Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 24TH - 30TH MAY 2019 | 21 Operations & Assets Operations & Assets Operations & Assets SSE Renewables will manage the farm from Wick, where it has invested over £20m in redevel- oping the harbour and renovat- ing two 200-year-old buildings for up to 90 members of sta• . Jim Smith, managing director of SSE Renewables, said: "SSE Renewables will take the learn- ing from Beatrice and apply it as we now look to develop and deliver our pipeline of over 7GW o• shore wind projects across the UK and Ireland." If you have an asset or project you would like to see featured in this slot, please send pictures and details to: paulnewton@fav-house.com O fwat's PR19 review might feel like another hurdle for an already heavily regulated sector, but with the right approach it can become a powerful driver of change. The water industry is a highly capital intensive busi- ness, with perhaps 70 per cent of its annual expendi- ture deployed on replacing, maintaining or implementing new physical assets. Yet, in comparison with the speed of new product or service devel- opment in other industries, the established approach to asset management is slow. Water and wastewater businesses operate in long-term planning cycles, with infrastructure renewal frequently spanning decades. Contrast this with many aspects of the digital economy, where innovation drives product renewal every year to 18 months at most. Even "old school" manufacturing such as automotive has embraced the switch to electric and autonomous vehicles at a pace that would have seemed impossible just a generation ago. It's somewhat telling that most water companies spend more on capital in a week than they spend on IT in a year. The industry needs a step change in its approach to digital. So how can the industry adopt, apply and evolve its operations to take advantage of new technologies such as arti• cial intelligence, digital twins, the Internet of Things, machine learning and robotic process automation? Typically we've seen digital technologies primarily targeted at customer-facing services, but they can do much more. For example, by monitoring EXPERT VIEW PAUL HAGGERTY, VICE PRESIDENT, UTILITIES; HEAD OF UK WATER SECTOR, CAPGEMINI PR19 – an opportunity the water industry cannot afford to waste and analysing network and operational • eld data, predic- tive maintenance can reduce asset downtime as well as lower the risk of outages or environ- mental incidents. A connected workforce and supply chain can accelerate the speed of asset delivery and commissioning to the network. Stretching the boundaries further, some asset-intensive industries are introducing 3D printing and digitalising the supply chain to lower main- tenance costs, particularly for aging infrastructure. Water is a long way from this –but with a heavy focus on maintenance in this next AMP period a more agile structure will be needed to manage the resulting, smaller incremental capital expenditure. At its core, digital isn't solely about the desktop, device, appli- cation or even the cloud: it's about focusing on customers, ež ciency, resiliency, security and innovation to drive game- changing business and customer outcomes. PR 19 can be seen as a chal- lenge, as something to be dealt with, but it's much more of an opportunity. Within it is the threat of penalties for com- panies that don't deliver, but also the promise of reward for those that do. The success of an organisation's digital strategy will determine which side of that line it ends up on. Capgemini will be hosting a showcase on the Future of Water, at its London o• ce on 13 June 2019. For more information please contact: Paul.Haggerty@capgemini.com

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