Carlo Tiu, senior programmer analyst with Northern California Power
Agency, works for an independent, "green" producer of hydro and
geothermal power that also coordinates contributions to the state
electrical grid from other independents. Its members include the cities
of Palo Alto, Lodi, and Santa Clara, which run their own generating
plants. One of 43,000 attendees at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco,
Tiu spoke about XML and XQuery. Tiu is overseeing the transformation
of the agency's information exchange systems from hard-to-implement,
point-to-point communications to one that captures and exchanges
standardized XML data. To him, the XML DB capabilities built into the
Oracle database are a lifesaver. For each producer, the agency must
capture on a regular basis the amount of wholesale power it's supplying
the grid and the value of that power. The data is captured in intervals
throughout the day, resulting in large XML files that must be processed
by the agency's system. The agency has designed XML schema for capturing
the data and is sharing that design with the other suppliers as open
source code. As more producers adopt it, it will become easier for
coordinators to see what's going on within the state power distribution
system. The agency's goal is not only to improve its own operations, but
"to bring up the level of XML expertise in the electricity marketplace
and reduce costs for all utilities." The Federal Energy Commission and
the California Independent System Operator, a non-profit corporation,
will require the use of XML data by suppliers in March of 2008. Oracle
has supported XQuery since the 10g version came out. Oracle 11g released
in July included more granular XML data storage and indexing,
enhancements that make handling large amounts of XML data more efficient.
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