Smart Grid: No More Maps, Push Pins for SMUD

In a smart grid application, utility Sacramento Public Utility District (SMUD) has moved from using maps and push pins to visual analytics to help make decisions about outages, smart meters, and other issues. Steve Ehrlich, SVP, Marketing, of Space-Time Insight, which has supplied a smart grid system to SMUD, says that many utilities are still using maps and push pins. But situational intelligence software can help utilities unite and analyze data from various sources--outage information, wind speed data, and smart meter data, for example. One of the biggest benefits of this type of system: It helps utilities avoid outages and prevents crises. Lisa Cohn of EnergyEfficiencyMarkets.com interviews Ehrlich about how utilities benefit from such systems.