West Monroe Partners Releases Comprehensive New Reporting Tool for Smart Grid Projects

Chicago, IL – December  11, 2009 – West Monroe Partners, a full-service business and technology consultancy, today announced the release of West Monroe SMART, a comprehensive reporting software tool for use in smart grid implementations.  SMART allows utilities to report and monitor information used to fulfill Department of Energy (DOE) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant recipient requirements.  It also measures and quantifies the impacts of smart grid solutions on an electric utility’s demand, energy consumption, and operations.   
 
The West Monroe System Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) is a fully integrated and customizable JAVA-based program that facilitates collection and tracking of financial expenditures, project milestones, and trending of operational metrics for electric utility companies operating smart grid technologies. This groundbreaking tool includes a dashboard interface that easily shows the management the status of financial back-office system data, project management milestone progress, and system performance data from Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Meter Data Management System (MDMS) Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems.  The tool’s data compiling and validation capabilities make it easier for ARRA grant auditors to obtain and analyze the source data that make up the reports from both of DOE ARRA grant recipients and sub-recipients of smart grid ARRA grants.

"West Monroe Partners has extensive experience creating, designing, and implementing systems, methodologies, and processes that enable federal grant recipients to comply with their reporting requirements”, says Tom Hulsebosch, managing director of West Monroe Partners’ Energy & Utilities practice.  "We've applied this expertise to West Monroe SMART, enabling utilities to compile information from disparate systems to simplify analysis and reporting. One of the most valuable features of this tool is its ability to automate operational data collection and analysis, making it easier for utilities to quantify the impact of their smart grid solutions and to pursue rapid deployment.”
 
The DOE requires ARRA smart grid grant recipients to quantify the improvements of operational metrics associated with the transmission and distribution systems, as well as changes in customer usage patterns.  Grant recipients must comply with very specific reporting requirements, including how they spend the ARRA grant funds, the number of jobs created, and project management metrics associate with their smart grid projects.