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Telematics Is Exposing the Biggest Blind Spot in Auto Insurance
How real driving data is replacing broad assumptions Auto insurance has always been a prediction business. For decades, carriers priced risk using indirect signals, such as where someone lives, how old they are, their driving history, their vehicle type, and how many miles they said they expected to drive. Those factors still matter. They also leave insurers estimating risk from a distance. Telematics changes that. Usage-based insurance adds a more direct layer by measuring a
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Why Innovative Transmission Tower Design Could Be the Key to Faster Grid Expansion
In the Race to Modernize the Grid, Perception is Becoming Part of Performance Why Transmission Tower Design is a Grid Modernization Issue The biggest barrier to building more transmission isn't always the steel, the permitting, or even the cost. Sometimes it's the moment a community looks up and decides the project doesn't belong there. That's the blind spot in a lot of grid planning. We talk about transmission as an engineering challenge, but in practice it's also a design c
5 min read
The “Plug-In Solar” Moment Is Here, and One Safety Standard Is About to Make It Mainstream
UL 3700 is the behind-the-scenes rulebook that turns balcony solar from a risky gray area into a scalable, utility-friendly product Why can you plug in a space heater, but not a solar panel? Balcony solar sounds like a simple “hang it, plug it in, save money” idea. The truth is more complex. This article uncovers why UL 3700 can turn plug-in solar from a clever hack into a trusted mass-market product. But first, here are a few key definitions that matter to understand what's
5 min read
A 555°F Geothermal Well in Utah Could Make 24/7 Clean Power Real
Hotter rock, faster drilling, and a clearer path to always-on clean energy Geothermal Just Dropped a Stat Grid Planners Can’t Ignore Every once in a while, a single number cuts through the noise and forces the grid conversation to get real. That just happened in Utah. Fervo says it confirmed a geothermal resource above 555°F, and it drilled the appraisal well in under 11 days.[1] On the surface, that sounds like an impressive engineering milestone. In practice, it’s a potenti
5 min read
The Plot Twist Nobody Was Ready For: Amazon Just Outbid a Utility for a Mega Solar Project
Why a $1 Million Bid Difference Should Worry Every Energy Leader Utilities Are No longer the Only Serious Buyers of Clean Capacity Puget Sound Energy (PSE), a utility in the Pacific Northwest, bid $82 million for a massive solar-plus-storage project in Oregon. Amazon bid $83 million and won. In an $82–$83 million auction, $1 million can look like noise. It isn’t. It’s proof that the buyer pool has changed, and utilities are bidding against companies with urgent load growth an
4 min read
AI Load Growth Has a Secret Upside: Free Heat for Homes
Finland and Sweden are treating thermal waste like a civic resource and it’s quietly rewriting the AI energy story The part of AI’s power demand most people never think about: Heat. When people argue about AI and the grid, the conversation usually stops at megawatts: How much load? How fast? Who pays for upgrades? Important questions, but incomplete. Here’s the missing piece: the electricity that goes into a data center doesn’t disappear. It ends up as heat. That’s why the “d
4 min read
Google’s Grid Warning: Why Transmission Is the Real Threat to U.S. Grid Reliability.
AI data centers are exposing the quiet bottleneck utilities can’t outrun: the wires, the queues, and the legacy systems behind them. Transmission Explained: The Grid’s Highways Most people talk about the grid like it’s one thing. It isn’t. It’s three big layers that do three different jobs. Generation is where electricity is made (power plants, wind, solar, batteries). Transmission is how that electricity moves long distances (the high-voltage “backbone”). And lastly, distrib
5 min read
A Modular Data Center Strategy Built for Tornado Alley
How Rural Electric Co-ops Deployed 59+ “Mini Data Centers” in 6 Months SUMMARY Between 2010 and 2017, Tamazari personnel helped KAMO Power and its member cooperatives stand up a practical answer to a very modern problem: “How do we run a smarter, more resilient grid without building traditional data centers everywhere?” The team deployed 59+ modular computing facilities across rural Oklahoma and Missouri using a mix of containerized data centers, GFRC prefabricated buildings,
4 min read
From Data Chaos to Grid Clarity: GIS Load Forecasting for Distribution System Planning at Scale
How 9+ Utilities Used LoadSEER to Pinpoint Load Hotspots and Plan Upgrades Ahead of Electrification SUMMARY Utilities can’t modernize what they can’t see. Tamazari led project management for a multi-utility implementation program of LoadSEER, a spatial load forecasting platform from Integral Analytics. This tool helps planners predict where electric demand will grow and by how much. Across 9+ major utilities, we converted complex data environments into actionable, map-based f
4 min read
Why “Just Build More Fiber” Is The AI-Era Myth.
How a utility-grade Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM) backbone delivered 99.9995% reliability without waiting on new fiber builds. SUMMARY When your communications network hiccups, the grid doesn’t just “slow down”—operators lose visibility, automation gets compromised, and storm response becomes harder right when the public needs utilities most. To increase bandwidth and resilience without the cost and lead time of building new fiber, KAMO Power and Tacoma Public Utili
3 min read
From Help Desk to Enterprise ITSM: A Utility Transformation Story.
