Utilities want solutions that turn their meter data into useful and actionable information. Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L), a regulated electric utility serving more than 840,000 customers in Missouri and Kansas, recently implemented Oracle Utilities Network Management System, Oracle Utilities Outage Analytics, Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway, and Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management to support its advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) initiative. The Oracle solutions help KCP&L bring smart grid operations and business processes together to enable storm-proven outage management and key distribution management functions, which in turn help to improve operational excellence and pave a streamlined pathway for critical customer communications.
KCP&L deployed Oracle Utilities Network Management System, Oracle Utilities Outage Analytics, Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway, and Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management as an integrated foundation for its advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) initiative, enabling the company to capitalize on the exponential influx of customer and meter data. KCP&L, which is working to roll out AMI meters to many of its customers in the greater Kansas City, Missouri, region, selected the Oracle Utilities solutions in August 2013, and Oracle Utilities professional services consulted on the implementation.
The integrated Oracle solutions assist KCP&L with outage detection and verification, as well as restoration confirmation. Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway provides meter status data to Oracle Utilities Network Management System, such as “last gasp” power-off messages and restoration power-up notifications. In addition, the Oracle applications support “meter pings” to request a power-on status from the meter. This improved access to information enables KCP&L to make better decisions, ultimately leading to enhanced reliability and service across the detection and restoration process.
In the second phase of the deployment project—scheduled to go live in May 2015—KCP&L plans to expand its Oracle system to include functions such as fault location analysis, web switching, SCADA interface schematics, and storm management. In addition, the company is looking to implement Oracle Utilities Operational Device Management to further enhance its overall AMI infrastructure.
