Storm Center Keeps Communications Alive During Hurricane Irene
Over 6.4 million customers lost power as Hurricane Irene moved up the eastern coast, making landfall on August 27th. With few eastern electric utilities spared, recovery from Irene continued long after the storm was over, and approximately 580,000 customers were still without power one week after the storm.
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iFactor Expands Mobile App Opportunities for Utilities
The way people do their computing is changing: mobile device usage is growing steadily every day, indicating a preference to be connected anywhere  and at any time. Input is also shifting from the traditional methods - keyboards, mice, trackpads - to more casual and natural touch interfaces. Apple has sold over 250 million iOS devices worldwide, while Google's Android OS is growing at 886% year on year and now activating over 160,000 devices a day, across 60 device types in over 40 countries (Source: Sybase, an SAP mobile intelligence company).
Utility companies now have the power to reach this rapidly growing segment of new users through iFactor Consulting's suite of mobile device applications. iFactor's mobile applications offer utility customers the ability to log in to their accounts and pay their bills, see their usage in an animated meter, sign up for account alerts, view and report outages, or even submit a photo read of their meter, all in a user interface that is made specifically for mobile screens and touch input. Each feature is modular to allow for custom applications which can start with a utility's current needs and expand over time.
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Minnesota Power and LG&E and KU go live with iFactor's smartphone application
Minnesota Power and LG&E and KU both recently implemented the outage communications module of iFactor's mobile device applications, a suite of reusable software modules that allows utilities to quickly deliver self service  solutions to their customers. The free smartphone app is available on iPhone, Android, and Blackberry devices, and is available in the app store for each specific device. With this new app, customers will have access to the same outage information provided on the utilities' online outage maps, which are also powered by iFactor. Outage data is displayed using an interactive Storm Center map, and summary information by county and zip code is available in a chart format. Data from the Storm Center site is delivered directly to the app from the utilities' outage management systems, including estimated restoration times once outages are assessed by field crews.
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Santee Cooper launches online outage maps and outage reporting with Storm Center
Santee Cooper is now offering their customers near real time outage information with iFactor Consulting's Storm Center product. Available on  Santee Cooper's website and also accessible on smartphones, Storm Center displays both individual outages and outage summary information by county. The map provides users with critical details for outages, including number of customers affected and estimated restoration time. Santee Cooper customers can also use the site to report outages and check outage status. With Storm Center, customers, the media, emergency responders, and public officials have quick and easy access to vital outage information 24 hours a day.
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Utilities reflect on Hurricane Irene's damage and lessons learned
A few weeks after Hurricane Irene slammed the east coast, iFactor gathered  together a focused group of utility representatives to share ideas and information on how they managed their communications process during this major storm. Participants used the opportunity to discuss the use of outage maps, online outage reporting, texting, and other communications avenues during large events.
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 Oscar Shu
 Derek Li
 Dan Serpiello
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