From merger strategy to congressional outreach, Platts GIS mapping services make the picture clear

Simplifying Strategic Decisions

For Senior Business Analyst Frank Suriano, who conducts power generation performance benchmarking and helps scope out potential mergers and acquisitions for FPL Group, much of the content he needs to study billions of dollars of energy assets is available without GIS data services. But he’d have to research numerous sources, from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and U.S. Geological Survey to other utilities. Making matters worse, some niche utilities don’t share data.

Thanks to turnkey GIS data services provided by Platts, Suriano indicates it’s possible to know in minutes – not days – what assets a potential acquisition has and where they are in relation to your own. From power plants and those plants’ generation capabilities to gas pipelines, Suriano says an analyst can access 60-plus layers of timely content and present his findings to management with highly-visual, information-rich GIS maps.

“You want to spend your time doing analysis,” he says, “not gathering data.”

Platts, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, specializes in delivering data and mapping services to the power industry. The company has been working with energy companies for nearly 20 years and has a wealth of up-to-date content.

When Suriano was trialing other services a few years ago, he found Platts had the most robust database, especially when enhanced with Platt’s mapping program, PowerMap. The learning curve was also shorter with Platts, he says.

When Suriano and his team are evaluating another utility, Platts can provide data that benchmark a power plant’s cost per megawatt hour, and heat rate or efficiency. That data can be triangulated to other features, such as railroad and transmission lines, to show how raw materials are shipped to a power plant and how the energy created there is distributed. The content can then be imported into PowerMap, which is designed with non mapping professionals such as Suriano in mind.

Suriano says he likes the fact that PowerMap content can be exported into PowerPoint or Word for easy-to-understand presentations.

“It’s all about communication,” Suriano says. “Platts enables us to lay out, analyze and communicate information to others. A picture is worth a thousand words. If you can create those depictions, that’s a powerful ability.”

Presenting the Case for Change

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, founded in 1942, was organized to obtain insurance coverage for newly-constructed cooperatives and to mitigate wholesale power problems. Now, the association primarily is an advocate for these co-ops, dealing with issues from rural problems to economic development. One of the key tasks the organization does is representing the co-ops – independent electric utilities usually serving rural areas – to Congress. And one of the key tools for its lobbyists is Platts’ content.

Louise Williams, a senior GIS associate, prepares the maps used by lobbyists in their efforts to persuade Congress. Each calendar quarter, she gets timely data sent to her by Platts so she can prepare accurate maps and presentations – which are used to help law makers see with their own eyes issues affecting the power industry, such as why energy bills are increasing.

Williams has even provided maps showing where transmission lines cross Civil War battle sites, in a move to help lawmakers better protect historical landmarks.

During the week of May 4, the association held its annual legislative conference, much of it focusing on renewable or “green” power. Many of its members have made significant investments in these technologies. But some regions are facing a power crunch that could have energy shortages by 2011 – a problem that renewables alone won’t fix.

Platts provides data that can demonstrate these dynamics, such as what areas could be affected most by energy outages. The knowledge provided by these demonstrations, Williams says, is one step toward making sure Congress passes effective energy legislation.

Williams’ maps can be very detailed. As a result, sometimes she needs help from the mapping experts at Platts. With Platts technical support, Williams says, solutions usually come quickly. And not only can the team help her with data, but also offer their skills as GIS professionals.

“When ever I get stuck on something, I’ll pick up the phone and call Platts,” she says. “They’ll dig around and get back to me right away.”

A Geologist’s Most Important Tool

St. Louis-based Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU) and its coal resources fuel 10 percent of the United States’ power needs.

Tasked with tracking the company’s substantial energy resources is chief geologist Marc Silverman, who keeps tabs on the firm’s 15 billion tons of coal worldwide and determines potential sites for resource exploration.

Making his job easier is Platts. With Platts content, the 31-year Peabody Energy veteran can see where the company’s coal is being shipped and even what quality that coal is. The quality of the resource is important because it can help determine if a shipment is cleaner burning, expensive or inefficient. (Coal from the West is cheaper because it's not as efficient as Appalachian coal. Western coal, however, tends to have far fewer pollutants in it.)

Using data such as coal quality, Silverman can determine if his competitors have coal to beat Peabody Energy’s prices. He also uses other Platts data to tally up the company’s resources, which he imports into PowerMap. As a public company, Peabody Energy must report the most accurate asset-based data to its shareholders and the Securities and Exchange Commission – tasks that Silverman has a key part of.

The presentations he makes with Platts data are so good that his services have become a bit of a hot commodity at Peabody Energy.

“In fact, it works so well,” he says, “that people want me to make maps for them all the time. I keep pushing for a GIS department. But they say, ‘Why? We’re getting everything we need now.’”

Powerful Data, Cost-effective Services

Having reliable content is a must in the energy business. That’s especially true given several monumental changes over the past few years including rising fuel prices, changing rules on unregulated markets, increased threats of terrorism, and new federal energy legislation affecting green technologies and nuclear power.

With Platts, users can see what their data look like in visual formats. They can determine the optimal location for a new power plant. The data, called layers, can then be colorized so it’s easy to analyze.

Platts content is timely and accurate. And PowerMap, which can be loaded onto any desktop computer, is meant to be a both powerful and simple visualization and communication tool. Through years of research and development, Platts has given PowerMap similar functionality as commercial off-the-shelf systems, but offers fewer robust features that hardcore GIS specialists might need. As a result – as any Platts customer would testify to – PowerMap is far simpler to use.

But that doesn’t mean Platts data and mapping services don’t require training.

Phyllis Allen, an R4 technologist with gas transmission and power generation company TransCanada, is often called on by her company to provide detailed presentations of energy assets as well as other infrastructure. TransCanada, which operates nearly 37,000 miles of pipelines throughout Canada and the United States, recently sent her to an in-person training session in Boulder, Colo. sponsored by Platts. Unlike other technical training sessions, she says, Platt’s session seemed as if she created the curriculum herself.

“I was thoroughly impressed with how Platts treated us,” she says. “They totally tailored the class to our questions. Anything we needed to know they provided. It was easy to learn.”

Platts isn’t just a provider of information, technology and training. The company also has its own cartography group tasked with creating custom maps. On one recent project, FPL Group’s Suriano and his team were up against the wall and lacking the customized data they needed. Platts, Suriano says, not only helped them find the data, but actually developed some of the necessary outputs.

For more than a decade, Platts has provided FPL Group with valuable but cost-effective services such as this.

“Platts has easily been good enough to retain us as customers for 12 years,” Suriano says. “I like the fact that we can plan budgets and can trust there are no surprise costs. We trust each other to maintain that harmony.”