IoT Solutions in Energy and Utilities: An In-Depth Look

IoT is observing strong penetration in almost all industries such as oil and gas, utility gas management, electricity grid and supply management. One of the most essential sectors in existence, we depend on energy and other utilities for a broad variety of things. In fact, we are trying to create more green-friendly methods of leveraging energy and other utilities, the world as a whole, is still very much reliant on energy to manage different aspects of our lives.

The utility gas management subsegment is observing the strongest growth, while the mining category is observing comparatively slow growth. The IoT in the energy and utility market is mainly classified into hardware, software, services and connectivity. While hardware and services influence the market, software, services and connectivity are the three strongest developing categories. According to the BCC Research, the global demand for the IoT in energy and utility market is estimated to have reached $59.9 billion by 2022 from $21.4 billion in 2017 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9%, from 2017 to 2022.

IoT in Energy and Utilities

The IoT is essentially assisting in a new segment of energy and utilities. The several insights that can be approached using IoT can substantially transform the industry overnight. IoT is having a huge impact on industries within the utility sector, from the energy industry, oil, and gas utilities, resulting in greater capacity planning, asset utilization, minimum downtime, less waste which together is generating huge financial benefit.

In general, the data collected with the help of IoT and the IoT cloud can be utilized to develop new, more effective services, improve productivity and overall efficiency, resolve serious and potentially harmful concerns, enhance our capability to make real-time decisions and even generate a new and overall more innovative user experience for us all.

By moving to smart meters and grids as well as providing home automation, companies can once again acquire control of this wildly developing industry. Smart meters synched with machine learning is transforming how utility companies are controlling their assets and making faster and better decisions. These smart devices together with the information they gather are allowing utility companies to more efficiently plan and control energy or water flow into houses and buildings.

IoT Solution in Energy and Utility Implementation

By understanding the huge demand for IoT solutions, IoT technology will likely soon be implemented on a major scale. And these solutions must be implemented in a way that is beneficial to not only the consumers but also to the world.
By adopting and implementing various options into their existing services, energy companies can reinvent the industry as well as the trust of the consumer. By giving much-required real-time data and insights by utilizing the IoT will allow energy companies to handle infrastructure and function, thus creating a more stable network overall.

Utility providers and oil and gas organizations have broadly acquired IoT solutions for a variety of use cases containing:
• Drones to check exteriors of large power plants and/or power lines.
• Implementing temperature, vibration sensors and tooling for preventative maintenance or estimating failures of power lines.
• Sensors to analyze networks of oil/gas transport pipelines, valves and pressure gauges to intercept leaks and contamination.
• Smart grid meters for water, electricity as well as gas to gather usage data and run analytics on that data to acquire business intelligence.
• Sensors utilized within power generation plants to analyze equipment over time, estimate predictive maintenance and supply additional safety oversight.
• Utility providers utilize smart meters to trace customers’ energy usage and interface that data to the company’s central system, enabling companies to estimate demand, spot outages and run preventative maintenance
There are unbounded opportunities for IoT in the utilities and energy sector.

The IoT Necessity

In spite of the fact that the implementation of the IoT will be little costly primary, but it is actually the best option energy and utility companies have to stay up with the changing and increasing demands in a more forward-thinking world.

With operating costs as a prime concern, utilities are being forced to minimize expenses while finding new ways to reduce their environmental impact and deliver more customer-centric service. Asset performance management is an essential part of that equation. Low-cost, smart field sensors are giving real-time eyes in the field, allowing utilities to dynamically discover whether it is required to replace or repair an asset before it breaks down. It is made possible with the help of IoT technologies, modern distribution management needs utilities to take a data-centric perspective to analyze, control and optimization of both traditional distribution and new edge-of-grid requirements.

End-to-end visibility and the capability to control and analyze these new grid-edge resources will be important to the advanced distribution management of utilities, both now and in the future. IoT is the essential link connecting this end-to-end utility IT/OT technology platform both to the consumer as well as to the edge of the grid.
Adopting this technology, companies will be capable to provide services that are more secure and efficient as well as cost-effective.

Involvement of Government

The U.S. has the largest market in North America which has most eminent user of IoT in the energy and utility space. The country is observing marginally higher growth compared with the average global market, which means it is far from a saturated market. APAC and MEA both having a similar market share and are witnessing similar strong growth rates. Along with the consumers and startups, energy and utility companies are now facing with the involvement of the government also. For example, the US Department of energy is currently in the recreation of a smart grid that can support to improve the utilization of green energy while driving down costs in mass.

They have also initiated installing smart meters (via on a small scale), to start to test and find out the issues before providing these solutions on a huge scale. This means that IoT solution providers are in a significant position across the globe.

By adopting IoT technology, energy and utility companies will not only be in a position to survive, but many of them will maintain to grow.

IoT solutions allow cost-effective and automated information collection which drives considerable operational efficiencies through simplification and automation of utilities’ core business processes. As a way to compete, utilities are taking benefit of the Internet of Things to hold new digital technologies to interrupt and transform large scale energy management and related services.