Jean-Yves Bodin, Marketing Director Energy Digital Solutions, Energy Business at Schneider Electric
In the energy world, distributed energy and customers controlling that energy is a significant disruption and threat to the utilities market. The changing tide could remove utility companies from the centre of the fold and relocate them elsewhere, where their service may or may not be required.
The growth of distributed energy resources gives consumers flexibility over energy loads as necessary, and that’s the problem. While energy consumption itself is being dictated at a distance, grid management falls squarely on the shoulders of distribution utility companies. The grids, the very source of the power, must be balanced and regulated to ensure the supply.
For this reason, digital transformation is seen as a saviour for many utility companies. The reinvention of an organisation and its processes using digital technology improves performance vastly. For the utility sector, it’s a way of programming and automating processes, which is key to orchestrating energy resources at the back end.
So exactly how does digital transformation support an increasingly complicated landscape?
Internet of Things
IoT underpins the growth of connected devices. Distribution utilities now find an increasing number of vendor offers that include new, connected technologies. Automated grid devices and new sensors change the face of the future grid and transform grid operators’ jobs. It offers distribution utilities greater insight into their systems and new levels of field operations efficiency, but also comes with a lot more data to contend with.
Distribution utilities realise that it’s one thing to collect data and quite another to make it useful through management and analysis. They must invest in and develop their abilities to make this data work for them. By expanding capabilities in scheduling, planning, simulation, asset management and operations, advanced analytics deliver greater insights and better decision-making.
IT/OT convergence
Utilities are experiencing an increase in both IT systems and OT systems. The integration of information and operational technologies is critical for the evolution toward digitally enabled networks.
Data is the future of distribution utility business. It’s the core component of digitised mechanisms for asset management and grid operations, as well as future grid orchestration.
Fine granularity and timely data integration between substations, distribution feeders, smart meters, and key applications like SCADA, DMS, OMS, GIS, and asset management, complemented by external sources, greatly improves operational efficiency, service levels, decision-making processes.
And, more than ever, relying on international standards in terms of data models, data integration, and data management is essential to enable a sustainable evolution of not only IT/OT systems but also their interoperability with external players within an increasingly open power ecosystem. It applies to grid-edge technologies enabling distribution-level awareness, control, and optimization of DER (like DERMS, DG, microgrid, and VPP).
Cybersecurity
While interoperability standards continue to develop about data that is accurate and analytically useful, cyber security is still a significant concern. When viewed through the lens of risk mitigation, utilities can devise a targeted approach that considers their network in the most practical way, as well as its people, processes, and organisation.
Companies should look to build security into the design of their IT and OT systems via retrofit, upgrades, or bolt-on approaches. Integrated cyber security strategies should also define the organisation’s policies for patch management, data ownership, data privacy, and identity management compliance. As utilities create more data, end-to-end security from the sensor to application level is more critical than ever.
Take away
Distributed energy trends disrupt distribution utilities more than other players in the power industry value chain. The cost and complexity of additional network reinforcement versus the automation required to manage distributed resources is a complex equation. While some industries can get by without the influence of digital transformation, the energy sector is not one them. For distribution utility companies to stay reputable, reliable, and adapt to the new paradigms, they must bring digital transformation into their corporate strategy.
