Between the Poles

GITA Ontario Fall Forum 2009: Smart Grid, Asset Data Quality, Data Volume, and Mobile

At this year's GITA Ontario Chapter Fall Forum there were a number of fascinating presentations on topics such as smart grid, mobile work force, managing electric distribution systems with enterprise GIS, and asset management in utilities and local government. 

The day started off with a Industry Trends Analysis Forum, similar in intent to the ITAG session at the annual GITA Conference in the US.  I found this one run by the Ontario GITA Chapter to be particularly effective.  People were grouped by tables, each table with 3-6 people, and 30 minutes was allotted for round table discussions with the goal of each table coming up with a consensus on paper of they saw as the most important 2 or 3 applications and technologies.  A few facilitators circulated to help if tables needed help or suggestions.  After the 30 minutes was up, a few tables were selected to report orally and then the paper notes were collected from each table to be used to prepare a summary report.  I found the exercise very effective, because there was 100% active participation.

Some very interesting information that I collected at the talks I attended.

Smart grid

A smart meter read rate of 99.8% is the provincial goal in Ontario, which means that 99.8 % of meters need to be readable over the network at any given time.

Municipal utilities are not only deploying smart meters, but also demand response devices, which can shut down appliances to reduce load at peak.

A WiMAX communications network is being built by electric utilities across the province of Ontario to support deployment of the provincial smart grid.

Time of use billing for electric power is being implemented in Toronto, a city with a population of about 4 million, right now.

Reportedly smart device manufacturers cannot supply smart devices fast enough to meet demand.

Standards

Smart grid is going to make industry standards much more critical. In several talks the standards Multispeak and CIM were mentioned as critical for of sharing data among different applications.

Microsoft's vertical Smart Energy Reference Architecture (SERA) for smart grid devices with a common plug-in standard is starting to get some attention.

Mobile

Even small local governments are implementing mobile solutions.  Applications described include enabling editting in the field.

Data Quality

Improving the quality of asset databases is a high priority for most local governments in Ontario because of PSAB3150.  Unlike GASB 34 in the US, PSAB 3150 appears to have real teeth.  It not only requires local governments to dramatically improve the reliability and completeness of their asset databases by Jan 1, 2010, but also to implement systems for maintaining their asset data at a high level of data quality.

One utility has implemented a novel way to improve the quality of their network facilities database.  $10 will be paid for any verified correction submitted by a field worker who uses their geospatial field viewer.  They guarantee that 100% of these corrections will be on the monthly DVD within three months.  They are actually finding that 90% of corrections are being included on the DVD within a month.  They are also noticing that the frequency of "line hits", instances where mains are being hit during excavations is decreasing.

Data Volume

Typical smart meters are designed for 24 reads per day.

With smart grid the volume of data is expected to grow astronomically.  Chatham-Kent Energy, with tens of thousands of customers, is expecting data growth of 4 terabytes per year.

Reportedly PG&E with millions of customers is planning on 4 petabytes data growth per year.

Reportedly one local government in the US is dealing with a million data reads per second.

Autodesk University Bloggers Social 2009

The date and time for the second annual Autodesk University Bloggers Social is Monday November 30th, 2009 from 6:30PM to 8PM at the Mandalay Bay "Border Grill".  To be considered for an invite, please complete the form linked below.   There will be a flock of bloggers and Autodesk employees attending as well as some speakers in a casual social networking environment to place names to faces.

Autodesk University 2009 Blogger Social Signup Form

Autodesk University Virtual

If you're stuck home in bed with the flu Dec 1-3 or your travel budget has been cut and you can't make it to Las Vegas, there is a way you can still keep up with AU classes and sessions via Autodesk University Virtual.  50+ classes and sessions will be streamed live.

You can find out more about AU Virtual here and see what is available on AU Virtual compared to being there live.

GeoWeb 2009 in Vancouver July 27-31 Focus on Urban Environments

GeoWeb 2009 is taking place July 27-31, 2009 in downtown Vancouver, BC Canada at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue and will focus on Urban Environments.  This year it includes an academic track on 3D Cityscapes.

Keynote and invited speakers include

• Michael T. Jones is Google’s Chief Technology Advocate and former CTO of Keyhole Corporation, the company that developed the technology used in Google Earth.
• Ken Greenberg is an architect and urban designer who has played a leading role in the rejuvenation of downtowns, waterfronts, neighborhoods, and campus master planning.

