Utility Asset Management through Digital Technologies

Improved processes and an increased understanding of digital utilities will reap big rewards. Enhancing employee empowerment, improving security, and minimizing risks for the customer.

FREMONT, CA: Renewables are central to many power providers' clean energy transition strategies. Managing and integrating newer, more diverse assets with rapidly aging assets worth $1.2 trillion means managing and integrating newer and more diverse assets. A growing number of businesses are electrifying and digitally transforming their operations, and consumers are increasingly working from home, resulting in increasing demand for affordable, clean, and uninterrupted power supplies.

Map your digital transformation journey with the digital utility asset management model.

Data-driven and risk-informed decision-making is at the heart of the digital utility asset management model. Doing so can make decisions based on data and risk-informed decisions rather than "acting on a hunch." Backup technologies such as cyber security and data governance make this process possible. The journey does not occur sequentially but requires an organization to determine its overarching vision and objectives and to develop a customized road map that leads to specific business outcomes.

Grid edge visibility and control are enhanced by digital asset management.

In contrast to utility-owned assets, the grid edge is a range of DERs and devices largely controlled and owned by customers or third parties. Utilities can gain more visibility and better understand the impact of DER on their entire asset ecosystem with the help of digital asset management applications. A siloed asset management approach by individual teams is no longer appropriate as DER proliferates and convergence occurs at all three segments of the value chain. System integration is taking place to create a single holistic, centrally controlled, and decision-optimized network.

Providing digital asset management across the utility value chain.

Stationary generation plants may progress through the loop more rapidly and more widely in this segment due to access to high-speed communications. On the other hand, the transmission system crosses thousands of miles, sometimes through remote areas where high-speed communication is unavailable. At the grid edge, distribution systems in rural areas may face the same challenges. A utility may also need more visibility into grid edge assets since customers or third parties often own them.