New Intelis Water Meter Debuts at ACE18
Itron recently attended American Water Works Association’s (AWWA) 137th Annual Conference and Exhibition (ACE), and for the first time, showcased our…
IoT World Continued: Partner Engagement Demonstrated During IoT Live! Tour
In last week’s blog post, we highlighted what we said on stage during IoT World. This week, we’re going to discuss how our partners helped us…
Load Forecasting Using Machine Learning: Does the Hype Meet Reality?
It is easy to stub your toe on the voluminous literature available on machine learning when the question of how to improve your operational forecast…
EEI Convention: Looking Toward the Future
I recently had the pleasure of attending the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) Annual Convention in San Diego. This annual event brings together energy…
IoT World 2018: Itron Leaders Share IoT Insights During Industry Event
The IoT industry is evolving quickly, and it isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. GSMA Intelligence projects that the IoT market will be worth…
Itron Showcases Proven Networks at UTC Telecom & Technology 2018
Electric, gas and water have long been considered essential services provided by utilities and cities around the world. But now, as utilities are…
Power Over Energy: Educating Consumers Through Social Media
At Itron, we strive to help create a more resourceful world—and that mission goes beyond partnering with utilities and cities. Through our Power Over…
Partnering for Smarter Cities
I recently had the pleasure of attending the second annual Smart Cities Week Silicon Valley, organized by the Smart Cities Council. During this…
Transforming in the IoT Space
The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) age has changed the way many industries—including Itron—engage with customers. In this new era, it’s all…
Joining the Conversation Around Clean Energy
As part of our efforts to stay abreast of innovations in the cleantech space, Itron Idea Labs is now a corporate sponsor of the Los Angeles Clean…
2018 EFG Meeting Summary
Sometimes when I sit back and consider all the things that need to be done, I feel overwhelmed. The endless demands for regular work—like producing…
Analytics and Customer Portals Shine at CS Week 2018
At CS Week 2018 in Tampa, Florida, Itron hit the show floor and showcased our expanded portfolio, bringing to the forefront the best of our smart…
Upcoming Seminar: Budget Forecasting – A Practitioner’s Handbook
Our second brown bag seminar of the year is entitled “Budget Forecasting – A Practitioner’s Handbook.” This Brown Bag distills twenty-plus years of…
National Hurricane Preparedness Week: How Smart Technology is Helping Cities Prepare for an Active Season
Following a record-breaking 2017 hurricane season – which cost the U.S. more than $200 billion in damage, eclipsing the previous record of $159…
Don’t Miss Itron and #IoTLive at #IoTWorld
Itron is excited to yet again be participating and exhibiting at this year’s IoT World at the Santa Clara Convention Center on May 14-17. This event…
CS Week: Transforming the Customer Experience
In 2017, Itron acquired not one, but two companies. First Comverge—a leading distributed energy management company—and then Silver Spring Networks—a…
The Pitfalls and Pain of Aggregation Bias
As forecasters, averaging is something that we do a lot. We like averaging because it helps us filter out much of the noise in our data so that we…
How Will You Practice Resourcefulness on April 22?
