Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | 3RD - 9TH APRIL 2020 | 19 Operations & Assets fundamental change taking place across the utilities sector, says National Grid ESO's McLeavey-Reville. "The energy system is being transformed by the macro-trends of decarbonisation, decentralisation and digitalisation." He adds that a "4th D" – democratisation – is now also becoming increasingly important. "Opening up this data is not just an altru- istic endeavour for ESO," he continues. "It is something we must do if we are to continue to operate a system that is rapidly increasing in complexity, in an eˆ ective and e‰ cient way. It's also essential in encouraging and driving innovation, which in turn will drive our transition to zero carbon. "In a world where there are millions of distributed energy resources consuming and generating energy for a multitude of reasons, opening up our data not only enables market participants to make better informed deci- sions and improve market e‰ ciency for the bene‹ t of consumers, it also unlocks the col- lective processing and analysis of the crowd to monitor, report, and even enforce fair mar- ket behaviour. We want the system to be as 'self-healing' as possible, and we can only achieve that with open data." McLeavey-Reville's views are echoed by the open responses to Utility Week's ‹ nal survey question on the biggest bene‹ t or out- come that a progressive open data agenda across the utilities sector will deliver. Multiple responses highlighted the oppor- tunity to optimise assets – physical and digi- tal – by linking datasets across organisational and sector silos, and by empowering a wider range of people to leverage data insights. One respondent articulated the antici- pated bene‹ ts of open data as follows: "Ultimately this comes down to digital enablement and the realisation of the full bene‹ ts of our enterprise data assets. Open- ing up data internally as well as externally breaks down departmental silos, increases organisational agility, maximises the ben- e‹ ts of digital technologies and facilitates innovation." Meanwhile, another contributor said democratising access to organisational data sets will create "less dependency of a few centralised experts, and more participative analysis of federated and operational middle management". As utilities step up to challenging price controls and intense expectation around delivering system-wide transformations which will the combat climate crisis, such endorsements of the value open data can bring should not be ignored. Jane Gray, content director, Utility Week "Open data can help to deliver insights and services to your customers you haven't even imagined yet." A ccording to Barack Obama "Change is never easy, but always pos- sible". The need for change in utilities, particularly in the age of climate and social change, highlights the need for every- one to become more — exible and agile in how they approach and perform their daily business. To deliver change eˆ ectively, there needs to be a constant, and that constant is data. But what value is data if it's hidden or not accessible beyond just a few? Open data, or the concept of sharing your organisation's data assets with third parties, is critical to facilitating agility and innovation, because it enables them to play a part in helping your organisation to become more e‰ cient – and to deliver insights and services to your customers and stakeholders that you likely haven't thought of, or even imagined yet. But it's more than this, it's also about the journey that you have to take to enable your data to be consolidated, veri‹ ed, secured, obfuscated if neces- sary, and shared, which will also enable your e‰ ciency and transformation. This is because in many cases, the way your data is currently stored requires your organisation to make a massive shi™ in terms of tech- nology, people and processes, and indeed in attitudes. In 2015, an industry renowned for its closed attitudes to data, banking, was forced by regulation and new "challenger" competitors, to adopt open data through what became the Open Banking Initiative. It's had a major eˆ ect on how banks now architect their systems, and the banks themselves have realised positive change by innovating to the point where their mobile apps are now their biggest and most important channel, and key third parties are enabling better integrated experiences, insights and services for their customers in partnership with the banks. The key enabler for this level of data openness is a data fabric platform that enables you to interconnect what you have, together with the agility of the cloud, and the performance and data quality tools to deliver and share trusted data at speed via APIs, with the right level of gov- ernance controls and interfaces to create a platform for innova- tion and cooperation. The opportunity for utilities is to not just tick-the-box com- pliance with the Energy Data Taskforce recommendations, but to break down decades-old silos of data and enable new lev- els of collaboration across the industry, new partnerships that add value to decarbonisation initiatives, new ways to engage with customers, new e‰ cien- cies within the organisation, and perhaps even new ways to commercialise data to form new revenue streams that drive more investment. Sean Crouch Sales Director – Utilities & Energy, Talend Expert view Sean Crouch Sales Director – Utilities & Energy, Talend Brought to you in association with "Ultimately this comes down to digital enablement and the realisation of the full benefi ts of our enterprise data assets." BAROMETER PARTICIPANT "There is a vast difference in the quality of data across the industry. In the case of incumbents, there is a particular problem of legacy systems that want data in a specifi c and often outdated format." CIAN MCLEAVEY- REVILLE, INNOVATION STRATEGY MANAGER, NATIONAL GRID ESO

• Cover