Hawaiian Electric: Data-Driven Sustainability

The Challenge: Getting Granular with Data

Smart Meters To Inform Grid Modernization Investments

Hawaiian Electric is on a mission to help Hawaii become fully self-sufficient in energy production and consumption. Their focus? Making a down payment on a decarbonized Hawaii economy by investing in power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. To make it happen, they would need to dig into current energy consumption data, directly from the source.

The energy company rolled out an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) for precise usage readings and smart-meter data. With hundreds of thousands of smart meters already in the field and growing, the time-series data would help them:

• Get a clear picture of their community’s electric energy consumption
• Understand how electric vehicles, solar panels and distributed energy resources affect grid modernization efforts
• Create transparency by safely democratizing data access and increasing reporting for internal and external stakeholders
• Lay the groundwork for performance-based rate making and more customer savings
• Inform capital investments for renewable energy to build a greener future

To collect, store and consume so much data, Hawaiian Electric needed a modern data architecture. They looked for a team with enterprise data management expertise, as well as onshore and offshore support to power their mission. Enter TEKsystems.

Our Solution: A Fitting Framework

A Modern Data Architecture on Azure

We rolled up our sleeves to get straight to work, building a cloud-based modern data architecture on Azure. Our goal was to support Hawaiian Electric’s needs today but also leave room for growth. We used the perfect blend of technology to handle large volumes of data with rapid response times. Using Databricks and Microsoft Power BI to build a customized solution, Hawaiian Electric could:

• Use data visualization to tell a clear story
• Extract deeper insights and business intelligence through complex algorithms, machine learning and exploratory analysis
• Build household energy consumption profiles based on factors like electric cars and solar panels
• Make data easily accessible and usable for internal and external stakeholders while maintaining security standards to minimize risk for potential exposure

Now Hawaiian Electric better understands consumption and voltage levels from large amounts of meter-level data. And there’s always room for more. Hawaiian Electric’s collection of smart meters is already increasing tenfold, supported by a callable solution that grows with them.

Powerful Partnership: An Electrifying Alliance

Fused Together and Future-Focused

Hawaiian Electric knows a greener future requires action today to create a lasting impact. Together, we challenged ourselves with aggressive timelines to build the proof of concept. And we didn’t stop there.

We met Hawaiian Electric where they were and empowered them with a strategy and roadmap to translate their vision into true transformation, bringing practiced expertise and tried-and-tested frameworks around change management, DevOps and security.

In their robust cloud environment supporting production-oriented applications, Hawaiian Electric can self-manage and build on their new data environment over time. With the right security disposition, governance and rigorous security controls to meet internal and external requirements, Hawaiian Electric is democratizing data and creating maximum transparency while protecting sensitive information and minimizing possible exposure.