The growth of renewables and distributed energy resources are challenging the traditional economic models of the utility industry. A growing school of thought in power generation is that embracing some form of digital transformation could very well provide an avenue for better economics. The problem is, though, that digital transformation has been ill defined and the focus is on “the technology” rather than “what it does for a user”. No one is going to deploy these technologies without a clear picture of the value.
Tangible value is available using targeted application of digital technologies and can help a utility spend less on O&M while helping its increasingly smaller workforce do more with less. The best approach that I’ve seen is to start by trying to solve a real problem at a plant. Let me give an example. At one site, the operations staff was stretched too thin and some rounds were late to be gathered and, as because of Murphy’s Law, the calibration gas for their continuous emissions monitoring system (CEMS) ran out. Continue Reading ▶
