SpatialNews Press Release
Reliant Energy Entex Completes Enterprise GIS Implementation
www.esri.com
Redlands, California--ESRI announced today that Reliant Energy Entex has completed
implementation of ArcGIS 8.1 technology. Reliant Energy Entex is one of Reliant
Energy's three natural gas local distribution companies (LDC). Reliant Energy, based in
Houston, Texas, is an international energy services and energy delivery company.
Currently, two of the three LDCs--Reliant Energy Entex and Reliant Energy Arkla--and
its electric LDC, Reliant Energy HL&P, have completed implementation of ESRI's
enterprise geographic information system (GIS) software.
"With the implementation of our GIS, we're reducing operating costs and bringing value
to the company," says Jeff Myerson, manager of geographic information services for
Reliant Energy. "We've built a strong GIS technology foundation based on common
data models, consistent tools and applications, and supported by centralized training,
support, and system and program maintenance. By overcoming the challenges of
standardization of data (structure and requirements), applications, and map products,
Reliant Energy is moving forward with this foundation to build more advanced
applications and services."
Reliant Energy's regulated utilities serve nearly 4.6 million electric and natural gas
customers in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Minnesota.
Using ArcGIS 8.1 technology Reliant Energy maintains an infrastructure across more
than 150,000 square miles; 33,000 miles of electric distribution lines in Texas, which
includes Houston, the country's fourth largest city; and 48,000 miles of gas mains in
five southern states, serving more than 900 communities including Houston.
Throughout Reliant Energy, there are currently approximately 3,000 GIS users
including 200 staff editing the GIS database. Versioning is used to manage multiple
user editing of the GIS database. Examples of how GIS is used at Reliant Energy
include underground asset locating, pole attachment maintenance, streetlight asset
management supporting billing and maintenance, cathodic protection, gas network
analysis, electric network analysis, and meter reader routing.
Reliant Energy's enterprise GIS runs using ESRI's ArcGIS 8.1 technology. ArcGIS is a
scalable system of software for geographic data creation, management, integration,
analysis, and dissemination for every organization from an individual to a globally
distributed network of people. ArcGIS runs on seven production databases, all of
which are maintained in the Houston, Texas, corporate headquarters. Running on the
UNIX platform, one database stores 50 gigabytes (GB) of data and six others, running
on the Windows 2000 platform, maintain 3 GB each. Reliant Energy also uses ArcFM
software from Miner and Miner and GTIView software from GIS Technologies, Inc.
(GTI).
More than 365 feature classes are stored and managed in the enterprise GIS. Data
sets maintained include customer service points, customer gas load, electric devices,
street centerlines, easements, gas equipment, land parcels, and more.
"We manage a large, expansive infrastructure using GIS," says Myerson. "We maintain
electric data from the substation to the meter and gas data from the city gate or
regulator to the customer."
An example of an enterprise GIS application is a gas infrastructure Web viewer
designed by ESRI and used by nearly 1,000 Reliant Energy employees. The application
provides view and query capabilities, allowing remote access from smaller district
offices to the corporate center. "Data is maintained in a central database, and the
smaller, remote offices' areas have access to everything," says Myerson. "Now that
enterprise GIS is in place, we are moving rapidly with highly effective user
applications."
Future applications include outage management with CES International, document
imaging with GTI and FileNET, a design optimization tool, mobile data access for field
crews, wireless real-time data collection and correction, and more.
"This is a true enterprise implementation that will grow and expand," says Myerson.
"What we have in place impacts not only the states served by Reliant Energy but our
entire organization as well. Using an architecture based on Citrix Systems, Inc.,
software, even the remote Reliant Energy contract digitizers have access to the
centralized data servers."
ESRI at GITA 25
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