| | October 20158CIOReviewTechnology Innovation: Pathway to a Utility's EvolutionBy Gary Hayes, CIO, CenterPoint EnergyDescriptors such as "dynamic" and "innovative" don't often come to mind when someone or something is more than 100 years old. When it comes to utilities, however, those qualities are essential. Many of America's electricity, gas and water utilities have been operating for much longer than a century, but to remain successful, they must approach their business with a dynamic and innovative mindset every day. The convergence of consumer, information and operational technologies has thrust utilities into yet another step function to "expand the digital core." For a long time, the length of time needed for our industry to embrace technology innovation could be reflected by a long curve on a graph. In 1900, less than 10 percent of American families had electricity in their homes. It took nearly 50 years to reach 90 percent. In contrast, the iPhone launched in 2007 and is expected to hit the 90 percent saturation level in this country during 2015. This faster speed to adopt innovation is driving businesses, including utilities. We are going digital!Our company's product is energy. This energy can be converted to provide light, comfort, health, convenience and safety. We often forget the benefits of energy until a natural disaster interrupts service. This energy is supplied through engineered systems that are measured, monitored and maintained to provide reliable, safe and economic service to our customers. To achieve these results, control technologies have been in place for decades. So what is different? Benefiting Customers and the EnvironmentTechnology is changing the nature of our operations and systems. New technologies such as smart meters allow us to activate or deactivate services without rolling a truck. Since CenterPoint Energy's deployment of more than 2.3 million electric smart meters across our Greater Houston service territory, we have performed more than 11.5 million remote service orders. By avoiding truck rolls to perform these tasks, the company has saved more than 1 million gallons of fuel as well as 9,300 tons of carbon emissions.opinionin my | | October 20159CIOReviewAdditionally, we record energy consump-tion data that can be used to help consumers manage their consumption and allow the electric market to provide innovative rates. The continued deployment of our intelligent grid has allowed us to reduce power outage durations by more than 104 million customer minutes, because we are able to remotely control switching. We can also interact with customers proactively in an outage. Through our Power Alert Service, we can communicate that we are aware of their specific outage and provide an estimated time of restoration. We also can update them with any status changes and let them know when their power is restored.Adapting through InnovationAs the new energy future evolves, we are innovating and adapting to the changing mix of energy resources and business models. Energy from solar, wind and emerging supporting technologies, such as batteries, can be integrated into the grid. We have to incorporate these sources while we maintain the integrity of the energy supply. This will require innovation in sensors, analytics, communications and controls to ensure that the "energy product" requirements are met. Technology is also being deployed to enhance our ability to operate and maintain our systems. CenterPoint Energy, like many other utilities, is faced with an aging infrastructure. To continue to optimize asset programs, we must continue advances in analytics, deployment of additional sensor technologies and tap into more innovation. For example, we have enhanced our interaction with customers by implementing a predictive analytics engine that can identify the reason for their interaction and recommend the best action. We also recently deployed a new Web and mobile interface to improve the customer experience. The Coming "Event Explosion"Bottom line: Technology is everywhere. It is woven throughout our personal, family and work life. It has become a part of who we are and what we do. A leading technology research company, IDC, "predicts the number of "Internet-of-things" (IoT) endpoints ­ connected devices such as cars, refrigerators and everything in between ­ will grow to more than 29.5 billion worldwide by 2020. Also by 2020, smartphones will reach 6.1 billion, 70 percent of the world's population. We are all part of an always-connected, information-rich, app-driven and real-time world. A vision of this convergence is an "intelligent energy future." In this future, energy delivery systems and services will be powered by operational intelligence and analytics to provide proactive and efficient services for our customers.This future will involve an "event explosion": information from sensors and devices drives big data and analytics in real-time; privacy and protection of information will continue to be paramount; different technology models (cloud) will be part of the solution fabric; and, "systems of systems control" will be required to manage the operational complexities. CenterPoint Energy is at the forefront of many of these technologies. Our ability to in-teract with customers via their channel of choice; improved reliability because of smart meters and the intelligent grid; cutting-edge natural gas leak detection ca-pabilities; and asset analytics are just a few examples. Situational Awareness and New ChallengesWe are continuing to innovate. Operations teams are working on the "service center of the future" ­ evaluating, prototyping and implementing technologies to enhance accessibility and capture of field information, simplifying complex and paper-driven processes, improving efficiencies and enhancing safety. We will be providing customers with the ability to define preferences including how and when they want to interact with us. We are providing analytical situational awareness and the ability to visualize and act on information to reduce outage response times, evaluate asset health and predict the reasons customers are calling. Along with its opportunities, technology brings challenges. As we invest our time and capital in technology, our team is working diligently to protect our systems and stay ahead of the "bad actors" who attempt cyber-attacks to breach our defenses. It is an exciting and transformative time in the history of our industry and our company. Technology will continue to be a key factor in future success, but it is only an enabler. Our strength remains in the talented people who bring the technology to life, using it to better serve our customers, safely and reliably operate our systems and create value for our stakeholders. Technology Innovation: Pathway to a Utility's EvolutionThrough our Power Alert Service, we can communicate that we are aware of their specific outage and provide an estimated time of restorationGary Hayes
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