DTN Recognized as Esri Cornerstone Partner for Weather Intelligence

Pictured left to right: Matt Gaffner, Solution Engineer – APIs, and ArcGIS and Renny Vandewege, GM Weather and Climate Intelligence at DTN; Jack Dangermond, President, and Thomas Fair, Director of Partner Network at Esri.

 

Tracking impending weather events is essential for organizational planning and risk awareness. But the growing impact of climate change means understanding where the weather could impact a specific location is critical to helping reduce risks for people, assets, and operations.
“We highly value our long-standing partnership with DTN and the benefits it provides our joint customers.”
– Dal Hunter, Director of Natural Resources, Esri

For more than 20 years, DTN has collaborated with Esri, a global leader in location intelligence, to help deliver localized, relevant, and comprehensive weather intelligence to customers around the world. Esri recently recognized DTN as a Cornerstone Partner at their 2024 Esri Partner Conference.

“We highly value our long-standing partnership with DTN and the benefits it provides our joint customers,” said Dal Hunter, Director of Natural Resources at Esri. “DTN delivers high-quality curated weather data that helps inform critical situational awareness across multiple industries, enabling customers to proactively manage weather-related risks both to their workforce and assets.”

DTN has developed nearly 150 weather data layers for Esri users across multiple industries including agriculture, utilities, energy and renewables, and mining. In 2020 DTN received the Esri Creative Content Award for “innovative and creative ways to solve the most complex business problems by using Esri’s geospatial platform and analytics tools.”

 

How location-specific insights support U.S. solar power generation

Global solar developer Lightsource bp  is an example of one of those innovative applications of DTN weather data. Challenged with building new solar projects to meet the increasing demand for renewable energy, Lightsource bp has developed over 3.2 gigawatts of solar projects. Those projects are now in operation or construction across the U.S. and also has projects in development to exceed 20 gigawatts across 30 states.

“With DTN weather layers in Esri, there’s almost no limit to the amount of weather information and analytics that can be geospatially displayed.”
– Renny Vandewege, GM Weather and Climate Intelligence, DTN

Operationalizing those projects across most of the country exposes the solar panels to multiple weather risks at any given time – including hurricanes, blizzards, floods, wildfires, and hail. Lightsource bp depends on DTN Storm Corridors and ArcGIS for integrated tracking of hailstorm development in precise locations to help them make confident decisions around when to stow panels to reduce hail risk damage.

“The innovation being done to help organizations and teams make more timely and agile decisions in response to increasingly extreme weather events is extraordinary,” explained Renny Vandewege, General Manager, Weather and Climate Intelligence at DTN. “We have been honored to work with Esri for the past two decades. The ease of which DTN weather data can be integrated into ArcGIS not only makes it simple for ArcGIS users to integrate our premium weather content, but it allows them to quickly build applications and analytics to drive operational intelligence.”

 

How scalable, relevant location-specific insights protect a nationwide network

With DTN weather layers in Esri, there’s almost no limit to the amount of weather information and analytics that can be geospatially displayed and offers nearly limitless display options to share weather information and analytics with stakeholders. Customers can add historical weather data and predictive analysis data on weather-related risks, and view incident data as it is happening.

ONEOK, an energy service provider whose operations include a 38,000-mile integrated network of gas pipelines, uses GIS for weather-related, situational awareness. Alerts are set up to provide information about specific weather risks at exact locations that may cause interruptions to operations, such as lightning, heavy rain, extreme cold or other severe weather. ONEOK also uses historical surface observations to build models that ensure that gas in the pipeline is moving as efficiently as possible based on weather-driven demand and weather conditions.

 

The rising demand for location-specific weather intelligence

Extreme weather events, increasing in both frequency and intensity, and compounded by regulations to monitor and report physical climate risks on assets, operations, and supply chains, are already elevating the need for location-specific weather intelligence. Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission updated the Climate Disclosure Rule which includes requiring public companies to disclose climate-related financial risks.

“Generalized weather events and regionalized data is simply not enough information to prepare for complex, and often very specific impacts,” Vandewege remarked. “Through our partnership with Esri we can help organizations monitor and visualize weather risks so that they are not only more prepared for weather events, but also become more climate resilient in the future.”

Learn more about DTN weather intelligence delivered through Ersi here.