Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | DECEMBER 2021 | 31 Customers in association with need sharing' rebranding it as 'every one getting the help they need when they need it'. The more utilities that join a sharing framework the more normal it becomes." UKPN began working with Thames in the spring and hopes SSEN and other London water companies will be able to join the ser- vice soon. Cotton believes the secret to success is to make it "e€ ortless" for the statutory body so that, for example, a person being approved for a Blue Badge would automatically be eli- gible the PSR. However, he cites a barrier to this being the di€ erent ways in which various organi- sations record vulnerability data, including across di€ erent utility companies. "How do you align campaigns to update that information? If you had a single PSR you could give control and transparency to one organisation. Giulia Privitera, social sustainability manager at UKPN, echoes this point. She explains that distribution networks use a MPAN (unique number) to identify each property, which is not a system shared by water companies. To get around this, the two companies developed an automated solution to help identify the common properties they serve using a combination of postcodes and Unique Property Reference Number. Privitera warns that while the Thames collaboration has shown how utilities can work together on a shared PSR it has not resolved all barriers to a national database. She points to the need to establish where responsibilities and accountabilities would lie with hosting and regulating such a data- base as well as questions of interoperability. "If a water company uploads someone's data and then a month later an electricity company or even a supplier updates it for the same person and the two are di€ erent, then how do we resolve which one is right?" However, Privitera says these kind of pro- jects are important to establish what sharing data across di€ erent utilities looks like and to build a path towards a joined-up PSR. "Both water and electricity companies have been given a clear mandate by regula- tors Ofgem and Ofwat to push forward and scale this. Our work with Thames Water has proved it's possible and we " rmly believe that by utilities continuing to work closely together these barriers can be overcome." Put simply, Cotton says: "There's lots of people talking about it, but people are reluctant to invest in systems. If everyone joins together you are not going to be creat- ing competing systems. You don't want to be VHS and Betamax." It is important that customers see the benefi t to sharing their information. At Amazon, we talk about the Amazon Flywheel. We measure, review, change, analyse and re-measure to ensure that the changes we make benefi t the customer. This in turn, increases the customer usage/adoption, which allows us to increase benefi ts and lower prices. This is enabled through data personalisation." James Houlton, UK Energy and Utilities Sector Leader, AWS customer usage/adoption, which allows us to increase benefi ts and lower prices. This is enabled through data Connecting data across industries increases its value. Our customers have accumulated huge amounts of data, with a lot of data located in diff erent silos, making it diffi cult to do anything with. Such as analytics on customer and industry insights. So customers pull that data together in a data lake. With AWS Lake Formation, customers can build a secure data lake in days instead of weeks or months. An example of where we see the value of cross-industry information sharing would be when buying an EV, if this information could be shared with the DNOs, then they could forecast more accurately, or if it was shared with the retailer, they could off er a diff erent tariff due to the change in customer profi le." Bree Wimbush, Utilities Specialist CSM, AWS In association with In this report The case for sharing data Looking behind the meter Using data to understand how to protect customers A case of how, not if I N S I G H T R E P O R T Introduction The utilities sector will play a fundamental role in reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and mitigating the impacts of climate change. But the industry will not propel this transition alone and will have to adopt new ways of working with a variety of actors. Perhaps, most importantly, it will have to build long-term, reciprocal relationships with consumers. Digitalisation and the use of data will be critical to this process but to what extent is the utilities sector still reliant on analogue skills in an increasingly digital age? This report, in association with Amazon Web Services (AWS), explores how utilities are building digital coalitions to support the fight against climate change and to protect vulnerable customers. It analyses two landmark projects which have posed fundamental questions about the use and sharing of data and of how utilities companies operate outside of silos. No utility is an island Download the report Download the report No Utility is an Island free at: https:// utilityweek.co.uk/no-utility-is- an-island/ the DNOs, then they could forecast more was shared with the retailer, they could change in customer

• Cover