Discover Opportunities in Power & Water Distribution - Join IUKAN 2014, 13th Feb, New Delhi

IUKAN 2014 is focused on improving Utility Services in Urban Areas and covers power, water, waste etc. It is a very interesting platform that is build to get various stakeholders such as Policy Makers, Regulators, Operators, Service Providers, Consumers, Technology Players together and facilitate 'Rapid Scale Up’, 'Service Effectiveness’ and 'Financial Flows' to this important sector. 

IUKAN 2014, the 3rd such Event is to be held at Hotel Le Meridian, New Delhi on 13th February. It will have two parallel tracks, one on Power Distribution and other on Water Distribution including Waste Water, with focus upon improving their performance through faster reforms and PPP uptake. Its theme is 'Complimenting Reforms Bottom-up through Improved Operationalization and Engaged Local Ecosystem’. 

Conference Website | Power Track - Speakers and Agenda | Water Track - Speakers and Agenda | Register

The Conference will see 12 panels, 50+ Speakers, 20+ Partners, 70+ Best Practice Award Nominees and total 300+ delegate participation. The Conference will provide an excellent networking platform for fellow industry professionals.

IUKAN Session 2 Proceedings: Understanding the utility customers - helping the utilities in better roll out of operationalize

With more and more utilities struggling to engage rightly with their customers, IUKAN 2013 was torch bearer in highlighting the best practices in providing insights into the whole customer engagement process. Some of the top leaders in the utility segment presented their views on how the customers form one of the most important, yet not recognized, pillars for the success of the utility operations.

The driving philosophy behind the session was to discuss the key challenges are utilities are facing in engaging with the customers. The session also talked of the vision for the utilities to have for its customer-engagement initiatives, in light of the fast changing nature of the utility customer.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Distribution Utility

Utility Performance Monitoring is one of major gaps in Indian distribution utility or DISCOMs. The major reason is missing measurements and analytics to drive decisions and implementations. Even the MIS that gets created (inspite of its questionable integrity) is not effectively used to control distribution system optimally. One abstraction is to look utility as a complex distributed network with multiple stakeholders/nodes (various end consumers, linked to DTCs, feeders and substations forming a network and one network interconnected with others). Each stakeholder has different metrics of performance and it is this mismatch of KPIs along various stakeholders, that make the network run non-optimally.

It is attempted here to give readers a detailed list of KPIs that could be applied to benchmark performance of a utility with other utilities or with itself across time. The list is not claimed to be complete, but have been arrived with good amalgamation from available literatures. The various broad categories of KPI's identified in utility distribution are:

1. Operational Performance
2. Operational Cost & Management
3. Financial Performance
4. Customer Service Quality
5. Energy Efficiency & Demand Side Management (DSM)
6. Workforce (Including Health & Safety)
7. Sustainability

ERP role in emerging Distribution utility reforms

Indian Power sector is in a rapid growth phase and in a phase of undergoing rapid change - change in a way they used to operate. A special emphasis is laid by the government on the electricity distribution industry to improve their operational and business efficiency. On an average the SEBs suffer from an ATC loss in the upwards of 30-35 % and in some areas even more. The R-APDRP programme has laid emphasis on the reform and implementation of IT systems (see our earlier blog on R-APDRP). ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is one of the most important enablers in providing an environment for integration of utility applications.

The typical characteristics of an electricity distribution business are:

 - Wide Geographic delivery areas

 - Infrastructure is distributed

 - Equipment installed and maintained for 30 years or more.

 - Uncertain business models

 - Evolving Deregulation