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November 1, 2008
Celebrating 11 Years with Focus on Smart Grid and Best Practices, Public Power Magazine, November-December 2008
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Tim Blodgett
Hometown Connections
303-526-4515
tblodgett@hometownconnections.com
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Public Power Turns to Survalent, Milsoft, MainNet, Enercom
As 2008 draws to a close, Hometown Connections is celebrating 11 years of service to the public power community with its best financial year ever. Through marketing and sales relationships with the industry’s premier vendors and a vast network of affiliated public power organizations, Hometown Connections has delivered products and services to over 650 American Public Power Association members. I have enjoyed meeting so many of you in your communities and at events hosted by APPA, state associations, and joint action agencies. I am pleased to provide this update on the areas Hometown Connections will be focusing on in 2009, as we continue helping public power navigate today’s unprecedented period of industry upheaval and opportunity.
With surging power supply costs, aging transmission and distribution infrastructure, and a growing emphasis on renewables and energy efficiency, many believe the smart grid and its emerging technologies will be necessary to succeed in the new electricity economy. Hometown Connections agrees and is working on many fronts to find affordable smart grid solutions for public power. Today’s Hometown Connections product suite addresses the smart grid from two directions: 1) from the utility’s perspective, providing improvements for distribution system management via advanced sensors and distributed intelligence, advanced outage management capability, and distribution automation technologies; 2) from the customer’s perspective, offering solutions that provide commercial and residential customers with information, control, and usage options.
Addressing the distribution portion of the smart grid, Hometown Connections and Survalent Technology are helping APPA members deploy innovative SCADA systems for automated, real-time monitoring and control of facilities for electric, water, and gas utilities. Survalent sees SCADA and substation automation as the foundations for the intelligent utility. Survalent Technology urges each public power utility to focus on becoming an intelligent utility, taking concrete steps for automating more utility processes with the flexibility to accommodate new technologies as they develop. Milsoft Utility Solutions has partnered with Hometown Connections on the delivery of engineering analysis, outage management, mapping/GIS, and interactive voice response systems. Milsoft deploys analytical and decision software across the entire spectrum of electric utility operations. Its solutions enable the smart grid by incorporating AMR, SCADA, distributed generation, and mobile workforce tools. Over 1,000 electric utilities, educational institutions, and consultants in the United States and abroad use Milsoft’s solutions.
The broadband over powerline solution from MainNet Communications is an intelligent plug and play, end-to-end system that provides the advanced infrastructure for smart grid applications. It turns any electrical grid into a bi-directional IP-based broadband communications network, extending the reach of information transmission over the electricity grid from the medium-voltage transformer, over the low-voltage grids, and up to the customer premises. Information comes in to the utility from all points on the grid from virtually any device, including transformers, SCADA equipment, meters, streetlights, traffic/security cameras, and energy management units in the home or business. The utility can also send outgoing data streams to deliver real time price signals to customer premises, remotely connect/disconnect meters, or activate load control units.
Through Hometown Connections, the Energy Depot® Internet energy information tools from Enercom are enabling public power customers to access energy savings advice and data on their utility Web sites. These applications feature Web-based energy audits, easy-to-read graphs, recommendations on energy savings, and a comprehensive energy library with tips and fact sheets for residential and commercial customers.
Organization Check Up in High Demand
The other significant growth area for Hometown Connections is the consulting work that my staff and I have been conducting. The Hometown staff is in high demand for our strategic planning expertise. Through a service called the Organization Check Up, Hometown Connections provides a low-cost, quick assessment of key areas of utility management:
--Customer Service
--Power Supply
--Distribution Operations
--Administration, Accounting, and Finance
--Planning
--Human Resources
--Labor Relations
--Governance
A typical check up includes one to two days onsite followed by analysis and recommendations. Hometown Connections provides a practical, common sense review of the management practices of each utility with realistic recommendations for how to improve.
Hometown Connections takes great pride in noting that our core staff has been working together since the founding of the organization in 1998. This long tenure as a team enables us to do several things. First, it allows us to build and maintain long-term relationships with public power utilities, associations, joint action agencies, vendor partners, and the APPA staff. Second, through those many and sustained relationships, we have been afforded the opportunity to see how literally hundreds of public power utilities operate, observing best practices, innovative approaches, and new technologies. We have our hand on the pulse of public power, and we are able to share the strategies and business practices that work best in public power communities.
We are privileged to witness up close the great skill and devotion of the public power work force, and we look forward to many more years of service to the public power community.
Tim Blodgett is president and chief executive officer of Hometown Connections.
Visit the Hometown Connections Web Site for service details.
• Hometown Connections
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