When people hear “data analytics,” they know it involves getting into the weeds: swimming in spreadsheets, glaring at graphs and deciphering infinite decimal places. A team of engineers and business experts at Alabama Power, however, uses data analytics as a discovery tool. When the team looked beyond the weeds, they found ways to save money and improve the grid.

It started underground.

Four years ago, Alabama Power overhauled how it identified and prioritized undergrounding projects.

The team began using data to help make informed capital decisions through a new approach to economic efficiency: life cycle cost analysis. The utility analyzed its costs of drop-out reclosers, automated devices, fiber and other investment projects across the system.

The new data supported decisions. But what changed was that the new data began influencing decisions. That realization led to Alabama Power’s creation of a data analytics organization that explores net — new data initiatives – from supporting storm restoration planning to geographic workforce placement.

“For many years, our industry hasn’t had the information readily available for evaluation of all future cost implications.,” said Jesse Woods, manager of Alabama Power Data Analytics. “The benefits of being able to analyze large data sets of reliability and cost allow us to make more informed decisions.”

Woods, a chemical engineer with an MBA, said decision-makers at utilities can use data analytics to consider their investments’ total lifetime costs, in addition to upfront costs.

Data analytics helped guide the decision to move power lines underground in a neighborhood in Hoover. (Alabama News Center)

“Working with a number of utilities previously as a consultant, and now inside a single utility, has given me a unique perspective on what I have seen as innovative ideas to help move our industry forward,” he said.

Woods and his Alabama Power colleague, Shane Powell, discussed whether utilities can save money while making reliability investments during a recent panel, “Data Informed Grid Modernization — Leveraging Analytics for Investment Decisions.” The session was part of the recent T&D World Live Conference in Sacramento, California.

Powell, an electrical engineer who has been with the company for 24 years, works as a Power Delivery Data Analytics and Innovation manager. He started as a student engineer in Transmission, then moved into Distribution. He spent 18 years in the field working across distribution, network and reliability. Now he works at Corporate Headquarters, where he has managed Engineering Services, Joint Use, Budget Support and finally Data Analytics.

“Our session focused on how to expand the view of capital deployed beyond classic examination of reliability improvements, and instead consider the potential O&M cost savings associated with certain investment types,” Powell said.

“The monetization of future O&M savings can make a compelling case for certain types of investments like undergrounding or smart devices to save call-outs and improve reliability for customers.”

Shane Powell (contributed)

Alabama Power is using system outage and maintenance cost data to identify locations where there are benefits to moving overhead distribution lines underground. The benefits include decreasing the frequency of outages and the amount of time that power is out.

Historically, distribution lines have only been placed underground when a customer was willing to pay the differential upfront cost between underground and overhead installation. But over time, costs associated with vegetation management and other processes for maintaining reliable overhead service have increased.

The company was recently honored during the 2023 Southeastern Electric Exchange Conference with an Industry Excellence Award in the distribution category for work on the Green Valley distribution underground project. The two-year project, in the Green Valley neighborhood of Hoover, involved installing about 33,000 linear feet of new underground cable to serve more than 100 customers. Once the underground system was installed, the company removed a decades-old overhead system that had become increasingly difficult to maintain and even more challenging to access and repair after storms.

Since moving the neighborhood system underground, Green Valley customers have enjoyed fewer outages and, when they do occur, power is restored faster. To date, nearly 90 other undergrounding projects have been completed across Alabama Power’s system, with hundreds more in the design phase. As one of the first of its kind, the knowledge and experience gained on the Green Valley project helped shape the company’s undergrounding best practices, as well as day-to-day decisions in the field.

Session attendees at the T&D World Live Conference left with several takeaways about Alabama Power’s data analytics focus areas and mission to support new grid investment strategies; the challenges in adopting new data analytics strategies; partnership opportunities with internal IT organizations to leverage modern cloud technology; and vendor partnership best practices.

To learn more about how Alabama Power and its employees are involved in fostering innovation, click here.

A version of this article was written specifically for and originally published on T&D World’s website, www.tdworld.com.