From rising security threats and tightening regulations to aging grids and more demanding customers, utilities are grappling with a volatile new operating environment. Cisco’s solutions for digital utilities help leading power companies adapt to the changing landscape and fuel continued growth and innovation.
After what seemed like decades of stability and predictability, utilities have entered a new era of change and uncertainty. Security threats are growing, regulations are tightening, and new technologies — from smart meters to microgrids — are disrupting long-standing
business models.
Meanwhile, consumers are demanding more from their power company, including flexible pricing and sustainable energy options. These trends have changed the game for utilities, forcing them to evolve or face diminishing growth and profitability.
Recent security incidents — both cyber and physical — have sent shock waves through the industry, spurring new regulations to avert crippling attacks on critical energy infrastructure. Yet most utilities have a long way to go to protect their grids. Isolating the network is no longer an option. The reality is that utilities need to be connected to increase grid efficiencies, improve resilience and — ultimately — deliver the next generation of services to an increasingly digitised and mobile customer base.
The growing adoption of solar, wind and other renewables has also challenged utilities to adapt by integrating these distributed energy resources into the grid. This is not a simple integration, given the challenges of implementing bi-directional flows. Meanwhile, consumers themselves are driving change by demanding more choice and flexibility from their energy providers.
To thrive in the new era, utilities will need to invest in more efficient, automated, and resilient energy grids. The industry’s infamous aging infrastructure, and graying workforce, complicates the task. Strategy-minded utilities are increasingly planning for a future based on IT and smart grid applications that require advanced telecommunications systems.
IP-based, packet-switched networks will form the backbone of these new systems, providing system interoperability and enabling a spectrum of new applications that improve grid security, control, and automation. For instance, by harnessing connected-grid technologies, utilities can continuously monitor traffic anomalies and neutralise cyber threats before they occur.
Secure wireless connectivity can help workers troubleshoot outages faster. Distribution automation — enabled by IP networks — can curb power losses. New multiservice networks can rein in costs by consolidating a mix of legacy services and protocols on a single highly efficient communications network.
These are just a few examples of what’s possible for the new digital utility.
Substation operations: Dive into substation operations and address how utility operators can improve grid reliability, meet security and compliance requirements while reducing costs in the Cisco webinar: New Deployment Options for Substation Utility Networks.
Register for the on-demand session here
Perhaps most promising (and exciting)
Connected-grid technologies will offer utilities a broad platform for innovation, helping unlock the power in the latest iterations of the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, and predictive analytics.
Considering that utilities are estimated to have the largest collection of intelligent devices in operation, the potential for capitalising on this built-in IoT network — and the terabytes of data it holds — is enormous. The logic of the new era is clear: If utilities are going to reverse flat or declining revenues, cope with an aging infrastructure, improve workforce efficiency, and address new customer expectations, then they must place digital transformation at the top of their business agenda.
Modernising the grid with Cisco
The challenges for utilities are huge but so are the opportunities. More and more utilities are partnering with Cisco and harnessing new technologies to enable a range of modern capabilities that accelerate business transformation. Cisco Connected GridTM solutions address every aspect of the modern utility’s network operations. From the control centers and wide area networks (WANs) that provide oversight and management of the entire grid; to the increasingly complex and automated substations that form the backbone of energy distribution, and the field area networks (FAN) that link the “last mile” of the network to residential and business consumers.
Utilities are facing unprecedented challenges to growth and profitability and in order to thrive in the new era, utilities need to connect and modernise end-to-end grid operations.
Leading utilities are turning to Cisco for a full range of solutions, including grid security, WAN modernisation, substation and distribution automation, smart meters, mobile workforce collaboration, and more.
