Big Data issues and opportunities for electric utilities

Advances and innovations are crucial for a sustainable electricity system that includes smart grid technologies, renewable energy sources, and greater energy efficiency. These technologies are often layered on top of the existing infrastructure and legacy information systems. The management and utilization of the data generated from the different components of the electrical system are critical for the successful deployment and operation of this system. This paper reviews the issues and opportunities of the use of Big Data for electric utilities. Big Data provides the opportunity to better monitor, correct, and integrate smart grid technologies and renewable energy. At the same time, data management and utilization must be integrated into organizational operations if the potentials are to be realized. Electric utilities are conservative, heavily-regulated, and concerned with both system reliability and overall profitability. Thus, technological, economic, institutional, and policy constraints must all be addressed. After reviewing these issues and opportunities, we empirically analyze whether these are part of the discussions about electric utilities with federal policymakers. The results show that while conversations about electric utilities overall are plentiful, conversations about data in the context of electric utilities are relatively rare.