WT Partners

Case Studies

Results that held up in the field.

Representative engagements across the work we do most: grid technology, funding and compliance, operations, and the people who carry it forward. Clients are described by type rather than by name.

Grid Technology  ·  Funding  ·  Operations  ·  People

Selected Engagements

The situation, what we did, and what changed.

Every engagement is told the same way, so they can be compared. Clients are described by type; the outcomes are the ones we would put in a reference call.

  • Electric utility
  • Technical and Operations
  • Analytics

AMI 2.0 application development: Lost Meters and Voltage Health Monitoring

Situation

The utility's advanced metering infrastructure was deployed and communicating, but the data it produced was being used almost entirely for billing. Two operational problems were hiding in that data: meters on the network with no customer account behind them, and voltage conditions at the meter that nobody was looking at until a customer called.

Approach

Designed and built two applications on top of the existing AMI head-end and meter data management platform, working with metering, billing, and distribution operations so each application produced a work queue the responsible team would actually act on.

Lost Meters

Identifies meters that are communicating on the system but have no customer account attached: energy being delivered and measured, but never billed. The application reconciles the meter population against the customer information system, ranks each unmatched meter by consumption and how long it has been unassigned, and routes it to metering and billing for resolution, so that lost revenue is recovered and the root cause in the service-order process is closed.

Voltage Health Monitoring

Identifies undervoltage and overvoltage conditions at the metering point using the voltage readings the meters already report. Readings are evaluated against service-voltage limits, persistent or recurring excursions are grouped by transformer and feeder so a pattern is visible rather than a list of individual meters, and confirmed issues are passed to distribution operations with the supporting data, before they become a customer complaint or equipment damage.

Outcome

In the first 90 days Lost Meters surfaced roughly 1,200 communicating meters with no account attached. About 85 percent were reconciled to an account within one billing cycle and billed from that point forward, and the service-order gap that had been creating them was closed. Voltage Health Monitoring flagged persistent excursions on 14 feeders; nine traced to overloaded or mis-tapped transformers, all corrected before a single customer complaint was logged.

About 1,200 unbilled meters found; 85% resolved within one billing cycleVoltage issues on 14 feeders corrected ahead of any customer report.
  • Investor-owned electric utility
  • Management and Strategy

AMI deployment roadmap and business case

Situation

A utility serving roughly 350,000 customers needed to replace an aging metering fleet and make the case for advanced metering to its board and regulator in a single filing cycle.

Approach

Assessed the existing meter population, network, and back-office systems; built a phased deployment roadmap; and developed a business case that separated operational savings from customer and grid benefits so each could be defended on its own.

Outcome

The regulator approved the business case on first submission, without a request for supplementary analysis. Deployment was sequenced over three years, front-loading the service areas with the oldest meters, and the benefit case was accepted with operational savings and grid benefits tracked as separate lines so each could be reported on its own.

Business case approved on first submissionThree-year deployment sequenced; benefits tracked by category from day one.
  • Municipal utility
  • Technical and Operations

DERMS and ADMS solution architecture and vendor selection

Situation

Rapid growth in rooftop solar and customer batteries was outpacing the utility's ability to see and manage distributed resources on its distribution network.

Approach

Defined the target architecture for distributed energy resource management and its integration with the advanced distribution management system; wrote the technical requirements; ran a structured procurement and evaluation; and supported contract negotiation with the selected vendor.

Outcome

A DERMS platform was selected and contracted within the planned procurement window, with the ADMS integration approach agreed on before signature rather than negotiated afterward. Phase one, giving operators visibility of roughly 9,000 customer solar and storage systems on the distribution network, went into service on schedule.

Selected and contracted within the planned windowPhase one live on schedule, with about 9,000 DER systems visible to operators.
  • Public power utility
  • Grants

Federal grid resilience grant application and management

Situation

A funding opportunity for grid resilience matched the utility's hardening plans, but the application window was short and the reporting obligations after an award were unfamiliar.

Approach

Mapped the planned projects to the program's criteria, wrote the technical narrative and budget justification, coordinated the required partner and community commitments, and set up the compliance and reporting structure before the first drawdown.

Outcome

The application was awarded in full: $12.4 million against a $14.8 million total project cost. The first eight quarterly reports were accepted without a finding, and from the second year the utility's own staff were producing them using the structure set up during the engagement.

$12.4 million awarded in fullEight consecutive quarterly reports accepted without a finding.
  • Electric cooperative
  • Learning and Development

Organizational change management for a new operations platform

Situation

A new operations technology platform was on schedule technically, but the field and control-room teams who would run it had not been part of the design and were not ready to adopt it.

Approach

Assessed readiness by role, redesigned the affected processes and procedures with the people who use them, built role-based training, and established a support model for the first months of live operation.

Outcome

The platform went live on the planned date. Adoption held after the support period ended: six months on, 96 percent of switching orders were being processed in the new system, and the cooperative's own trainers were onboarding new hires from the procedures written during the engagement.

Live on the planned date; 96% adoption at six monthsAbout 140 field and control-room staff trained across every district.
  • Investor-owned electric utility
  • Executive Search

Grid modernization program leader placed

Situation

A multi-year grid modernization program needed a leader who understood both utility operations and large technology delivery, a combination the utility had not been able to find through its usual channels.

Approach

Defined the role against the program's actual first two years rather than a generic description, identified candidates from utility, vendor, and consulting backgrounds, and assessed each against the delivery decisions they would have to make.

Outcome

The role was filled nine weeks from the initial brief, with a candidate from a vendor delivery background who had previously led a utility-side deployment. Eighteen months later the program leader was still in the role and had taken the program through its first major milestone.

Placed nine weeks from the initial briefIn the role through the program's first major milestone, eighteen months on.
  • State government agency
  • Staff Augmentation

Embedded program management for an EV charging initiative

Situation

An agency responsible for a statewide electric vehicle charging program had the funding and the mandate, but not the program management capacity to run procurement, site delivery, and reporting in parallel.

Approach

Embedded program and project managers inside the agency's own structure and reporting lines, established the delivery cadence and controls, and transferred the tools and templates to agency staff as the program matured.

Outcome

Over the first program year, 62 charging sites were energized against a plan of 60, every federal reporting obligation was met on schedule, and two of the embedded roles were handed to agency staff who had been trained on the delivery tooling along the way.

62 sites energized in year one, against a plan of 60All reporting met on schedule; two roles transitioned to agency staff.

Engagement details are shared in confidence. References and further detail on comparable work are available on request for procurement and vendor onboarding. Email info@wtpartners.com.

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