Industry Insights
Always in the KNOW: A Proven "Edge" with Distributed Intelligence
July 20, 2021
The utility industry is undergoing a transformation. The future of our modern grid is dependent on leveraging more distributed intelligence (DI) at the grid edge to help manage growth, stability and safety. Adding more intelligence means augmenting centralized processes with ones that are distributed throughout the grid. The added visibility from DI ensures utilities will be able to meet the increasing requirements of their customers while improving safety and efficiency.
We believe that distributed intelligence provides the insights you need to drive decisions at the right place and the right time across your system. We're delivering “edgility” designed to evolve with your needs, and more importantly, your customers’ needs. This is the future of utility operations, resource optimization and consumer engagement—and it’s here today with customers realizing its true value—in the field—now.
Our distributed intelligence platform, which is enabled by an intelligent, multi-application network with multiple communications options, and edge computing and analysis capabilities provides real-time situational awareness and localized control of your grid to evolve operations and enhance the customer experience. These solutions deliver a better ROI and empower business transformation for utilities and cities through end-to-end solutions, a robust platform and ecosystem, and proven results.
Take a look at how we have pioneered DI, deployed real applications in the field, provided rapid access to granular data and enabled a robust ecosystem—all culminating to empower business transformation and evolve your distribution grid operations to provide insight to every endpoint in your network.
Pioneering DI & Proven at Scale
Our open distributed intelligence platform was conceived over 5 years ago as a holistic system-level solution to provide analytics that take action in the right place at the right time. Our solution provides deeper system visibility, quicker response and more valuable outcomes with device peer-to-peer connectivity and locational awareness. Itron's distributed intelligence is a no-regrets investment built on years of customer collaboration providing industry-leading and proven metering, networking, data management and analytics technologies. As a pioneer in distributed intelligence, we are first-to-market and ready to help you gain measurable operational efficiencies and improved safety measures otherwise not possible without built-in distributed computing, advanced analytics and peer-to-peer communications.
From concept and realization to validation, production and evolution, our distributed intelligence applications have reached key milestones. Our DI meters and apps have been deployed in the field since 2018 and we have more real-world experience with edge computing than any other provider. Our DI-enabled meter is unique in the fact that it allows customers to run multiple applications at the same time. This allows the flexibility to install several apps on a meter without having to reinstall firmware, take a meter off-line or impact the meter-to-cash process. We are continuously evolving our DI capabilities.
We are the only vendor with a purpose-designed and field-proven distributed intelligence platform with over 2M DI-enabled smart meters installed, 6M more under contract to be deployed, an available SDK for developers and utilities to build their own applications, and multiple DI applications deployed in production around the globe. After many years of leading the way with DI, we are uniquely positioned to deliver results-driven, secure applications that drive operational efficiencies and improve your customer relationships.
Insightful Results with High Fidelity Data
Our first-to-market distributed intelligence technology offers a foundational, secure platform that provides utilities with the insight, control and capabilities to manage the increasingly complex distribution grid. This is accomplished through real-time decision-making that depends on high-resolution data to enable real-time analytics, look at high-resolution waveform data for the electric service at that location, and make and implement decisions accordingly. High-resolution, device-based analysis and control combined with peer-to-peer communication helps you rapidly identify and manage issues in real-time—with pinpoint accuracy. Using Itron’s high fidelity IoT data processing techniques and our proven distributed intelligence applications, we provide information that is accurate, insightful and faster than ever before.
Key Differentiators
RF/PLC-sensing capabilities (allows the ability to see beyond the transformer, run multiple comms paths whereby meters choose most efficient, least-cost path for data comms)
Robust security, flexibility, extensibility