NERC standards pose challenges for IT innovation at power utility

NERC standards pose challenges for IT innovation at power utility

NERC standards pose challenges for IT innovation at power utility

Date: Jun 30, 2011

Ask Steve Dykstra about NERC standards, and his eyes light up. For Dykstra, as director of shared services at power utility American Transmission Co. (ATC) in Waukesha, Wis., the North American Electric Reliability Corporation means everything.

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NERC sets the safety and reliability standards for public utilities. Complying with NERC standards is a full-time job for many people; creating an innovative IT environment to support that effort is quite a challenge. But Dykstra is up for the job.

For instance, imagine having to clear foliage a set number of feet away from any power line along the rural roads of Wisconsin. "We have over $2.5 billion worth of assets in the field," says Dykstra in this video interview for SearchCIO.com's CIO Innovators series. "There is a lot of maintenance. … [V]egetation management is a unique niche of that process, where we can't allow anything to grow into the lines and short-circuit the lines."

ATC has been trying out mobile solutions and Global Positioning Systems to help solve the problem.

Dykstra formed a "tiger team" to help conceive and implement technology innovations. That team consists of a corporate cybersecurity consultant, an enterprise architect, "and kind of an unusual third person in the mix -- an individual who manages the asset data and records management GIS [geographic information system] category of the business," he said.

"The reason I've got him at the lead and supported by the other two is that he tends to think more outside the box, more innovatively. He's got that type of mind-set that really brings the value to the organization in that respect," Dykstra said. "Without a creative mind-set, I think you limit yourself sometimes to a less effective contribution, because you tend to get myopic in regard to what you're really trying to accomplish from a pure technological solutions standpoint, rather than listening again to the business."

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