Anytime unpredictable weather patterns can heavily impact a utility’s success, operations efforts get interesting. And as described in Deloitte’s 2022 power and utilities industry outlook, that’s precisely what happened to the sector last year. In addition to facing unprecedented weather events that posed threats to grid reliability, the industry was also met with new cybersecurity concerns and continued demand for clean energy production. Despite those challenges, Deloitte noted that electricity sales actually rose nearly 4% through August over the prior year as the economy began its return to normalcy. Several large utilities made considerable investments in beefing up and modernizing the grid.
While it does touch upon past trends and real-time changes, the Deloitte “industry outlook” isn’t an outlook without predictions for this year. We wanted to share a few that we found interesting. Here, you’ll find a few examples of how we believe EnSight+ can support those concepts, making it easier for power and utility companies to be successful in 2022.
The first of the areas highlighted by Deloitte is a hot button issue in the industry today: sustainability. As noted in the outlook, “48 out of 55 US large investor-owned utilities committed to reduce carbon emissions, many by 2050.” While that’s a good thing, challenges still loom large. Including training technicians to use new digital technologies to get there. What’s more, digital skills gaps are widening as the power sector digitizes. This reflects “gaps in the broader economy and sparking fierce competition for talent,” as Deloitte says.
What’s needed to help bridge that gap is a technology that’s both intuitive and productive. And that’s exactly what EnSight+ can do for utilities. Our field service software is completely customizable. Utility and field service leadership can design it with their best practices and unique needs in mind.
We’ve already touched on the impact that volatile weather patterns can have on the utility industry. Deloitte believes the new year will see utilities more prepared than ever. “In 2022, many utilities will likely revisit their disaster readiness and resiliency plans, sometimes under new state regulatory requirements.”
There’s only so much you can do to prepare for a storm you don’t even know is coming. One suggestion Deloitte gives is grid hardening, or “replacing and reinforcing transmission and distribution infrastructure to burying wires underground.” Another is ensuring vegetation is properly maintained to avoid any potential brush fires. Regardless of the proactive actions taken, EnSight+ helps utilities stay on task with our work order management module. Technicians view and complete work orders on their mobile devices, giving leadership real-time access to task progress.
In recent years, utilities have started shedding the unfair stigma of being stodgy and disinterested in technology. Deloitte sees this trend continuing in 2022 with utilities benefiting from 5G and cloud capabilities for a variety of things, including the clean energy transition and cybersecurity compliance.
But what really piqued our interest was when they wrote, “5G helps drive cloud adoption, which can improve efficiency through always-on availability and faster access to more data, assets, and systems.” As a cloud-based software solution, we pride ourselves on helping utilities retrieve data faster and work more efficiently. In fact, our solution can increase efficiency by nearly 40%.
To learn more about EnSight+ and how we can help you reach your 2022 goals, book your demo today.
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