Some selected labs include

• GeoWeb 101 – An Overview of GeoWeb - the What, Why & Where of GeoWeb - Ron Lake, Carl Reed, & Michael Gerlek
• Digital Cities Modeling Workshop - Neal Niemiec, Autodesk
• Google Earth 5.0 KML Extensions -  Michael Ashbridge, Google
• 3D Geospatial: Project Implementation Methods and Best Practices - Tim Case, Parsons Brinkerhoff

Selected technical sessions include

• The gap between SDIs and the GeoWeb - Clemens Portele, Interactive Instruments
• Simple Relational Model for Temporally Diverse City Models - Paul Cote, Harvard University
• Address Management: The Secret Ingredient for Geospatial Success - Boris Gutkin, DMTI Spatial Inc.
• In My Backyard (IMBY): Renewable Energy for Everyone - Christopher Helm, NREL
• How good is your information architecture? - Carsten Roensdorf, Ordnance Survey
• Advances in Virtual City Data Management - Xavier Lopez, Oracle Corporation
• Building a new location-aware infrastructure for calendaring and scheduling - Peter Batty, Spatial Networking
• Integrating GIS, CAD, Raster, 3D and BIM Data - Dale Lutz, Safe Software Inc.
• Building a Virtual World: 3D Buildings in Google Earth - Mike Springer, Google
• Digital Cities Experts Panel - Doug Eberhard, Autodesk
• Open Access to Geospatial Data Using Open RESTful Web Services - Haris Kurtagic, SL-King
• Providing a Higher Level of Service through Web Architecture: City of Nanaimo and the MapGuide REST Extension - Jason Birch, City of Nanaimo
• Using Spatial ETL for Web Services-Based Data Sharing - Don Murray, Safe Software Inc.

GITA Announces Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference 2009 Speaker Awards

GITA has announced its 2009 Speaker Award winners for the 2009 Geospatial Infrastructure Solutions Conference in Tampa, Fla. The award recognizes the top five percent of session speakers, each of whom were rated by session participants in the areas of quality of presentation, content of session, visual aids, and relevance of topic.

Autodesk University in Las Vegas Dec 1-3

AU 2009 will be held at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada December 1–3, 2009.  One of the focusses will be sustainable design.  

As an example of what you can expect last year Brad Williams of Gartner gave the utilities keynote on "Design Matters - Utilities of the Future".

Cy Smith Keynote at WAURISA: NSGIC Strategic Framework for National Geospatial Infrastructure

WAURISA was kicked off by a very interesting presentation by Cy Smith, Oregon Geographic Information Officer (OGIO) and Past President of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC).  He outlined the NSGIC strategic framework for a national geospatial infrastructure. He gave a status report on the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) initiative in the US, including 50+ SSDI's, governance, Datasets for the Nation (imagery, transportation, addressing, and elevation), national funding, advocacy, and technology.  

One of the points he made that particularly caught my attention is that the State of Oregon spends over $4 billion (million ?) annually on spatial data and that number does not include federal spending in the state.  If you assume that every state is spending something on the same order of magnitude, you arrive at a very large number for spending on spatial data for all fifty states. One of the objectives of the NSGIC stratetgic framework is to rationalize this spending, to reduce duplication, for example.

One of the innovative things that the OGIO's office is implementing is a web-based geospatial application for tracking ARRA and state stimulus spending in the State of Oregon.  This allows the state to track all stimulus projects and to do things like matching project resource requirements to the skills of unemployed in the state.

Map Middle East 2009 Abu Dhabi: Geospatial for Design and Construction

I've been to several Map MIddle East conferences previously in Dubai and had always found many of the presentations worthwhile.  There are always good speakers including invariably Vanessa Lawrence of the Ordnance Survey, who was here this year as well.

But this year was quite a refreshing change.  First of all the conference was held in Abu Dhabi, instead of Dubai.  Abu Dhabi, while pretty much a construction site, though not quite at the frenetic pace of Dubai, is quite an attractive spot, especially the corniche, which runs for kilometers and is being turned into a green park extending along the water front.  Secondly, the conference included a symposium dedicated to  Geospatial for Design and Construction, which was moderated by Mark Reichardt, President and CEO of the the Open Geospatial Consortium.   The symposium included fifteen speakers, including Eng. Nazek Al Sabbagh, Managing Director, TRAKHEES, whose opening remarks "that the slowest to change are the people who will benefit most" set the stage for a discussion of a diverse set of topics all related to geospatial and the design and construction industry. 

