A major cultural change is underway in the utilities industry, presenting a fundamental challenge for CIOs in this sector. “A challenge and opportunity for many electric, water, and gas utilities is to breakdown historical silos existing between departments—executive, operations, finance, customer support, and IT—by leveraging smart grid technology to stream data from the edge of a distribution network across multiple disciplines,” says Peter Londa, President and CEO, Tantalus Systems. Once a utility makes the important leap toward automating the collection of consumption data and power metrics, Londa adds, “fully leveraging the computing power of advanced networks, data management and analytics are the next major objective in the to-do list of utility CIOs.” Raleigh, NC-based Tantalus provides Smart Grid communications technology and smart grid applications enabling utilities to automate existing processes, improve operational efficiency and reliability, and enhance value to all utility stakeholders by harnessing the power of data.

Tantalus supports nearly 100 municipal and cooperative utilities in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, where the company is known for building strong partnerships with its user community. In continued support of these long-term partnerships with its users, Tantalus formed an IT Advisory Board comprised of seven organizations/users and their respective senior IT professionals. “Through the IT Advisory Board, we gain tremendous insight into the inner-workings of our users as well as their critical challenges and needs, thereby making us more responsive to support both existing and prospective users of our solution,” says Londa.

To deliver near real-time data from the edge of a distribution network, Tantalus developed TUNet®—Tantalus Utility Network—a smart grid platform capable of supporting advanced applications. “TUNet helps utilities allocate resources more efficiently, deliver cost savings, and provide the highest quality of service to consumers,” says Londa. Each TUNet end-point leverages six on-board processors and an integrated Linux-based operating system to enable intelligent decision-making at the edge of the network. TUNet provides ample bandwidth and processing power to support parallel advanced applications on a single network platform. The solution combines flexible WAN and LAN capabilities to create a network that are fast, secure, and affordable.