Here at Itron, we have a saying—the way we manage energy and water will define this century. Through our technology and innovation, we are working to…
Five Grid Management Capabilities You Should Demand That Only RF Mesh Delivers
Modernization efforts are ramping up for leading European utilities with the rapid proliferation of smart devices extending throughout the…
Itron’s Integrated Energy Forecasting Framework
In today’s marketplace, incorporating the multitude of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) can make producing an accurate energy demand forecast very…
To BYOT or Not to BYOT: That is the Question
Itron is a long-time member of the Peak Load Management Alliance (PLMA), which was founded in 1999 as the voice of demand response practitioners. I…
Daylight Saving Time: The Bane of the Load Forecaster
Sunrise and sunset times vary from summer to winter because of earth’s tilt with respect to its orbit around the sun. This difference is magnified at…
eBook: How Utilities are Planning for Distributed Energy Resources
With the rapid integration of renewables and distributed technologies into the grid, utilities can no longer feasibly address the challenges of…
Take Our Annual Energy Survey
Itron’s forecasting group recently launched its annual energy survey. As we have done in previous years, Itron uses this survey to collect…
Ignore Missing Option
The Sum function in MetrixND seems like a complex way to make adding difficult. In a MetrixND transformation, numbers are added by joining variables…
Fulfilling the Vision of the Multiple Application Network
In the past year, many people have asked me about smart cities, and how useful they are for the citizens living in the city. A study that we…
Using Neural Networks to Build Robust Hourly Models
Our first brown bag seminar of the year is entitled, “Using Neural Networks to Build Robust Hourly Models.” Neural networks are flexible functional…
Adventures in Cryptocurrency
Last October, a conversation began in the Itron Idea Labs community around blockchain and what Itron might do with it in the energy space. Ideas were…
Dividing Two Interval Series in MetrixLT
In my previous post, I showed that MetrixLT can multiply two hourly data series even though the software was not designed for that specific purpose.…
Multiplying Two Interval Series in MetrixLT
“Help” was the desperate cry of a MetrixLT user after the close of the workday. “I need to multiply two hourly interval data series in MetrixLT!”…
A Year of Innovations and Impact
At Itron, we seek to grow resourceful communities across the globe with our technology, growing portfolio and community outreach. Last year, we…
Itron Showcases the Future of Smart Cities at #CES18
Providing a peek into the future, Itron showcased its vision of what it may be like to live in a city of the future from a consumer standpoint at the…
Seven Reasons Grid Solution Providers Partner With Itron
Modernization of the power grid is picking up steam globally, making it the ideal time to be a solution provider in this incredibly exciting and…
Speed Dating at #CES2018
Innovation is always the hot word at CES, but smart cities and smart energy made their debut this year in a big way. Itron Idea Labs was there to…
Going Zero to 60 at #CES2018
From the excitement in the air about rooms full of new tech to the chaos of navigating the pavilions with an expected new record attendance of…
The Robots of #CES2018
This slideshow requires JavaScript. Autonomous vehicles, drones, artificial intelligence, augmented/virtual reality, robotics and smart cities are…
2018 Forecasting Workshop and Meeting Dates
The 2018 Itron Forecasting Workshops and Meetings have been scheduled. Registration for 101 is currently open at…
Consumer, Commercial Needs Met at #CES2018
The Consumer Electronics Show 2018 is my re-introduction to the electronic industry’s show of all shows – the last time I was here was about 15 years…
Forecasting New Technologies – When Nothing Else Works
In a recent project, we were asked to help settle a question. Which forecast is reasonable: One forecasting average annual system demand growth of…
An Unexpected Impact of the Solar Eclipse
On Aug. 21, 2017, people gathered across the continent to witness the first total solar eclipse visible from the contiguous United States since Feb.…
Load Research in an AMI World: Why? How? And Results.
Our final brown bag seminar of the year is entitled Load Research in an AMI World: Why? How? And Results. With market penetration of a range of new…
There’s More Than One Way to Round a Number
When we were in school, we all learned the general rule for rounding – if a significant digit is followed by a number that is greater than or equal…
The CEC Releases “Improving Short-term Load Forecasts by Incorporating Solar PV Generation” Interim Report
The California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Energy Research and Development Division supports energy research and development programs to spur…
Real-time Load Disaggregation
Our final blog of #IUW17 features a session with Robert Sonderegger and Luke Scheidler from Itron discussing how Itron’s OpenWay® Riva distributed…
Developing the Next Generation Utility Workforce and Inspiring Leadership
Today marked the second day of the #IUW17 Knowledge Conference and we started the morning with another great general session. We heard from Sharelynn…
Transforming the Customer Experience
We’re well underway at #IUW17 and our second blog features a session led by Joe Thomas from Duke Energy discussing how the company utilizes data to…
Launching Itron Utility Week 2017
