Background
Cherokee Electric Cooperative (CEC) provides power to a unique service area that includes 450 miles of shoreline around Lake Weiss, the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and parts of Dixie Alley, a known hotspot for severe weather with storms producing abundant lightning, high winds, and occasional tornados. This scenario results in more outages and unusual travel routes for restoration teams—creating the need for an Outage Management System with the ability to share and access important outage information quickly and easily. 

The Solution
In an on-going effort to provide reliable power and excellent customer service, CEC partnered with mPower Innovations to update their digital maps and deploy mPower’s web-based IntegratorTM and OMS software at their dispatch center. The new software combined with their updated GIS, gives CEC the ability to respond faster to incidents and power outages. In addition, CEC updated their dispatch center with new monitors to help visualize outages on the map and through their new OMS. 

“mPower’s Integrator™ has already made a huge impact to our dispatching and mapping. We no longer have to shuffle paper outages and organize pole numbers to location outages. Within moments of a member’s call or an AMI reading, we can visually see where the outages are occurring. Our outages also automatically restore as our meter’s report “restored” which is invaluable,” says Luke Johnson, the System Analyst at CEC. “We have been very impressed with Integrator’s™ usefulness and customizability.”
As outage data is received, mPower’s Outage Management System (OMS) analyzes the data to determine what is causing the outage. Once identified, CEC can dispatch crews to restore power.
With mPower’s  IntegratorTM software, CEC is able to visualize OMS data on their updated GIS maps for all CEC personnel to use. Crews can easily access data, add notes, and close outage tickets in the field from their smart devices. As new outages are reported, crews in the field can see these outages populate on their maps, giving them the ability to respond to outages nearby. This helps reduce the need to return to outage areas multiple times. 
CEC is also using IntegratorTM to build and maintain public outage maps that their members can access through CEC’s website. 

Moving Beyond OMS
By tying CEC’s AMI system into IntegratorTM , metering information can now be accessed directly from the GIS map. This allows improved troubleshooting of issues associated with power quality and load profiles. In addition, IntegratorTM can be used to generate reports that help identify overloaded transformers, reclosure issues, voltage issues and maintenance of electric system assets. By analyzing this data, CEC can proactively improve reliability by reducing outages caused by overloaded or unmaintained equipment. 

Next Steps
CEC plans to add mPower’s Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system later this year. Once installed, calls for outages will be immediately routed to the OMS reducing response times to outages. CEC will also have the ability to add messages to the phone system to let the customers know they are aware of the outage or provide estimated restoration times. The IVR system also has the ability to send outage and restoration notifications via email or text alerts.  

Interested in mPower's OMS and IVR Solutions? Learn more about them by registering for our next webinar! Register here. 

We are looking forward to exhibiting at the KMU conference this week and showing you our powerful and affordable solutions designed for small and mid-sized water, electric, gas, and fiber utilities. 

Stop by booth #9 to learn about our GIS, OMS, IVR, Fiber Management and MDM solutions. While you're there, you can enter to win a $75 VISA gift card. 

Iron Mountain, MI & Topeka, KS, April 27, 2021– mPower Innovations has acquired the entire suite of software solutions developed by Ptarmigan Software, a Topeka based software developer. This acquisition will expand mPower’s portfolio of software to include Fiber/Coaxial Cable Management and Staking (Design & Construction) for utilities.
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“This is an exciting opportunity for our company and the timing could not be better. As the push for broadband access increases, more of our utility customers and prospects are needing advanced tools to design and manage these complicated networks. mPower’s GIS software and expertise will enhance the spatial and analytical capabilities of these products and broaden their appeal,” says Jason Brown, President and CEO of mPower Innovations.

This acquisition has added customers from 20 states and one U.S. territory. This expansion to mPower’s customer base and software offerings will fuel continued growth. 
“Our entire company is focused on helping utilities and municipalities work smarter and more efficiently. This pandemic has made remote access to assets, maps, and data more valuable than ever—and that is exactly what we are known for,” added Daniel Freeman, Marketing Manager at mPower Innovations, “By adding fiber and staking to our software offerings, we can help current and future customers manage all of their utilities better.”

For more information visit www.mpowerinnovations.com/ptarmigan or register for mPower’s upcoming webinar, Introducing Condor™, mPower’s Fiber & Coaxial Cable Management Solution, at www.mpowerinnovations.com/fiberwebinar.
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About mPower Innovations
mPower Innovations was founded in 2006 and is a leader in the geospatial industry. They are headquartered in Iron Mountain, MI with additional offices in Grand Rapids, MI, Appleton, WI, Long Island, NY, and Flowery Branch, GA.

mPower is a full-service, one-stop-shop for utilities and organizations at any stage of GIS and Smart Grid integration. They help their customers move from paper or basic digital maps to fully-integrated, GIS-based operations and engineering applications. Their flagship software program is mPower Integrator™, a unique asset management & system integration software application that can intelligently connect and report on a variety of existing enterprise systems, including outage management systems (OMS), advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) systems, customer information systems (CIS), work management systems (WMS), automated vehicle locator (AVL) systems and more.
mPower has a suite of software offerings, including an Outage Management System, Work Management System as well as Fiber, Staking, and IVR Solutions. Their services division routinely builds and repairs connectivity models and performs GPS collections, joint use pole audits, and map cleanup and conversion services. mPower is a bronze member of the Esri Partner Network. You can learn more about mPower Innovations at www.mpowerinnovations.com.

We are looking forward to exhibiting at the MESO Public Power conference and showing attendees our powerful and affordable GIS-based solutions designed specifically for small and mid-size utilities.We encourage attendees to stop by our booth to learn about our GIS, OMS, IVR, Fiber Management and MDM solutions.

We will be giving away a $75 VISA gift card at our booth. Click here to print off your entry form ahead of time! You can bring completed entry forms to our booth. The drawing will be held at noon on Tuesday! ​

mPower Innovations is an associate member of the Rural Water Association of Utah and will be exhibiting at booth #810 to showcase our powerful and affordable GIS-based asset management and system integration solutions. We are looking forward to showing water providers our purpose built software for small and medium-sized utilities. Scott Mossbrooks (VP Sales Development) and Daniel Freeman (Marketing Manager) are looking forward to meeting Utah water providers. 

Stop by booth #810 to see our software in action, learn about our GIS and mapping services, and to enter to win a $100 Visa Gift Card.  You can learn more about our water solutions here.

Interested in learning more about mPower before the trade show? Sign up for our GIS readiness webinar here.