Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) has been recognized by CIO
magazine as one of the CIO 100 Award winners for its work in
emergency response. The 28th annual award program recognizes
organizations around the world that exemplify the highest level of
operational and strategic excellence in information technology (IT).
PG&E was recognized for its innovative use of technologies that support
the company’s emergency response base camps. The company is the only
combined gas and electric utility on this year’s list and is one of
several Bay Area organizations recognized.
“Safety is not just a top priority at PG&E it’s at the foundation of
everything we do. The combination of technologies used in the PG&E
emergency base camps enables us to quickly respond to outages during a
natural disaster, which helps keep the public and our customers safe.
We’re very pleased to have been honored with this recognition,” said
Karen Austin, PG&E Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer.
As part of its emergency-response procedures, PG&E builds temporary base
camps that support thousands of workers who aid efforts in restoring
power following natural disasters such as a winter storms or
earthquakes. These base camps require a unique combination of IT
technologies that enable the company’s employees and first responders to
safely and quickly restore gas and electric service to customers within
a short period of time and often in harsh environments.
These technologies include:
-
Deploying mobile 85-foot communication towers to increase bandwidth at
remote locations;
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Installing on-site mapping kiosk and plotting capacities;
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Establishing high-speed UDN connectivity and large-scale satellite
bandwidth; and
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Connecting gas and electric dispatch functionality using mobile radios
and console radios.
By leveraging these disparate technologies together, PG&E is able to
build emergency communications packages that can scale to a very large
size, allowing on-site teams to extend the PG&E network, dispatch work
crews, create job packages, execute emergency services and communicate
to all employees—all from a remote location.
"For 28 years now, the CIO 100 awards have honored the innovative use of
technology to deliver genuine business value," said Maryfran Johnson,
Editor in Chief of CIO magazine & Events. "Our 2015 winners are
an outstanding example of the transformative power of IT to drive
everything from revenue growth to competitive advantage."
Every year, CIO magazine identifies and honors 100 organizations
that have distinguished themselves by creating business value through
the effective and innovative use of IT. A team of 34 judges reviewed the
applications and debated their merits, then voted on the final 100
honorees.
Executives from the winning companies will be recognized at The
CIO 100 Symposium & Awards Ceremony, to be held Tuesday evening,
August 11, at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
About CIO
CIO is the premier content and community resource for information
technology executives and leaders thriving and prospering in this
fast-paced era of IT transformation in the enterprise. The award-winning
CIO portfolio—CIO.com,
CIO magazine (launched in 1987), CIO executive programs, CIO
strategic marketing solutions, CIO Forum on LinkedIn, CIO Executive
Council and CIO primary research—provides business technology leaders
with analysis and insight on information technology trends and a keen
understanding of IT’s role in achieving business goals. Additionally,
CIO provides opportunities for IT solution providers to reach this
executive IT audience. The CIO Executive Council is a professional
organization of CIOs created to serve as an unbiased and trusted peer
advisory group. CIO is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary of
International Data Group (IDG), the world’s leading media, events, and
research company. Company information is available at www.idgenterprise.com.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco,
with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the
nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and
Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/
and www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/index.page.
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