WeatherBug Launches Smart Grid Solutions for Electric Power Industry

Solutions apply live, hyper-local information from the largest weather network to enable intelligent forecasting, load balancing, outage management, asset protection and demand response

GERMANTOWN, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--WeatherBug®, the leading provider of consumer and professional weather products and services and operator of the largest weather observing and lightning network, announced the launch of WeatherBug Smart Grid Solutions, a comprehensive suite of applications utilizing real-time, hyper-local weather intelligence to enable increased efficiencies across smart grids and electric utilities.

“By applying our proprietary real-time, hyper-local weather data to the energy sector, WeatherBug is poised to help both power companies and consumers effectively monitor, understand and manage their power use and balance demand.”

As the number-one external variable impacting the power industry, weather touches all aspects of the smart grid. Incorporating applications that provide accurate weather monitoring and forecasting can help electric utilities manage outages, improve work crew safety, facilitate load shifting, and reduce peak demand with minimal impact to customers. WeatherBug Smart Grid Solutions provides power companies with a suite of products featuring advanced weather technology, monitoring capabilities and forecasting intelligence. The real-time information provided by WeatherBug Smart Grid Solutions enable the following:

• Load Balancing and Demand Forecasting: Integrating live, hyper-local information from points within the service area improves load balancing and enables accurate demand forecasting. Additional WeatherBug monitoring stations can be deployed at locations throughout the service area, improving weather visibility at critical asset locations.
• Demand Response: WeatherBug EcoResponse™ is a next-generation demand response program that combines live weather information and sophisticated algorithms to provide real-time insight and analysis for peak-demand reduction and load shifting through customer opt-in activity.
• Consumer Engagement: The WeatherBug EcoConnect™ portal is an educational energy resource portal integrating real-time weather, energy consumption information, home energy audit information and energy smart tips to engage consumers in demand response programs – reducing costs for both the utility and consumer.
• Outage Management: Improve situational decision making with real-time weather information to correlate outages with defined weather thresholds, gauge storm severity during severe weather events, and deploy crews more safely and efficiently. In addition, the WeatherBug Total Lightning Network™ provides both in-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning detection, providing detailed, advance severe storm warning capabilities for crew safety and asset protection.
• Grid Visualization/GIS: Comprehensive GIS and API weather data feeds from WeatherBug integrate observational and historical weather information, enabling precise grid visualization to protect key assets, improving mitigation of outages and service disruptions, and enhancing transmission throughput.
• Real-Time Energy Markets: Energy traders utilize the WeatherBug StreamerRT tool, which enables detailed views of weather on multiple layers, for simple, easy access to real-time weather – making it possible to monitor and react to conditions impacting demand shifts and pricing.

WeatherBug Smart Grid Solutions are launching in conjunction with GridWeek, an annual conference being held in Washington, D.C., October 18 - 21. The event explores the impact of the smart grid on the economy, utility infrastructure, consumers and the environment. WeatherBug will be exhibiting at booth space 307 during the event.

“As a nation, we are just beginning to realize the benefits and advantages of dynamic, smart grid solutions,” said John Bosse, Director of Energy Services for WeatherBug Professional. “By applying our proprietary real-time, hyper-local weather data to the energy sector, WeatherBug is poised to help both power companies and consumers effectively monitor, understand and manage their power use and balance demand.”

About WeatherBug:

WeatherBug (http://www.weatherbug.com and http://www.weatherbugprofessional.com) precisely monitors, organizes and disseminates global weather information. As a trusted source for live, local dynamic data, WeatherBug empowers society with weather intelligence for making more informed decisions. Millions of consumers and professional organizations, including the National Weather Service, rely on WeatherBug to plan daily activities, safeguard lives and improve business operations. WeatherBug is a brand of AWS Convergence Technologies, Inc. (http://www.aws.com).