Integration of Big Data and AI in Energy Systems to Meet Global Energy Needs to Drive Energy and Utilities Analytics Market Growth

 

Energy and utilities analytics refers to the process of collecting electrical data and applying sophisticated analytical software and algorithm to generate and deliver insights regarding consumption. Application of analytics to the vast amount of data generated by utilities across the globe offers a lucrative opportunity to discover new patterns of customer usage, enable better forecast of demand, allow efficient management of energy constraints, and improve compliance with regulatory authorities. In addition, it can help prevent fraud, reduce loss, and enhance customer service significantly. Growing focus on energy efficiency in building management has contributed to the emergence of smart building technology that leverage IoT sensors to generate comprehensive data and insights to help achieve energy efficiency.

Energy and utilities cover energy and power including electricity, natural gas, fuel, oil and other energy sources including renewable and alternative sources of energy. Over the recent years, there have been tremendous advancements in technology and have led to the development of IoT devices and submeters that are very sophisticate and can collected electrical data in real time. This data is then fed into energy analytics software to generate specific and actionable insights from the energy analytics. This has made energy analytics a crucial tool in building operations management. Analytics are at the core of smart building systems and availability of intelligent analytics platform enables users to leverage big data and reduce energy consumption significantly. Critical insights into operations can enable utilities to shift from expensive time-based approach and focus on developing a more informed approach about making repairs and improving operations and maintenance. In addition, analytics can help detect equipment defects, alert staff to anomalies in performance, and energy consumption to provide insight about irregularities and speed up maintenance, repair, and replacement of equipment.

In April 2022, Sarawak Energy announced it had received an award for analytics on utilities in the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards. Sarawak Energy said it aspires to be a digital utility and a renewable powerhouse in the region. The company’s efforts for digitalization of energy sector led to the development of Dynamic Water Dispatch Management (DWDM) system that was implemented in March 2021 to modernize hydrological forecasting and dispatching of hydroelectric plants.

Major companies in the energy and utilities analytics market include Microsoft Corporation, Eaton Corporation plc, IBM, SAP SE, General Electric Company, AWS, Oracle, Schneider Electric SE, Siemens AG, and Cisco Systems, Inc. In January 2021, Bandera Electric Cooperative (BEC) and Burns & McDonnell signed an agreement to distribute BEC’s energy analytics solution, Apolloware, to electric utilities across the nation. Apolloware is a cloud-based platform that offer real-time energy information which will allow utilities to aggregate distributed energy resources in their system and identify potential equipment failure and improve overall operations.