How digital transformation is reshaping the energy industry
Time seems to go faster as we get older, but it’s moving even faster in tech. A year in the digital age is more akin to dog years than human years. Case in point: back in 2013, GE economist Marco Annunziato delivered a TED talk discussing the significant improvements that can be made in the power industry and the resulting benefits. Improvements of a mere one percent in all of the world’s industrial assets raises the potential of over $60bn in gains for the power industry, over a 15-year period. In 2013, very little was known about the internet of things (IoT) and its potential impact on industry. Not anymore. Now it’s redefining the way power plants and assets are monitored, serviced and managed. That’s tech (dog) years for you.
The disruptive changes of digital transformation are currently sweeping through the energy industry. Increased use of renewables, resiliency issues and sustainability concerns are just a few of the drivers behind the industry’s need to transform – and digitisation is the single biggest enabler of that change. The digital age has not only brought us a ‘digital twin’ version of the physical power plant that monitors every asset, but it’s also capable of providing an intelligent response with analytics that trigger the appropriate actions from a service and maintenance perspective.
As power companies become more agile at managing production and supply better, there will be improvements in both distribution and management, and of course end user consumption as a result. The ability to develop plans based on real time data analytics will be revolutionary.
Power companies will be able to explore new opportunities that could improve efficiencies further, using data analytics to model new tactics and solutions. Distributed generation for example, where companies can shift power production closer to the point of consumption through solar tiles or wind farms, all becomes possible because the technology is now intelligent enough to plan, service and manage even the remotest of assets.
