OREANDA-NEWS. February 06, 2015. 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.

News Facts

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.

Supporting Quotes

“We work hard to provide exceptional reliability to our customers, and deployed Oracle Utilities Network Management System, Oracle Utilities Outage Analytics, Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management, and Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway to support our AMI initiative because of Oracle’s breadth of applications and proven expertise. We are confident that Oracle’s solutions will continue to enhance our AMI initiative and aid our overall mission,” said Duane Anstaett, vice president of Delivery, KCP&L.

“Today’s utilities seek resources that can help turn raw data into powerful information, and Oracle Utilities applications provide a complete solution that helps utilities—such as KCP&L—to meet those pressures. The integrated Oracle platform enables KCP&L to improve operational efficiency, enhance system reliability, and better manage distribution assets,” said Rodger Smith, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.