This year has been one of change and growth for Aclara, and we are truly appreciative this Thanksgiving for the successes and trials that shaped our 2018. One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is our gratitude for our gas, electric, and water utility customers. It is because of their loyalty that we continue to expand our horizons and find new and better ways to serve them.
We have many reasons to be thankful, but these 5 transformative changes continue to inspire us to improve our customer relationships and service.
Our New Ownership
At the beginning of this year, we were acquired by Hubbell Inc. and are now part of Hubbell Power Systems. This change, which combined the complementary strengths of both organizations, allows us to accelerate innovations to address utility customer demand for data and integrated solutions
“Together with Aclara, Hubbell will be even better positioned to serve customers through a differentiated smart grid solution and expanded portfolio,” said David G. Nord, chairman, president, and CEO of Hubbell Inc. at the time of the acquisition.
“We have long admired the position of Aclara’s businesses in the industry and are confident that integrating Aclara’s capabilities with Hubbell’s will allow us to deliver increased value to customers and shareholders,” he added.
For more information on our move to Hubbell click here.
Big advances in software and analytics
Our customers have told us that finding ways to use the data they collect over our communications networks is paramount to their success. Our drive to meet this requirement led to our AclaraONE™ (One Network for Everyone) software, introduced this year. AclaraONE is a next-generation SaaS solution that allows electric, water and gas utilities to access and analyze data collected from meters and other devices on their distribution networks.
It offers a single, unified platform that allows our electric, water, and gas utility customers to configure communication solutions that are optimized to fit their unique requirements. In addition, the solution interfaces to applications that can analyze data and provide insights and network control over a wide variety of functions. Thus, our customers can consistently collect data from a wide range of devices on their distribution networks and convert it into actionable information that improves reliability, maximizes efficiency, and reduces costs.
Discover how our software solutions can transform a utility business here.
AclaraConnect 2018
We appreciate the incredible support we get each year from our customers, prospects, and exhibitors. In 2018, we were grateful to gather with more than 800 colleagues to be inspired, face our collective challenges, and learn new methodologies and techniques at our yearly conference, AclaraConnect.
We were inspired by a keynote by Navy Captains Mark and Scott Kelly, the only siblings to travel in space, that taught us the power of goals and teamwork. Other takeaways from the conference included a focus by utilities on security issues, a new emphasis on distribution automation, and the rise of the neural grid.
This year we’re gathering for AclaraConnect in Austin, Texas, May 20-23. Learn more.
Growing with our customers
We are thankful for the hundreds of customers that look to Aclara to serve their requirements for communications networks, software, and services. As they seek ways to improve operational efficiencies and reliability, we are thankful that they continue to rely on us to provide the technologies that meet their expanding requirements.
For example, Orlando Utilities Commission (OUC) found a way to get ahead of water main breaks caused by construction using Aclara acoustic leak detection technology. The utility ran 56 sensors along a major thoroughfare in the Florida city to detect leaks caused by construction workers before they became major, traffic-snarling breaks. Read more here.
Another new customer, Runestone Electric Association in central Minnesota, upgraded its aging power line carrier system to TWACS power line communication technology after considering a wide range of options. The utility chose TWACS technology in part because of its reliability, its cost-effectiveness, and ability to detect outages and handle demand response requirements.
“We selected TWACS PLC because it meets our requirements, the technology is proven and extremely reliable, plus the system provides real-time communication. Upon completing our deployment, we are very pleased with our decision,” said Scott Krueger, billing/IT supervisor at Runestone.
Check out the case study.
These are just a few of the many things that we are thankful for this Thanksgiving season. Most of all, we are grateful to our customers who have worked with us to develop the smart infrastructure solutions that help them better serve consumers of electric, water and gas resources. Happy Thanksgiving!
