Duke Energy Midwest GIS team wins award for map conversion project

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PLAINFIELD, IND. - The Duke Energy Midwest GIS team has received the 2015 "Excellence in GIS" award from the Indiana Geographic Information Council. The award recognizes the Midwest GIS team's work to convert to a highly automated mapping system.

A geographic information system, or GIS, is a computer system that captures, stores, and analyzes data related to positions on the surface of the Earth. GIS can display many different kinds of data on a single map, which allows users to more easily see and understand patterns and relationships.

"Using GIS, we're able to quickly produce a mapping product that is consistent across our service territory for our field and operations employees," said Jack Gardner, Duke Energy Midwest GIS Supervisor. "We can also incorporate changes within 24 hours, giving our users the most up-to-date mapping information for their transmission and distribution projects."

The underlying GIS data already feeds the company’s outage management system, which helps repair crews locate outages more quickly and reduce outage times. Because the maps use the same data, Duke Energy employees ranging from field crews to back office personnel are able to share a singular view of the electrical system.

"We've built new base maps and automated our map deployment, and can now tie in to several sets of data," Gardner said. "On this project, I believe we’ve really pushed the limits on what GIS can do."

Duke Energy Indiana’s operations provide about 7,500 megawatts of owned electric capacity to approximately 810,000 customers in a 23,000-square-mile service area, making it the state's largest electric supplier.

Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a Fortune 250 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available at duke-energy.com.