Errol Rodericks, Director of Product Marketing, EMEA at Denodo
Transitioning to clean energy is no small feat. While it is both necessary and worthwhile, it is far more complex than simply making promises and commitments on a governmental or business leadership level. While it is encouraging to see that the new UK government is dedicated to meeting Net Zero goals, there is much more to this process than meets the eye.
Utility and energy providers are a critical part of the carbon emissions puzzle, but they are also under immense pressure that is fundamentally reshaping the industry. Managing data effectively is key to overcoming these challenges. Intelligent, data-driven operations is a critical capability that can support utility CIOs when designing modern assets. This sounds great in theory but how do energy providers make the seamless transition to a ubiquitous service that bridges physical and digital worlds?
The Changing State of Utilities
The energy transition, of course, is driving the industry towards energy conservation, efficiency, and the decentralisation and decarbonisation of energy production. Additionally, there is a growing focus on the electrification of consumption with a rising number of electric goods, and this is happening alongside the automation of industrial processes, an increasing need for customer engagement, and the overall digitisation of business operating models. Energy companies attempting to enable diverse energy supplies must develop and adopt technologies such as virtual power plants (VPPs) which need to be underscored by intelligent operations. And they must do all of this while implementing an increasing number of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives.
Within this new ecosystem, and with much change, the role of data has become central. It is essential for optimising and managing energy generation resources, providing consumers with insights into their energy usage, and enabling the development of improved services and innovative product offerings. Data has the potential to help companies operate more efficiently and deliver enhanced value to customers across the energy ecosystem. But companies cannot do that if they are drowning in a sea of information.
To maintain service quality, operational reliability, and profitability, the industry must manage data intelligently, and in a way that adds value rather than confusion.
Achieving Net Zero Emissions with Logical Data Management
What utility companies need is a logical approach, rather than a physical approach, to managing data. Traditional data management approaches rely on physically replicating data into a single repository from which it can be managed. In contrast, logical data management approaches leverage technologies like data virtualisation so that utility companies can manage data across multiple disparate systems without having to first consolidate all the data in a single repository.
Even when utility companies rely on data lakehouses to store all their critical data, there will always be some data that remains unconsolidated. Logical data management unites that data so that it can be utilised as if it were all stored within the same repository.
Logical data management platforms enable stakeholders within utility companies to access virtual views of all data in real time, even though the source data is stored across different repositories or stored in silos within a data lake. They also enable the establishment of universal semantic layers, which automatically translate data into the format required on the receiving end.
A Path Towards Ecocentric Operations
The benefits of this approach go well beyond a utility company’s internal workflows. When we talk about electrification, industrial automation, consumer behaviour change, digitisation, and everything else that needs to contribute to the energy transition, we are talking about an effort that involves collaboration across the energy industry and well beyond.
Making that collaboration effective starts with data, but data sharing – especially for research work which may have non-standardised outputs – has traditionally been a struggle. The successful implementation of a logical approach to data management can underpin an Open Data environment, effectively democratising data access so that stakeholders can access the data they need, when they need it, and in their preferred terminology.
With logical data management, energy utility companies can better manage decentralised resources like wind and solar power and optimise grid operations. This enables an ecocentric approach to operations which puts collective progress towards decarbonisation and Net Zero at the heart of how utility businesses grow into the future.
Logical data management platforms seamlessly integrate data from different sources, providing visibility into key environmental performance indicators to track progress against ESG goals. Such platforms also encourage innovation, pushing teams to further explore solutions like VPPs. And they enable utility companies to embrace data as part of a wider environmental ecosystem that can contribute to the long-term preservation of resources and ethical operations.
This is the key to holistically managing sustainability goals ultimately to fulfil Net Zero commitments.