Welcome to Itron Utility Week 2017! We launched our annual customer-focused event yesterday and welcomed more than 1,000 attendees to Houston. We’re…
Delivering Smart, Sustainable Energy Solutions
There’s no question that the Internet of Things (IoT) will transform the energy and utilities industry —that’s already happening. IoT is playing a…
How Your Advanced Utilities Monitoring System Can Benefit from Real-time Data and Over-the-Air Updates
If you work in the energy sector, integrating smart grid technology is among the most positive and disruptive changes that your company can make. A…
Powering Women in Utilities
The work-life balance can be a challenge to manage, but as with any difficult situation, Samantha Ettus has proven it is better with pie. Ettus…
SAP and Itron Delivering Digital Transformation in Utilities
SAP is a Gold Sponsor of Itron’s Utility Week in Houston, Oct. 15-17. Below is a brief overview of what we will be showcasing. Please visit the SAP…
5 Ways to Help Houston on Your Trip to IUW
Technology advancements have forever changed the way we communicate, and through social media, we’re more connected than ever. In times of crisis,…
Disruption Ahead
Thomas Edison would have no trouble recognizing most of the component parts in any electrical generation and distribution network today. The…
Interoperable Communication Networks Fuel IIoT for Utilities
The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) puts the capability of communication networks to the test. Industrial things come from a variety of…
WEI’s Women in Energy Symposium and Celebrating American Business Women’s Day
Today is American Business Women’s Day. This day is about networking, celebrating broken barriers and looking ahead to further progression of working…
Calculating an Average Annual Growth Rate in MetrixND
After finishing my forecast, I like to present forecast average annual growth rates. These results are calculated by converting the monthly forecast…
The Latest Energy Trends
Our third seminar of the year reveals the results of our annual benchmark survey. Survey participants receive a copy of the report with the findings.…
Breaking New Ground with Demand Response
Itron and Comverge, now Itron Distributed Energy Management, have a tradition of technological innovation. By joining forces, we have the opportunity…
Using the Simulation Object Backward
I’m using the Simulation Object in MetrixND to weather normalize historic sales. When configured, the object allows me to simulate the model…
2018 Important Meeting Dates – Mark Your Calendars!
The Annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting and Training will be in Austin, Texas on April 24-27 in 2018! The ISO/RTO/TSO Forecasting Summit will be…
Beyond the Hype of Smart Cities
Communities organizations, cities and companies must work every day to truly achieve the big picture of creating smart cities. Our goal of…
It’s in the Water! – Improving Energy Savings Calculations from California Water Conservation
When I hear the term “water-energy nexus,” I imagine something complex and fantastical, when in actuality it is an intimately familiar and essential…
Computing a Weighted Average Wind Speed and Wind Direction Across Multiple Weather Stations
Often when we are developing weather variables to support day-ahead power and gas forecasting, we introduce wind speed as a standalone explanatory…
Looking Backward to Move Forward
For most things in life, I look forward to go forward. I keep my eyes on the road ahead. I look before I leap. I aim at my target. But this summer…
Seasonal Sales? Not a Problem.
There is a client who has a reporting issue problem. Let’s call him Ray. His annual sales are to be split into summer and winter sales, but on a…
Remember the 2017 ISO Forecasting Summit
This year’s 11th Annual ISO/RTO/TSO Forecasting Summit was held in San Antonio, Texas from May 16-18. Just like the defenders of the Alamo banded…
Cotati, CA – Transitioning to AMI: Removing the Guesswork
Cotati, California is a bedroom community of 7,500 residents located in Sonoma County about 45 miles north of San Francisco. As a progressive,…
What Itron Idea Labs Brings to Itron and the Industry
Nine out of 10 Fortune 500 companies in 1955 disappeared from the list by 2016. The average tenure of a Fortune 500 company went from 33 years in…
Common Challenges at the Energy Forecasters Meeting
Turning to her left, then right, Grace finds herself surrounded by strangers – men and women from across the United States; there’s even one from…
Free Forecasting Brown Bag Webinar
Now in our 11th year of hosting Itron’s popular, free hour-long internet seminars on a range of forecasting topics, we take great pride in helping…
Itron Riva Streetlights: Sunglasses On!
You might want to wear your sunglasses while reading the following... It all started in January 2017, at the Itron Sales Conference, held in Palm…
A Grand View
The view from the 96th floor of the John Hancock Center is amazing. From here, cars are merely dots between the straight rows of lights and people…
Itron + Scholarship America = Dream
In the next five to 10 years, more than 500,000 employees in the energy industry are expected to retire , according to the Committee on Energy and…
An Exciting Time for the Gas Industry
Next week, the natural gas industry will convene in Orlando for the American Gas Association Operations Conference to share knowledge, ideas and…
Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting – Part 3
In my blog posting “Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting,” I presented four load forecasting challenges that have arisen…
Grid Energy Storage: Will It Live Up to the Hype?
