Fierce Innovation Awards: Energy Edition Announce Finalists, West Monroe Recognized

West Monroe Partners announced today that is has been selected as a finalist in this year’s Fierce Innovation Awards:  Energy Edition, a utility-reviewed awards program from the publishers of FierceEnergy and FierceSmartGrid.  West Monroe was recognized as a finalist in the category of Distribution Management Systems.

West Monroe was selected as a finalist for its innovative, industry leading product, Connect-the-Grid (CTG). Connect-the-Grid is a Distributed Energy Resource Management (DERMS) tool targeted at helping utilities improve the process of enrolling new distributed generation systems (e.g. rooftop solar) and managing them once they are on-line. CTG dramatically reduces enrollment times and provides insight into the impact distributed generation has on the distribution grid. With the rapid growth of interconnection requests, utilities need tools that allow them to respond quickly while also ensuring that they are not compromising reliability or power quality. Today, most utilities are tasked with manual processes and time consuming analysis due to gathering information from multiple systems for each application--and often, utilities do not have the necessary tools to automate the technical screening of new applications.  Automating the enrollment process, creating a central repository for data, and having a platform to visualize grid impacts of new and existing DG assets make up the heart of Connect the Grid.

Finalists’ applications were reviewed by an exclusive panel of executives from major North American utilities including CenterPoint Energy, Commonwealth Edison, Duke Energy, Florida Power & Light, National Grid, Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Portland General Electric, and San Diego Gas & Electric.

All applications were evaluated based on the following criteria: technology innovation, financial impact, market validation, compatibility with existing networks, end-user customer experience, and overall level of innovation.

“Connect-the-Grid eases several utility pain points associated with distributed generation,” said Tom Hulsebosch, managing director of the Energy & Utility practice. “Utilities are under pressure from both customers and regulatory bodies to move faster. Connect-the-Grid reduces the time it takes to manage the application process and builds a database of all distributed generation on each feeder. Once systems are enrolled, Connect-the-Grid helps automate the technical evaluation of new applications for quicker acceptance or identification of potential issues. Distribution Engineers are able to see the impact of the actual output each system is producing on an individual or aggregate basis. The visualization of actual system generation and comparing it to the feeder peak and minimum loads over time makes CTG an extremely powerful tool.”

For more information about Connect-the-Grid, visit our webpage. To learn more about the innovative work that West Monroe is doing with utilities today, you can visit our website at www.westmonroe.com.

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