By 2020, virtually all electric, gas, and water distribution systems will be designed, constructed, and operated with “Smart Meter/Smart Grid” technology as a critical element of both the physical network infrastructure and the back office solution. Though it is unclear what the best-in-class solutions will look like and how they will impact the customer base, one thing is certain—an effective smart grid strategy will be necessary in order to remain viable in the electric distribution business. Bass & Company can help your organization develop and deploy a Smart Meter/Smart Grid strategy that will ensure all aspects of this emerging technology are leveraged in the development of your solution. Bass & Company will be your trusted advisor going far beyond strategy. From business case analysis, application architecture, and technology roadmap development, to integration leadership and support, performance management and organization change, we ensure that you achieve your short-term business benefits, while building your foundation and future.
WHAT WE OFFER
 Executive counsel
Business process subject matter expertise
Business functional architecture
Performance management
Technical system architecture
Litigation and testimony support
Implementation planning and program management
Reliability and distribution asset management process improvement
Single source distribution network modeling
Data conversion solutions for merging large volumes of network information from disparate sources
RELIABILITY
Almost a full decade into the twenty-first century, most utilities still count on customer phone calls to determine the status of the distribution network and still roll a truck to perform basic operations at the meter. However, as utilities place smart meters in the field to capture operational benefits in the meter-to-cash process, it now becomes possible to improve service restoration and proactively manage the quality of service being delivered. The challenge is selecting the right technologies and integration approach to turn the large quantity of service point power status data into an asset, rather than getting mired in it. Bass & Company has hands-on experience working with the available smart meter technologies, and thus can work with your team to improve the reliability of service to your customers by incorporating your smart meter technology into a true smart grid.
DISTRIBUTION ASSET MANAGEMENT
For many years capex and opex budget decisions have been heavily influenced by experienced engineers and field personnel. Today, factors such as industry consolidation and aging workforces are making this approach less and less viable. In addition, population growth, aging infrastructure, and weather extremes are stressing distribution networks beyond their intended capacity. Smart Meter/ Smart Grid provides utilities with an opportunity to base asset
management spend and operation decisions on real data and timely information, rather than relying on rules of thumb and experience that, in many cases, has already left the organization or is no longer relevant. We can help you incorporate sound Smart Meter/Smart Grid technology to improve your distribution asset management decisions.
INTEGRATED FINANCIAL MODELING
Utilities are businesses and most decisions boil down to the best use of capital. At the end of the day, Smart Grid is really about the convergence of operational/customer/financial data and turning it into useful business information. It’s about distilling the information to a basic measure of risk and impact to enable informed decision making. Historically, it has been nearly impossible to bring these separate data sources together into a single decision-making platform. Bass can help you develop and implement a Smart Meter/Smart Grid strategy that will enable you to capture, integrate, and manage this data to plan system improvements, improve customer service, reduce system losses, improve use of distributed generation, and improve the management of product delivery in competitive markets.
SINGLE SOURCE NETWORK MODEL
For most utilities, the greatest impediment to achieving the promise of Smart Meter/Smart Grid is the lack of a single source network model from which to base analysis and decision making. Historically, numerous versions of the distribution network model exist within a utility. The operators, planners, relay people, distribution engineers, trouble crews, and the GIS/mappers all have their own versions. Each is modeled to the level of detail and maintained to the level of accuracy necessary to support the specific job function. The challenge is to find and create one accurate single source network model capable of supporting all of the various functions. Bass & Company is the exclusive integrator of the Integrated System Model (ISM) from Electric Distribution Design company of Blacksburg, Virginia. The ISM product has been developed by a team of electrical and computer engineers at Virginia Tech working to solve real world problems with staffs at leading utilities. The strength of ISM is its ability to model the complete distribution and transmission system in order to attach large amounts of data from existing utility databases to the model and complete extremely large computations in timeframes not possible with legacy engineering applications. ISM is the first foundational element for what is likely to become the de facto “Smart Grid” for the utility industry.
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