SDG&E, SoCalGas recognized with innovation award at Esri International Conference
San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) were awarded an Enterprise GIS Award at this year’s Esri International Conference for their use of geographic information system (GIS) mapping technology for their energy delivery.
The award marks them for international recognition regarding innovation for their situational awareness and informed decision making. Traditionally, the award is granted to those that use GIS software to inform their business, be it for their staff, their field operations or management. That said, the two companies, in this case, use GIS in slightly different ways.
SDG&E uses such data to provide real-time data during emergency operations, to give staff the ability to view their equipment locations and streamline their work in the field, and to give a base network model for their operators to monitor and control the grid during outages.
While SoCalGas also uses it for emergency operations, they use it to allow rapid evaluation of data for management and then relay back to responders for increased situational awareness. Further, they use it to provide an interactive map of gas transmission and high-pressure distribution pipelines, as well as to support integrity management programs intended to perform data analysis and assess potential risks.
“Esri’s ArcGIS platform helps both SoCalGas and SDG&E deliver energy safely and reliably to our 25 million customers by giving us real-time data to make informed decisions,” Jimmie Cho, senior vice president of customer services for SoCalGas and senior vice president of distribution operations for SoCalGas and SDG&E, said. “Whether it’s helping our staff provide excellent customer service to homes and businesses, or using mapping data to monitor pipelines or power lines during an emergency response, Esri’s platform helps us keep our systems in service, increase productivity, and ultimately serve our customers better.”
