UF students use HiPerGator to improve meter data for Tampa Electric Company
Utilizing HiPerGator — the University of Florida’s AI supercomputer — five students helped build a function to identify incorrectly labeled meters for Tampa Electric Company.
By leveraging geographic information system technology and voltage data from more than 500,000 customer meters, the team developed a Python model on HiPerGator to detect and rank misplaced meters by severity. The students found that about 0.3% of the meters in their dataset were considered outliers — a finding that will serve to improve the quality of Tampa Electric Company’s data environment.
“Being able to come together with this group of people that I had not met before, and then do work that none of us had even done before, but at a level that I was very proud [was super invaluable],” said Tyler Metz (B.S. Computer Science ’24), the team lead for the project, which was funded by an AI Across the Statewide Curriculum National Science Foundation grant.
In addition to Metz, the team included Sam Wright (B.S. Mathematics ’25, B.S. Data Science ’25), Sophie Bénéteau (B.S. Mathematics ’26), Bhaskar Gnanasakthi (B.S. Computer Science ’26, M.S.F. ’26), and John McDonald (B.S. Mathematics ’25, B.S. Statistics ’25). The group worked on the project from November 2023 to April 2024 and received a stipend of $1,200. Wright served as the team’s data analyst.
The experience was part of a practicum project through the Warrington College of Business, run by Jim Hoover, a clinical professor and the director of the Business Analytics and Artificial Intelligence Center at UF.
While only graduate students in the Master of Science in Information Systems and Operations Management program have access to Hoover’s Business Analytics Practicum course, undergraduate students have participated in similar experiences for the past three years that have allowed them to solve company challenges with real data.
“In the real world, you get data and it’s really messy,” Hoover said. “I think getting that exposure while you’re still here as an undergrad is an amazing step ahead, not just for the interview process but really for your first year on the job.”
The students who worked on the Tampa Electric Company project dedicated several hours outside of school to their efforts. The team met at least twice a week — once to update their Tampa Electric Company sponsor, and once again to hold weekly whiteboard sessions with Hoover. The findings were ultimately presented to senior representatives at the company.
For Wright, the experience was impactful, and he encourages his fellow students to dive head first into similar opportunities.
“Real-life, hands-on work gets lost in an academic setting when you're working with perfect data,” Wright said. “You’re never going to know something straight off the bat. It takes experience to learn things.”