From Net Zero to providing better digital-powered customer service, utilities firms face multiple challenges. Would using the market’s best network management platform be the best way to start winning back control?
Today, the world powers itself from a wide range of sources. Coal is still well over 35% of the global power mix, followed by natural gas at 22%, but non-fossil fuel is of course a growing contributor, with nuclear accounting for nearly 10%, and wind 7.5%. All that adds up to (2019 data) a world appetite for electricity alone of nearly 23,000 terawatts, with a terawatt being, of course, a trillion watts. Civilisation literally could not function without what the utility industry works so hard to supply.
But right now, it’s not easy being a utility. You have to content with technological advancements, changing customer expectations, and evolving regulatory landscapes. There is the urgent pressure from concerned governments and users to switch to cleaner and more renewable sources, which means figuring out how to best fold in intermittent (e.g., solar) power into continuous supply.
There’s the headache of older grid infrastructure, which has to be modernised not just to handle Net Zero but just to keep our lights on now. Just on its own, storage presents a set of technical conundrums, while the powering up of user-owned and maintained kit, from rooftop solar panels and microgrids, also needs to be embraced.
To cope, utilities are working hard to extend and adapt their business models while laying plans for our imminent non-combustion engine-centric transportation system. At the same time, they’re having to invest significantly in a new generation of data management systems, everything from smart grids to IoT (Internet of Things) and smart cities will have to rely on.
But that’s not all. Customers able to see their bank accounts on their phones update in real time can’t understand why are so slow when it comes to utilities keeping them updated on when that brownout’s going to be over. Very much part of the digital native life is a Green-coloured need for greater visibility into their energy usage and energy efficiency. Somewhere in all this: the need to pay for all this change while keeping bills as low as possible—which is increasingly a politically controversial issue.
In a nutshell, you need to be both powering today’s world while doing your bit to save the future, while also upping your game on customer engagement and service. What’s becoming clear: meeting all these multiple external challenges and demand means innovation, a full digital transformation, new partnerships and relationships with service integrators, and working hard with regulators to land us all in a regulatory environment that genuinely supports the transition to a the new sustainable, resilient, and customer-centric utility market we all want.
Having the very best data communications you can get your hands on will be central to your strategy for doing all this. To see why, start with this question: Is creaking legacy equipment holding you back from transitioning to the kind of comprehensive data-drive inventory system that will support the complex, hybrid networks you need both for today and the future? After all, effective network management is your only way of identifying and resolving any issues to keep downtime to an absolute minimum—in turn, supporting the array of sensors, monitors and control systems that are central to ensuring uninterrupted power supply to customers, which may get harder and harder in our overheating world.
And when you’re trying to balance integrating new power streams, it’s going to be real-time data on load patterns that will be the only realistic way you’ll be able to optimise the full use of all your generation and transmission assets (think, responsive load forecasting, load shedding, and load balancing capability). Yet another need: how do you think you’ll be able to mount realistic forward grid planning and expansion and spot the areas that should get infrastructure upgrades or repair.
The communications network is the route through which you acquire and process all this key data, so it needs to be as robust as your transmission and operating networks. That means you’ve got to take control – and the key step is to understand your communications network and assets.
Your communications network needs the best network resource management (NRM) platforms. Let’s see why we think we have the NRM answer you need.
‘Helping many utilities around the world radically improve time to repair through better visibility of network assets and more efficient asset tracking’
We define Network Resource Management as tools and services designed to help service providers manage and provision their next-gen communications networks.
Here, Enghouse has been in the lead for decades, and stands ready to help in the shape of the Aktavara Network Resource Management Suite. Designed from scratch to enable easy management and provisioning of hybrid, evolving, autonomous communication networks and built around a reliable foundation of a detailed dynamic inventory of all virtual as well as physical network assets (including spare parts), Aktavara NRM is a comprehensive network resource management solution that gives utility leaders like you fully reliable management of dependencies between virtual and physical network resources.
Taken as a whole, Enghouse’s unique approach to network management allows full management, design and assigning of your physical and logical network inventory. By enabling simplified field change audits, for instance, our Aktavara NRM helps many utilities around the world radically improve time to repair through better visibility of network assets and more efficient asset tracking.
It also dynamically correlates network resource inventory data across all network layers, allowing you to synchronise planned network resources with auto-discovery and reconciliation—and so putting you in pole position for meeting any and all preparation for the greener and more digital company you want to become.
To take just one example, Aktavara NRM is capable of rapidly modelling all types of equipment, both common but exotic/ancient, in a matter of days. So, where less agile solutions require expensive data model change requests, Aktavara NRM very rapidly adapts to your specific requirements without any developer coding or changes to the system.
And if you’re concerned about the planning headache you face when planning a shift from your older Synchronous Optical Networking and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SONET/SDH) protocols to an IP/ Ethernet future, good news: the Aktavara NRM will enable you to perform full A-Z scenario planning inside your inventory and planning tool without affecting your master data, or any need for messy and insecure exporting of your data to crude desktop tools Excel.
Even better, when you’re done planning a new element of your network, you can simply execute it by just merging your changes into the master planning model at the click of a button. With Enghouse, you also get a comprehensive range of OSS solutions, including Workflow & Business Process Management (BPM), Service Assurance, Trouble Ticketing, and a market-leading Geographic Information System (GIS) that can be readily integrated with the Aktavara NRM.
So, if you are concerned with how you’re going to meet any of the utility sector challenges we’ve outlined and build the right network to support them, consider how the very best NRM from Enghouse will help.
Because we think we really will.
