Integral Analytics
Forecasting a Bright Financial Future

Smart Grid innovations create new threats and opportunities to the Utilities. Historically, utilities’ monopoly status allowed tariff based pricing, to obtain an average price. However, Smart Grid’s new entrants and energy substitutes like solar and wind, require the traditional utility franchise to value margins at the customer level instead of in aggregate. This more granular level is new to utilities, and requires household level financial valuation across many years of actual hourly costs and risks. Standard financial derivatives do not provide sufficient valuations, as they tend to use average values instead of hourly and sub-hourly costs and prices. The distribution of prices are often very non-linear, requiring a more accurate set of methods. Further, forecasting future conditions and prices require a detailed understanding of how customers, participate in demand response, and other emerging innovative activities.

Enter Integral Analytics (IA). Spearheaded by Tom Osterhus, CEO, IA brings its vast expertise to solve these daunting challenges. Integral Analytics’ comprehensive suite of planning and analysis tools generates actionable strategies that reduce risk and maximize value across utility silos (e.g., generation, transmission, trading.) IA’s products can identify the financial value opportunities that exist across and between traditional utility departments, valuate solar, wind, dynamic dispatching, and Smart Grid programs, and can perform accurate margin calculations for individual customers vs. large aggregations.

DSMore, IA’s powerful financial analysis tool is designed to evaluate the costs, benefits and risks of DSM programs, including energy efficiency, demand response and smart grid programs and services. It processes millions of calculations within seconds, resulting in thousands of cost-effective scenarios that vary with weather and/or market prices. By viewing DSM performance and costeffectiveness over a wide variety of conditions, managers and regulators can more

accurately measure the risks and benefits of employing DSM measures. IDROP, the SmartGrid solution from the company is a favorite among Utilities. Powered by a patented engine, it works with any in-home load control device via broadband or wireless and allows Utilities to mathematically guarantee the lowest cost set of dynamic dispatching signals for DR, storage, end users, EV charging and wind firming.

Firms must increasingly sharpen their pencils to fully understand where the money lies within the emerging Smart Grid energy space

For granular forecasting purposes, Integral Analytics offers LoadSEER, a unique GIS software that forecasts usage changes by acre, how and where new growth will occur, and enables planners to identify specific acres where future prices will be very high. This dramatically improves planning, siting, targeting and arbitraging of resource opportunities. Traditionally, utilities only knew what prices would be for the next 24 hours. LoadSEER enables insights into the next 10 years.

Integral Analytics prides itself on accuracy and speed. “We are the only firm capable of the exact financial valuation of individual households’ actual energy and grid costs,” says Osterhus. “We also process millions of records in seconds, that leverage utility customer load usage data and smart meter data,” adds Osterhus.

The company’s software solutions are vetted by regulators and are in use over 35 states. This has gained Integral Analytics a huge clientele ranging from Duke Energy, PG&E, Avista, Southern Cal Edison, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, ComEd, Ameren and NV Energy.