Learn more about Bidgely’s Smart Meter Analytics grid- based applications by downloading the AMI Insights Report and Enterprise Analytics Whitepaper.

In the most significant acknowledgment to date that Bidgely’s UtilityAI™ use cases continue to advance and diversify far beyond AI-powered customer applications, the company has for the first time been included in the Guidehouse Insights’ Smart Meter Analytics Leaderboard ranking. 

The Leaderboard report only includes smart meter analytics solutions that use meter data as a primary input for grid-based applications and services, excluding from their analysis the customer-based applications such as home energy reports, segmentation and call center support for which Bidgely has historically been best known. In other words, only analytics providers who have successfully developed AMI algorithms to generate insights around transformer health (grid) made the fiercely competitive list.

Though it is Bidgely’s first-ever Smart Meter Analytics Leaderboard appearance, fewer than five points separate the company as a “nimble, focused solution provider” from the top tier Leaders category, which features long-established global players in the space. Analysts note that Bidgely’s solutions are “rooted in advanced analytics and benefit from strong vision and technology scores.”

Leading Technology Scores

Guidehouse awards Bidgely one of its highest Smart Meter Analytics technology scores, attributing the superior evaluation to both “patented true disaggregation technology” and the growing number of UtilityAI use cases that are in line with today’s most pressing utility objectives, including EVs and electrification, gas disaggregation, decarbonization, time-of-use and peak load management. 

Analysts also note that Bidgely’s high technology score is tied in large part to, “enhanced investment in automated DER and asset detection, including PV, EV, HVAC, and pool pumps,” which they say is also a strong contributor to the company’s vision and product portfolio scores.

Analytics Workbench: Predictive Capabilities Boost Bidgely’s Ranking

The report describes how “Bidgely has expanded beyond its flagship customer-centric offerings in recent years and can now use behind-the-meter intelligence to support predictive analytics solutions for utilities in a product labeled Analytics Workbench.” They describe how Analytics Workbench allows utilities to realize greater value from their AMI investment by generating an appliance-level picture of each service address as a means to “measure and predict the demand impact of new loads on the grid (e.g., EVs or heat pumps), understand locational trends, and more. Users can also use this intelligence to enrich load forecasting and resource adequacy planning efforts.”

In referencing EVs, analysts are referring to Analytics Workbench’s ability to more effectively and strategically help utilities mitigate daily grid congestion and imbalance in the face of growing EV adoption.

Analytics Workbench provides utilities with data-driven EV insights at both the micro transformer and substation level, as well as the macro regional adoption trend and load forecast level. 

In order to manage EV loads, utilities first need to understand who is conducting charging and where and when it is taking place. Analytics Workbench reveals:

  • The current adoption patterns and EV load growth in a service territory
  • The frequency of charging sessions and the distribution over time (hourly, 30-min and 15-min intervals) as to when customers are charging 
  • The maximum power draw of the charger at each customer site
  • The grid impacts of EV charging loads at various levels of aggregation (city, substation, feeder) 
  • The grid impacts tied to the proportion of off-peak versus on-peak load 

Given that EV consumption is a statistically significant contributor to peak/load increase, Analytics Workbench reveals AI-derived EV charging-related load profiles in granular detail that enable utilities to precisely identify substations/feeders at greatest risk of reaching capacity. These insights about when and where EV consumption is highest and in comparison to other substations serve as crucial data inputs to identify vulnerable infrastructure that may be at risk of failure to inform maintenance and upgrades.

Integration as an Asset

The Leaderboard report also recognizes the significance of Bidgely’s partnerships with “key technology partners such as Itron (for integration of appliance insights into Itron’s MDM systems), Salesforce (for integration of energy insights into sales, service, and marketing cloud solutions), and EnergyHub (integrated demand side management), along with several systems integrators and value-added resellers” as a major factor in the strength of the company’s Smart Meter Analytics solutions. 

Rather than operating as a monolithic platform where only incumbent technology is employed, the company’s partner agnostic and agile approach provides utilities with greater flexibility to employ Bidgely’s AMI intelligence to enrich and optimize its preferred technology stack, no matter what platforms are included. 

A Long-Term, Visionary Partner

For those utilities that are not only looking to leverage Smart Meter Analytics to solve today’s most pressing grid challenges, but also thinking ahead to how AMI data could be put to work to help achieve their 5, 10 and 20 year goals, Guidehouse identifies Bidgely as a provider with the vision to be a strategic partner for the long term. 

Analysts anticipate Bidgely will continue to gain ground, saying that the company “continues to improve its position in the analytics market year-over-year, acquiring more utility customers, moving its pilot programs to full-scale deployments with existing customers, and refining its technology to reach higher accuracy and customer penetration.”

Learn more about Bidgely’s Smart Meter Analytics grid- based applications by downloading the AMI Insights Report and Enterprise Analytics Whitepaper.

Categories: Bidgely