Can IBM help utilities find shelter from the storms?

When Superstorm Sandy slammed into the East Coast, it left as many as 2.1 million New York homes and businesses without power. Combined with another storm that hit soon after, hundreds of thousands in New York and New Jersey remained without power last week.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has called out local utilities as having failed customers. And that begs the question: What more could utilities have done?

Through a new partnership called the Smarter Energy Research Institute, IBM aims to help utilities create more robust reaction plans based on better storm predictions.

"Outage planning is actually very hot button, especially with what has been going on [with Superstorm Sandy]," said Brian Gaucher, a manager at IBM Research and a technical coordinator with the institute. “You could tell in advance of a storm what would be the territory that is most impacted, and you could get out crews and even equipment in advance."

Can better data usage stabilize the grid?

虽然停电显然对客户的影响很大，他们也导致公用事业主要成本。一些$ 14十亿价值服务价值每年因停电失去了在美国。“部分的测试结果，我们正在寻找的是提供真正的商业价值，更有效率，”戈谢说。

IBM is kicking off the institute by collaborating with three utilities: DTE Energy in the U.S., Hydro-Québec in Canada and Alliander in the Netherlands.

Predicting storm impacts is only one part of what the institute is hoping to accomplish. IBM is looking at five main areas:

• outage-planning optimization to reduce the amount of time when customers have no power
• asset-management optimization to better divvy up capital and operational expenses for upgrades and maintenance
• integration of renewables and distributed energy resources to meet regulatory targets and keep systems stable
• wide-area situational awareness to detect anomalies in real time across the grid
• 加强“参与网络”，以改变帮助公用事业更多地接触消费者的效用 - 消费者关系。

Each utility will focus on two of those main areas as they work with IBM's research and IT teams to better utilize data, optimization and predictive software.

Alliander, for example, specializes in renewable energy and sustainability, while Hydro-Québec is one of the largest hydroelectric power producers in the world.

DTE能源，同时，经营底特律爱迪生，在密歇根州和天然气公用事业密歇根联合燃气公司，它拥有120万个客户210万个客户提供电力。

Photo of lighting boltbyCivdisvia Shutterstock.

For those investigating how to better prepare for storms, IBM envisions that utilities will be able to use predictive models to see possible impacts earlier, so they can plan how to allocate repair crews and resources quicker and more efficiently.

One such tool is Deep Thunder, a high-resolution forecasting tool that can predict -- days in advance -- how badly different areas will be hit by wind or rain, Gaucher said. By coupling that with damage models showing what happened to equipment in past storms, utilities will be able to more accurately send out work crews and equipment, such as transformers, lines and poles, thereby reducing outage times, he said.

Implications for renewable-energy integration

Utilities with renewable-power operations, which can vary wildly, would also be able to better forecast the performance of those operations in order to better balance supply and demand.

"We have folks interested in how to enable renewable-energy mandates coming out without destabilizing the grid," Gaucher said. "Wind and solar can come and go."

至于什么IBM呼吁参与网络，或者 - 高雪所说的那样 - “社会能量”，该研究所将着眼于如何让客户和消费者更多地参与，既共享数据，并做好自己的本分，以节约能源。

In the Netherlands, Gaucher said, utilities aren't getting much data from homes that have smart meters because customers don't trust them. Only about 10 percent of customers share smart-meter data with utilities, he said, so Alliander and others are looking into how to make people aware of the benefits. Utilities could, for example, give customers feedback on how they can use energy more efficiently and save money.

All of the applications and intellectual property that are created will reside within the institute to be shared among utilities that join. Member companies will also be able to take part in meetings and workshops organized by IBM.