The FINANCIAL — IBM announced that it has been selected to continue supporting the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) to operate Ontario's Meter Data Management and Repository (MDM/R) system with new computing infrastructure and an updated operating environment.
The 5-year $68.5 million (Cdn) contract was awarded following a competitive procurement process and includes options to extend to seven or 10 years.
Under the agreement, IBM will enhance the overall performance of the MDM/R through new computing infrastructure, enhanced web services facility to support increasing volumes of requests for consumption information, enhanced disaster recovery capabilities, and operational improvements with a focus on reducing risk and costs.
The MDM/R is a core part of Ontario’s Smart Metering Initiative to drive a culture of conservation, enabling the billing of Time-of-Use rates and encouraging consumers to shift more of their energy use to off-peak periods. The MDM/R supports the meter to billing operations of 72 local distribution utilities and their 4.7 million customers, processing over 100 million transactions every day. As IBM said, the MDM/R receives, validates, estimates and allows for editing and storage of meter read data received from smart meters. It then translates the resulting hourly energy consumption data into time-of-use billing quantities (or buckets) for use by local distribution utilities to bill and communicate consumption information to their customers. Given that the MDM/R is the central repository of hourly data about residential and small business energy use in Ontario, it will be a valuable tool for big data analysis, research and energy trend forecasting over time.
"The IESO needed a service provider with extensive knowledge and experience operating such a large-scale, complex, high-transaction volume service,” said Przemek Tomczak, Director – Smart Metering at the IESO. “After conducting a thorough and extensive competitive procurement process, we are pleased to have IBM operate the MDM/R at the lowest risk and total cost of ownership to the IESO, local distribution utilities and ratepayers of Ontario.”
"The utilities industry is transforming at a rapid pace and requires smarter infrastructures able to improve the performance and sustainability of energy systems while maintaining customer trust," said Michael Valocchi, Global Energy and Utilities Industry Leader, IBM. "Our global industry expertise will help the IESO support Ontario's industry transformation. Insights gained from big data information networks and analytics systems will help consumers make smarter use of energy and utilities make better informed energy decisions to benefit all stakeholders.”
The IESO is responsible for managing Ontario's bulk electricity power system and operating the wholesale market. The IESO as the Smart Metering Entity is responsible for the administration and operation of the MDM/R, including the collection, validation, estimation and the ability for distributors to edit the meter read data.
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