Utilities face mounting pressure to increase efficiency and reduce operating expenses. To stay competitive in today’s fast-changing market, they also need to invest in innovation.
But how do utility managers know if they’re investing in the right areas? For example, should they implement new digital technology platforms, or focus on upgrading heavy equipment instead?
This is where utility benchmarking can play a valuable role. Utility benchmarking is the practice of comparing a utility company’s performance to that of similar companies or established industry standards. This kind of comparative energy data analysis focuses on metrics like customer satisfaction rates, maintenance costs per mile of infrastructure, and average outage duration.
The process of benchmarking consists of several discrete steps.
First, utility managers need to determine the most relevant metrics to use in evaluating their own organization’s performance. Next, they need to identify a group of companies with similar operating conditions. Then, they need to extract, analyze, and visualize the data sets for easy comparison.
To do this exercise even just a few years ago, companies would have been scouring thousands of PDFs on the FERC website, copying and pasting information into spreadsheets. Benchmarking projects could take weeks, even months to complete.
Now, companies can benchmark in minutes. How? By enabling centralized energy data analysis with the HData platform.
Here are some of the main ways companies are leveraging the platform for comparative analysis:
Cost Comparison: Utilities can instantly analyze thousands of regulatory filings to reveal which cost structures their peers in the energy industry are using. The platform makes it easy to query data from filings dating back to 2011 and access new filings in real time as they are submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Peer Intelligence: Companies can gain insight into how industry peers and direct competitors are managing costs. And they can use the HData platform to see the decisions that competitors are making in response to investor and regulatory pressures.
Data Visualizations: The platform provides easy-to-use tools to create data visualizations for reports. Companies can choose from a range of different chart styles and download underlying data sets in just a few clicks. HData also simplifies the process of sharing visualizations through a unique, auto-generated URL.
HData makes it easy for utilities to access meaningful business intelligence by bringing information about things like power plant efficiency, customer satisfaction, and operation and maintenance expenses into a single view. Companies can then visualize and compare this data across customizable date ranges and peer sets.
All of this information is curated in a set of intuitive dashboards. That means that people at every level of the organization can track industry trends, uncover insights into company and competitor performance, and drill down to find supporting data and context for improved decision-making.
Want to learn more about how to use HData for benchmarking? Reach out.