“The true intelligence of a utility is not measured by the volume of data it collects, but by its ability to connect the dots. Data trapped in silos is merely information. Data integrated across the enterprise becomes knowledge, foresight, and the power to make better decisions. The future of AMI 2.0 is not simply smarter meters, but smarter utilities.” – MJ Martin
The Canadian Utility Data Paradox
Canadian utilities are investing in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI 2.0), intelligent devices, and increasingly sophisticated communications networks. Yet many continue to manage the information collected by these systems as isolated departmental assets. Billing data remains in customer information systems, outage events reside in operational platforms, and equipment records are maintained elsewhere. The result resembles a hospital where every specialist has excellent diagnostic equipment but cannot see the patient’s complete medical record.
More Data Does Not Mean Better Intelligence
An advanced meter might record consumption, voltage fluctuations, momentary interruptions, power quality, and tamper alarms. Nevertheless, billing applications may receive only validated consumption values, while engineering, maintenance, and outage management teams cannot readily access the remaining information. This is not necessarily a communications problem. It is an enterprise data integration problem.
Natural Resources Canada’s evaluation of its Smart Grid Program identifies integrated systems, reliability, resilience, and flexibility, as national priorities. These objectives depend on information moving across organizational boundaries, not simply reaching a billing database.
Building a Shared Data Foundation
A modern utility should establish a governed enterprise data lake or lake-house, supported by secure application programming interfaces, event streaming, and common information models. Meter data management, customer information systems, geographic information systems, supervisory control and data acquisition, outage management, and asset management can then contribute to a consistent analytical environment.
The International Electrotechnical Commission’s IEC 61968-9:2024 standard provides an important foundation for exchanging meter readings, events, and operational information. Significantly, its scope also accommodates gas and water metering applications. Standardized identifiers, timestamps, quality flags, and asset relationships are essential. Otherwise, combining incompatible records simply creates a larger silo.
From Isolated Events to Operational Understanding
Consider a neighbourhood experiencing repeated outages. Meter interruption messages identify affected customers, geographic records establish their electrical connections, transformer histories reveal aging equipment, and weather information supplies environmental context. Together, these datasets may expose an emerging failure that no individual application could identify.
The same approach can reveal distribution losses, abnormal water consumption, gas usage anomalies, transformer loading, and opportunities for preventative maintenance. Historical analytics need a shared data foundation, while time-critical restoration decisions also require low-latency event integration.
Governance, Security, and Trust
Shared data must never mean unrestricted access. Canada’s Cyber Centre recommends zero-trust security, with explicit authorization and least-privilege controls. Utilities must protect customer privacy, preserve operational technology separation, establish data ownership, and maintain audit trails. Ontario’s Green Button framework demonstrates how standardized energy data sharing can be governed through customer authorization.
The Business Case for Integration
The return on investment comes from fewer truck rolls, faster restoration, reduced losses, improved asset utilization, and better customer service. Each outcome should be measured against an operational baseline rather than assumed.
AMI 2.0 succeeds when its information becomes enterprise intelligence. Smart meters are the utility’s senses, communications networks are its nervous system, and integrated data provides the understanding required to act. The strategic question is no longer how much data can be collected, but how intelligently, securely, and consistently it can be used.
Questions for Consideration
Two strategic questions deserve further examination.
– Should Canadian utilities establish a centralized enterprise data office with authority across billing, engineering, operations, and customer service, or should each department retain ownership under a federated governance model?
– And where should the first investment be directed: integrating outage and asset data to improve reliability, or integrating consumption, billing, and network data to identify revenue losses and establish a more immediately measurable return on investment?
Supporting references:
– Natural Resources Canada’s Smart Grid Program evaluation, IEC 61968-9:2024,
– the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s zero-trust guidance,
– and the Ontario Energy Board’s Green Button initiative.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin is a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a pilot, a philosophizer, and always, a romantic optimist.