Every morning I wake up and take part in what I believe to be the greatest achievement in recent history. No, I’m not talking about my coffee maker,…
Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting – Part 2
In part on of this series, I presented four load forecasting challenges that have arisen as the result of deep penetration of behind-the-meter (BTM)…
Removing the Guesswork with AMI
For water providers of all shapes and sizes, collecting data from assets in the field is a critical component of your operations—but it can be a…
A Million Solar Rooftops and Counting… California Researches Grid Integration
At social events and dinner parties I no longer find myself having to explain at length to polite inquiries on what I do, as long as I utter the…
The Importance of the Culture of Innovation
A few weeks ago, I was on a panel with Microsoft Ventures and Providence Fund in Seattle, discussing corporate innovation and the key ingredients…
The 2017 Annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting and ISO/RTO/TSO Summit
The 15th Annual Energy Forecasting/EFG Meeting and Training will be in Chicago on April 26-28 with optional one-day training workshops on April 25.…
Behind-The-Meter Solar Generation and Real-Time Load Forecasting
Recently, I was invited to speak at a California Energy Commission (CEC) sponsored workshop on Research Needs for Renewable Energy Forecasting. The…
Figuring Out 5G
One of the main topics I heard talked about at Mobile World Congress is 5G— the next generation cellular. I tried to forget everything I know about…
Annual Energy Survey
Itron’s forecasting group recently launched their Annual Energy Survey. As we have done in previous years, Itron is collecting information to assess…
Connected Cars Everywhere!
Cars everywhere. Some, are a very similar to the ones I saw at CES (see my previous blog, The Connected World and Autonomous Cars @CES 2017) while…
Itron Idea Labs Takes Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress
Among the more than 100,000 attendees at the Mobile World Congress 2017 is the Itron Idea Labs team. And alongside the mobile giants we are…
Demand Response and IoT: Using Data to Maximize Customer Benefit
This blog was originally posted on Comverge.com. Itron acquired Comverge on June 1, 2017, and all future demand response blogs will be posted here.…
The Program Comprehensiveness Index
I recently played laser tag at an amusement park with my two sons. While I would have been happy to report that I beat all the competition, alas, the…
What Does Itron Idea Labs Do?
Imagine you are planning a trip from point A to point B to get there as quickly as possible in your car where you must arrive at a specific time for…
Lots of Firsts at DistribuTECH 2017!
I’ve been attending DistribuTECH for the last 10 years, and the only constant thing has been change. Maybe not rapid and fast-paced change like we…
FREE Forecasting Brown Bag Webinar
Itron continues to host its popular hour-long Internet seminars on a range of forecasting topics. We’re now in our 11th year! Itron is always at the…
Itron at #DTECH2017 in San Diego
Find yourself and share with your friends at #DTECH2017! /*===== general options =========*/ a { box-shadow: none !important; } .view *,…
Itron’s OpenWay Riva Pushes Intelligence to the Edge at DistribuTECH 2017
Propelled by technology selection announcements this week at Public Service Company of New Mexico and AVANGRID in New York, Itron’s OpenWay Riva™…
Why Itron Idea Labs?
I just got a Google Home – you know, the speaker you can talk to and it will play music. It tells me what the outside temperature is or what a cup of…
Forecast Tests in MetrixND
Out-of-sample tests are a useful tool for seeing how well a model performs with data it hasn’t seen before (i.e., data that weren’t used to estimate…
HIRING: ERCOT Load Forecasting Senior Planning Analyst
One of our forecasting clients, ERCOT, is looking for a Senior Planning Analyst preferably with at least 5 years of experience. They're searching for…
Energy Forecasting Meeting – Call for Presentations
Forecasters tell Itron that there is no greater value than meeting with their peers. Itron understands the importance of these interactions and is…
Leaving Las Vegas @CES 2017
It is day four at CES and almost time to leave. It’s the King’s birthday, my twentieth time at CES, during CES’s 50th anniversary, and a great day to…
In Search of Machine Intelligence @CES 2017
Day three at CES. I was on a mission to find machine intelligence, not a product but an ingredient technology. I was expecting to see it embedded in…
The Connected World and Autonomous Cars @CES 2017
Day two at CES was all about the cars—self-driving cars—a.k.a. Autonomous Vehicles (AV). AVs will change transportation as we know it by creating a…