Everything's Talking to Each Other: Smart Meters Generate Big Data for Utilities and Customers

The initial design for digital meters was to allow the utility to more efficiently gather data in a timely and accurate manner. However, it was quickly realized that the ability to communicate directly between the meter and the utility could provide command and control that was not previously available. In addition, it could provide sufficient data to gain visibility into energy consumption as well as assist in the maintenance functions if the data is used in conjunction with the outage management, work management and other utility operational systems. Finally, if this new influx of data could be readily accessed and mined, the studies and analytics could provide a wealth of information that could be used by many different systems across the enterprise.