A data processing and governance framework implemented as software to enable utility customer data de-identification and sharing

ABSTRACT The Utility Customer Data Aggregation Standard (UCDAS) is a data governance and processing standard, implemented through a software framework that standardizes, quality controls, de-identifies, and aggregates utility customer data (UCD). UCDAS enables responsible data sharing while ensuring compliance with legal and ethical requirements for the handling of personally identifiable and business confidential information. This process incrementally standardizes, quality controls, de-identifies, and aggregates UCD. This study demonstrates how the UCDAS applies to water UCD, provided by the City of Flagstaff, Arizona Municipal Water Services. Building on previous work, this study illustrates how publicly accessible utility data can be leveraged to create public value without compromising individual privacy. UCDAS can reduce the workload burden and compliance risk created by the task of data sharing while facilitating FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reusability) data principles. Applying the UCDAS to water UCD from Flagstaff, Arizona, suggests that the water usage of spatially contiguous customer groupings is Log-Normal distributed.