AutoGrid Introduced Big Data Analysis Platform for Utilities and Grid Operators

With their new Energy Data Platform and DROMS (Demand Response Optimization and Management Systems), AutoGrid is promising to cut the cost of demand response systems by 90 percent for utilities and grid operators and increase the "yield" of power from demand response events by 30 percent. You will not need a calculator to know that is a massive saving by any margin and on top of that you will not need any additional hardware.

The grid at the moment is going through major changes and as a result there will be more data to analyse at the front and at the back. Utility customers will need information to make better decision on how to user energy and suppliers will need the data to make the grid smarter. AutoGrid's DROMS offers big data analytics and scalable demand response to electricity and energy sector.

"Utilities, grid operators and end-users all want to achieve a greater visibility into their power consumption and costs. A large portion of the electricity generated worldwide is simply wasted because it can't be dynamically monitored or controlled," said Dr. Amit Narayan, AutoGrids founder and CEO. "Big Data analytics and software-based controls will help balance supply with demand and ultimately turn software into the cheapest, cleanest source of power."

At the core of AutoGrid's Energy Data Platform (EDP) is a dynamic, physics-based optimization engine for mining the wealth of smart grid data plus it’s a DROMs. Its cloud base backend makes it highly scalable and secure.

Similar to e-commerce recommendation engines or algorithms for predicting weather, the EDP uses very large set of structured and unstructured data to create forecasts of future consumption and grid conditions by examining ongoing trends and relationships between millions of variables.

The system learns continuously and becomes more accurate as more data becomes available, and can optimize the system better as it is used more and more.

AutoGrid’s DROMS has already been deployed and used in demand response programs for City of Palo Alto Utilities (CPAU) and has help them to shed an average of 1.2 megawatts of peak demand, saving 3.5 megawatt hours of electricity, per event.

DROMS additionally provides:

• A Unified View of All Available Resources Across All Programs. The service allows utilities to view available capacity across all customer segments, load types, geographic locations, and programs from a single dashboard.
• Real-Time load Forecasting and Event Monitoring. Advanced machine learning techniques generate highly accurate real-time predictions of individual loads as well as the response to load shed requests or price signals.  
• Modeling of Grid Physics for Optimal Event Dispatch. DROMS can anticipate the impact of a demand response request before it occurs and create event strategies in real time.
• Accessible through Public or Private Clouds. Customers also gain the benefits of enhanced security, reliability and privacy that can come with cloud-based architectures.
• Powerful Measurement, Verification, Analytics and Reporting. DROMS provides a large library of reports for analyzing and comparing event and program performance. Users can slice and dice results to gain insight into different customer segments.