Oivind Rooth, Deputy Director General, National Office for Building Technology and Administration, who talked about using web services to provide access to relevant geospatial data required for building permit submissions.  Their long term objective, which I expect to be widely emulated around the world is to integrate BIM and GIS based on the buildingSMART standards so that architects, and engineers and costruction firms will be able to make submissions which will include BIM models in electronic form.  This will contribute to the ability of city governments to create and maintain current and reliable models of their built environments.

Mario Seneviratne, of Green Technologies, Dubai, discussed LEED certification in general, but included a discussion of the first LEED certified buildings outside of North America, and the first in the Middle East.

One of the most interesting presentations from a design and construction perspective was by Neil Gyte, Atkins Global, one of the world's leading engineering and design consultancies, who talked about Atkins Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), which is designed to provide a foundation for CAD/GIS/BIM integration.  Their long term objective is enable carbon critical design in the context of a digital city.

 

Intelligent Cities Conference 2009

I've just returned from spending a few days last week at the The Intelligent Cities Conference 2009 (ICC2009), where I was one of the keynote speakers.   It was held at the King Abdulaziz Historical Hall, Umm Al-Qura University, Abdiyah - Makkah and organized by a collaboration between the Holy Makkah Municipality, the Institute of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques of Hajj Research, and the Communications and Information Technology Commission.

Saudi Arabia has made building new intelligent cities and transforming existing ones a national priority.  Saudi Arabia is launching six economic cities which are planned to be be completed by the year 2020. The intention is that these six new industrialized cities will diversify the economy of Saudi Arabia and promote economic development in each region of the country.  Cities underway or planned include the King Abdullah Economic City, near Rabigh on the western coast; the Knowledge Economic City, near Medina; and the Prince Abdulaziz bin Mousaed Economic City, in the north.  These cities are intended to be industrial centers that function also as housing and commercial hubs. The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) forecasts that these cities to add $150 billion to the country’s GDP by 2020, create one million new jobs and house five million people.

This conference was focussed on intelligent cities technologies that could help in improving the services for the pilgrims visiting Mecca, to improve the services to the citizens and residents of Mecca, and to enhance Mecca as an example and trend setter in the field of intelligent cities.  The conference organizers invited a wide range of participants and speakers including public and private sector decision makers, business leaders, technology providers, investors, and developers.

National Guard JIMC Conference

Lat week I was very fortunate to be able to attend and present a keynote at the National Guard's annual Joint Information Management Council (JIMC) conference in San Diego.  (Colonels Tresh and Seitz with the platinum sponsors including Sean Coombs of Autodesk in the picture.)

National Guard's Changing Role

I really had no idea how much ends up on the National Guard's plate.  General McCann, head of IT at the National Guard Bureau (NGB) in Washington, mentioned that on any given day, 17 governors have called out the National Guard.  General Wade, the Adjutant General of the California National Guard, said that because in California there are four seasons, earthquakes, fires, riots, and floods, 50% of National Guard callups across the US are in California.

The National Guard's role has changed in the last year as a result of legislation that was passed at the end of 2007, which gives the National Guard a much more important place at the table in the Pentagon in decision making, elevates the Chief of the National Guard from a three star general to a four star general making the Chief the prime military advisory to the Defense Secretary and to the Joint Chiefs, and directs the Pentagon to work with the Guard in planning on homeland defense.

Common Operating Picture and the Importance of Data Sharing

One of the major threads through out the conference was the importance of information sharing.  General McCann described the vision of the NGB's IT group which is to "provide responsive, reliable, integrated, and interoperable information and communications systems for collaboration and information sharing for National Guard domestic operations."

DoD has a program called DISDI that is an oversight program responsible for leveraging spatial information across DoD to better manage DoD's global installation and bases.  Each of the services has a similar program.  The Air Force was the first to implement a spatial information sharing program called GeoBase, the Army has Army Mapper, the Marines GeoFidelis, and the Navy GeoReadiness.  The National Guard is in the processs of setting a standard for geospatial enabling, integrating spatial data into the technical and business processes of the National Guard, which will require focussing on key issues including governance, data standards, data interoperability, a financing model, and full integration with the IT community.  The major benefits that the NG expects to gain are increased efficiency and productivity, reduced redundancy, inproved information/communication flow, and a better ability to meet the NG's mission, very similar to what other organizations in the utility and telecommunications sectors are targetting.