Distributech Update

Distributech is the leading annual transmission and distribution event for utilities, technology providers, and industry leaders. This conference is at the cutting edge of new technology, showcasing the newest developments in automation and control, energy efficiency, demand response, DER integration, metering, cybersecurity, and T&D operation and relaibility.

Our very own PingThings project manager Nikko Nibres attended distributech and has offered to share his perspective on the event?

How long have you been at PingThings? What are the highlights of working on the team?

I am a new hire, four months into working at PingThings. The platform is the most exciting part of working here. There is a lot of potential when it comes to the problems that we can solve both for utilities and the world! The team is another highlight. Everyone here is just willing to teach and learn. Its so collaborative that I haven’t found any environment that compares.

**Where was the conference held, how long, and what was the energy like? **

It was a really big conference held in Dallas. The energy was very exciting. There were a big presence ranging from those in the sensor and SAAS space to utilities themselves. The conference was about 3 days long, packed with breakout conferences.

what was PingThings up to?

PingThings presented a 30 minute presentation on the second day. Syd, our head of operations gave the speech through a startup panel. The judges who were present were from the utilities space. One executive from a major utility was on the panel, which was exciting.

Our speech consisted of a detailed explanation on what the platform is, problems that it solves, and how it differs from other similar platforms. [syd might have more info on the speech]

The platform is built from scratch for time series data analytics, spearheading the DOE ARPA-e NI4AI initiative to bring advanced machine learning algorithms to the grid! We were able to highlight the flexibility of our platform when it comes to building custom applications for advanced sensor data. The market currently offers either plug and play solutions with limited flexibility, else engineering teams at utilities are forced to build applications from scratch. We are excited to differentiate ourself as a solution that is both easy to implement for immediate insights as well as advanced customizability for novel applications.

How did you like managing the PingThings booth?

The booth as a challenge, but we were able to make the best of it! It was a good experience and we still gained a good amount of traffic after the presentation. People from previous pilots came by as well as those walking by interested in a time series platform. Actually, not just utilities but also even international writers from Korea and Japan!

Would you attend again?

Definitely! It was a great experience all around. These conferences really allow us to look into other use cases that we hadn’t even considered! Distributed Energy Resource integration is a quickly growing industry with plenty of sensor data.