How a Cherwell (Ivanti) Rollout at Tacoma Public Utilities Turned Skeptics into Advocates Across 100+ Users. SUMMARY Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU) needed an IT service management (ITSM) system that could keep pace with the reality of running three essential services—power, water, and rail—on shared technology. Tamazari led a phased rollout of Cherwell ITSM (Ivanti) for 100+ users, establishing practical Change, Asset, and Problem Management in addition to connecting SolarWind
4 min read
AI Is Quietly Rewriting Grid Reliability—and Texas Is the Warning Shot
Some Data Centers Now Demand as Much Power as Entire Cities A Number That Changes Everything If you want to understand where grid reliability is headed over the next decade, forget abstract forecasts and glossy net-zero scenarios for a moment. Look instead at a single number coming out of Texas: 226 gigawatts. That’s not a long-term projection or a speculative scenario. It’s the approximate volume of large-load interconnection requests currently sitting in the ERCOT queue, mu
4 min read
Clean Energy Programs Are Stress-Testing Utility Billing Systems.
How Time-of-Use Rates, EV Tariffs, and Net Billing are Exposing CIS Limitations. The Silent Operational Risk Utilities Didn’t Plan For Clean energy is working—at least on the surface. Time-of-use rates are expanding. EV tariffs are filling up faster than forecasts predicted. Net billing has replaced simpler net metering in many regions. Not to mention, community solar subscriptions are scaling at record speed. From the outside, it looks like momentum. But behind the scenes, m
3 min read
Reliable Utilities Run on Reliable Records.
How one PNW utility eliminated document chaos and strengthened regulatory confidence. SUMMARY Tamazari partnered with a major PNW electric and natural gas utility to modernize how its Engineering Department managed critical infrastructure documentation. Leveraging deep experience in regulated utilities, we led the deployment of a centralized document imaging solution that replaced fragmented file storage with a single, trusted system of record. The initiative improved enginee
3 min read
When Customer Billing Can’t Keep Up, Clean Energy Can’t Scale
Turning Complex Billing Into a Foundation for Energy Transition SUMMARY As utilities navigate the energy transition, billing systems have become a critical—but often underestimated—lever for change. A major PNW utility partnered with Tamazari to modernize its complex billing capabilities, enabling time-varying rates, distributed energy resources (DERs), EV programs, and community solar initiatives. What began as a technical necessity evolved into a transformation of how the u
3 min read
Fiber Optic GIS Database Development for Electric Utilities
Documenting 6,000+ Miles of Utility Fiber to Improve Reliability and Operations SUMMARY When fiber construction moves faster than documentation, utilities feel it everywhere—from provisioning delays to longer outages and frustrated crews. That’s exactly where KAMO Power and Tacoma Public Utilities found themselves until Tamazari came aboard. We led the development and long-term maintenance of comprehensive fiber optic GIS databases for both utilities. Together, these efforts
4 min read
Land Mobile Radio (LMR) Isn’t Legacy—It’s Mission-Critical
Why LMR remains essential in a modern operations stack SUMMARY When everything else fails—cell towers, fiber, power—voice radio is often the last system standing. For nearly two decades, Tamazari has helped utilities and public agencies make sure that system works when people’s safety, livelihoods, and communities depend on it. Across Alaska, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Washington, Tamazari has designed, deployed, and managed land mobile radio (LMR) systems that connect first res
5 min read
Modern SCADA and Telemetry for Water Utilities
Tacoma Water’s Path to Reliable Communications and AMI Integration SUMMARY Most people never think about the systems that keep clean water flowing—or what happens if operators lose visibility into them. Tacoma Water does. Tamazari partnered with the utility to modernize the microwave communications backbone that supports SCADA across its water system. The work strengthened reliability across 15+ remote sites, delivered four-nines availability, and ensured operators always hav
3 min read
Inside a $40M+ Utility Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Transformation
How a Major PNW Utility Rebuilt Its Financial Backbone OVERVIEW A major PNW utility took on a massive challenge: modernize a 20-year-old SAP ERP financial system while keeping the business running—and do it in time to meet FERC reporting requirements. That meant reworking core SAP Financial and Controlling modules, rolling out an enterprise-wide budgeting, planning, and consolidation platform (SAP BPC), and updating key integrations with PowerPlan and Trintech. Over four year
3 min read
Engineering Reliability in Polar Bear Country
How Operators Kept Essential Services Running Amid Ice, Isolation, and Wildlife Risks SUMMARY Tamazari supported AT&T Alascom in keeping communications running for more than 300 remote Alaskan villages. Despite extreme weather, limited access, wildlife risks, and tight budgets, the team maintained stable analog satellite service backed by a centralized hub: Eagle River Earth Station. These systems delivered dependable phone lines, basic internet, and emergency communication
3 min read
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