Abstract

Building an Electric Distribution GIS for a Small Municipality
Track: Electric Utilities
Authors: Beau Chumley

In 2010 Hudson Public Power (HPP) was poised to lose a number of key staff to retirement, so finding a solution to retain some of this knowledge was a great incentive to begin the GIS mapping project. Prior to the advent of this project maps and records were still mainly in paper format.

While the city had previously performed mapping projects for other utilities in-house, the high complexity of an electric distribution system necessitated the use of specialized software. Using ESRI core technology, partnered with a data model and toolsets from Futura Systems, Inc. city staff undertook the process of migrating into a digital format. Once in a GIS format city staff were then able to integrate GIS layers with CityWorks asset management software. Discussion of the planning process, software selection, implementation of the project, and future goals will be covered in the presentation.