Edge Computing, IoT, and AI Revolutionize the Global Digital Utility Industry

• 27 Jul 2023
• TM Team
• 0 Comments

Digitization has long been the prominent strategy pursued by major utility companies, and it has significantly contributed to reshaping and reinventing their organizations. The digital utility market is expected to grow due to the growing investments being made in adopting smart grids and the rising consumption of electricity.

Also, increasing renewable power generation and growing investment prospects in advanced metering infrastructure are some of the prominent factors contributing to the growing digital utility market. Increased focus towards adoption of technologies by utilities has become a crucial strategy for businesses. It involves the implementation of cloud and big data analytics to IoT and automation. In sum, digital tech is shaping the future of the utility sector and posing new opportunities for achieving new revenue streams.

The demand for electricity is increasing at a faster pace every year. To cope with the increasing demand, energy and utility companies are upgrading to Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and Advanced Distribution Management Systems (ADMS). Such systems require highly accurate data, which is not available with existing operations. Thus, it has become evident that utilities need to adopt digitization technologies to help them run their businesses more effectively and efficiently.

Also, AI-powered solutions are being used in the energy and utilities industries to monitor and track assets such as on-site equipment, end-user equipment and personnel, and mobile devices for effective asset management. These monitoring and advanced analytics capabilities can detect or even predict faults and schedule maintenance to reduce equipment downtime. Data management and accuracy are critical to optimizing processes, as this can ultimately lead to cost savings. The energy and utility sectors are, therefore, adopting new technologies to collect and analyze data from multiple touchpoints in order to streamline operations.

Customer satisfaction is one of the primary goals of digital transformation. Personalized interactions through the online portal, mobile app and customer service team allow end users to access and transact directly with the utility. This gives customers direct access to all their account information and thereby builds loyalty.

In sum, the increasing adoption of technology for growing business opportunities is strengthening the demand for advanced technologies such as edge computing, digital twins, the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial intelligence (AI), Enterprise risk management (ERM) and Cloud Distribution Software, among others. Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) can supercharge the efficiency and resilience of a utility's core business, and other technologies can lead to entirely new value-added services and business models for utilities.