Big Data

Manufacturing To Be A Key Election Issue

Four years ago, I stood in the centralized data command center of an American oil and gas company, watching a former colleague remotely adjust infrastructure at wellsites thousands of miles away because an algorithm detected a potential failure. This was the first time I personally witnessed the power of the “digital oilfield.” Essentially, the “digital… Keep reading →

General view of an oil refinery

The broad, impactful outlines of the U.S. energy renaissance in a couple of recent data points: In November, U.S. crude oil production reached 10.038 million barrels per day – a level not seen in 50 years – largely with advanced hydraulic fracturing unlocking oil from tight-rock formations. The United States is projected to be a net exporter of… Keep reading →

Monitoring & Diagnostic Center_Atlanta

  Today GE announced its ‘predictive maintenance’ program driven by operational data from the company’s global fleet of more than 1,500 gas turbines helped decrease power plant downtime and saved customers an estimated $70 million in 2014. When a gas-fired power plant goes down due to a maintenance issue, that generation capacity must be replaced… Keep reading →

New Combined Electricity Project Connect Spain and France

Adam Stein (left) and Tom Arnold (right) became friends at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and together co-founded TerraPass, a pioneering greenhouse gas management company. This business partnership continues today at Gridium, where Adam is President and VP of Product, and Tom is CEO. Buildings use Gridium software to operate more efficiently,… Keep reading →

Google To Buy Smart Thermostat Maker Nest For 3.2 Billion

Demand response firm EnerNOC yesterday announced it will acquire Canadian data and analytics firm Pulse Energy. The deal highlights how energy companies – particularly in the utility sector, but also oil & gas – are increasingly becoming technology companies. “The acquisition is yet another example of how industries that previously weren’t driven by digital technology,… Keep reading →

Tamar, The Natural Gas Production Platform Off The Israeli Coast, Is To Begin It's Natural Gas Production

In an August article for McKinsey Insights the authors – Stefano Martinotti, Jim Nolten, and Jens Arne Steinsbø – write that “the rapid progress of technology such as big data and analytics, sensors, and control systems offers oil and gas companies the chance to automate high-cost, dangerous, or error-prone tasks”, thereby positioning themselves to significantly… Keep reading →

Plug-In 2008 Conference And Expo Highlights Latest Hybrid Electric Car

A Marquette political science teacher is taking a year off to focus on a business that allows smart phone users to pool water, power and natural gas usage data so as to more effectively manage consumption. It’s interesting because the application does the job smart meters promise without waiting for their truncated deployment or relying… Keep reading →

Chaos Computer Club 28th Congress

Big data isn’t much use if you don’t know what to do with it. Utilities are collecting unprecedented amounts of information from millions of smart meters installed in recent years, but the capacity to collect data seems largely to have overwhelmed companies and regulators. Processes designed for a world run on paper billing and planned… Keep reading →

Solar Power Tariff Incentive Spurns Boom In Gainsville Solar Industry

Not so long ago, DistribuTECH was a trade show focused on core Transmission & Distribution (T&D) engineering equipment. The shift in the last few years has been dramatic and the event now resembles a high tech, Silicon Valley conference. Our industry, like many others, has become a digital one. While it is one of the… Keep reading →

Worthy Farm To Install UK's Largest Private Solar Panel System

The death of the traditional utility business model has been highly exaggerated, to butcher the Mark Twain quote. But that doesn’t mean change won’t happen, and when it does, those companies with a strong ‘ecosystem of innovation’ will be faster to pivot and more likely to survive. The drumbeat of warnings has grown louder that… Keep reading →

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