Rebecca Gibson |
There’s one question that keeps energy providers up at night: how can we improve energy efficiency? As the global energy landscape evolves, the response requires addressing challenges related to electricity supply, demand, weather conditions, and the integration of renewable energy sources with traditional power grids.
Sue Kuenz, AVEVA’s Chief Commercial Officer, explains how the company is working with Microsoft to help energy companies build solid data foundations to optimize energy use.
How can technology help create more efficient energy grids?
The physical grid is becoming less centralized and now includes both renewable and conventional energy, so flexibility and
visibility becomes increasingly critical. Our traditional network infrastructure needs more reliability and resilience.
By using the cloud and AI-based insights to analyze electricity supply and demand, consumption patterns and weather conditions, utility providers can optimize load balancing, increase reliability, reduce energy loss and identify opportunities to save energy. These types of innovative technologies are critical to helping utility providers operate, manage and maintain the grid more efficiently, reduce costs and benefit from more accurate forecasts and predictions so they can proactively prepare for any unexpected interruptions.
Why is building a solid data foundation critical?
Power plant operators, grid managers and operational engineers must have access to reams of real-time and historical data.
Real-time data sharing is emerging as the primary solution to connect key stakeholders to enable better insights. They analyze and share this information to make faster and more informed decisions that lead to resilience, flexibility and profitability. To maximize the value of data, it is essential that energy firms have a solid infrastructure framework that can manage increasingly complex data in a secure and scalable manner.
How are AVEVA and Microsoft working together to help customers?
Microsoft and AVEVA are at the forefront of digital transformation in the energy sector. By combining the power of AI, digital twins, big data and industry-specific analytics with the cloud, the two companies enable enhanced human insights and enable energy customers to develop data-driven innovations and facilitate real-time collaboration.
AVEVA and Microsoft also help companies use digital metrics to uncover potential new revenue streams. For example, US-based utility provider Dominion Energy uses the AVEVA Data Hub, powered by Microsoft Azure, to collect and share real-time data about its energy sources and energy flows with its customers through a cloud interface, helping them to comply with its net zero commitments. Using traceable sustainability data, Dominion customers were able to provide proof of their low-carbon energy supply to investors and environmental, social and governance auditors, creating a source of revenue for Dominion.
Dominion Energy uses the AVEVA Data Hub to share real-time data about its energy sources
About half of the recipients of the first round of funding from the US Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program are AVEVA customers. How can you help these customers innovate?
Since the announcement last year, we’ve seen nearly $3.5 billion in investments through the GRIP program for 58 projects in 44 states to strengthen the resiliency and reliability of the electric grid across the country. These projects will help address the three main challenges facing our electricity grids: aging infrastructure, an increased threat from extreme weather events including wildfires, hurricanes and floods, and persistent underfunding to replace and upgrade existing systems. This is a historic investment. It is the largest single direct investment in the network in US history.
Each individual project – including wildfire mitigation and resilience, microgrids, renewable energy integration – will generate more data and will need a mature data management and analytics platform to achieve project milestones in a timely and successful manner . AVEVA’s proven technology and experience in the utility industry can certainly play a vital role.
Optimized, dynamic networks are key to a sustainable global future. How is AVEVA working to enable and empower the next generation of energy companies?
In the emerging energy industry, there are many areas where the AVEVA Data Hub, accessible through our industrial intelligence platform, Connect, will play a critical role. By building a single source of truth and sharing aggregated data securely with ecosystem partners, companies can build stronger and more connected networks.
What’s more, our digital twin technology can add exponential value to the modern grid ecosystem. A network’s digital twin for a smart grid can serve as a virtual representation of its physical and digital components—such as generation, transmission, distribution, consumer and distributed energy resource assets—so that stakeholders can analyze, predict, and dynamically respond to operational events.
The resilience of the utilities sector lies in its ability to embrace data-driven insights within a connected and trusted community of stakeholders.
Discover how Dominion Energy uses the AVEVA Data Hub.
This article was originally published in the Spring 2024 issue A technological record. To receive future issues directly to your inbox, sign up for a free subscription.
