smart grid so we can design new energy management programs and optimise processes for our distribution system. This will contribute to our corporate goal to reduce peak load and delay the need for additional fossil fuel generating resources until at least 2020."
Johnston noted that OG&E has several initiatives under way to meet the 2020 generation objective. The company recently jumped from a rank of 53 to 17 in the 2010 IDC Research UtiliQ study, which ranks utility companies' performance in: productivity, renewable energy, smart grid initiatives, demand response/energy efficiency, and IT investment. "We appreciate the expertise of industry leaders like SAS and Cadmus to help us reach our goal," Johnston added.
According to Alyssa Farrell, SAS Global Marketing Manager for Energy and Utilities: "SAS analytics let utilities solutions manage resources by specific metrics, such as geography, weather sensitivity and customer load characteristics."
Ken Seiden, the Cadmus principal who heads the OG&E support team, said: "The models we develop demonstrate the load shape impacts and energy savings from the smart grid. As part of the smart grid infrastructure cost recovery approval process, regulatory agencies' evaluation protocols require specific statistical methods and transparency - protocols we are establishing with OG&E and other smart grid leaders."
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