Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/951810
THE TECH: INTERNET OF THINGS (IOT) What's the deal: The IoT has far-reaching implica ons for the whole u li es industry. The prolifera on of embedded intelligence within everyday devices and assets – and their ability to interact via the internet – is driving a revolu on in business models, service opportuni es and asset management approaches. Why it ma ers: The IoT is the founda on upon which u li es can build smart home and smart network proposi ons. By enabling consumer and industrial assets to communicate over the internet, it has already enabled concepts like smart metering to become a reality and introduced some step changes to the way industrial assets are monitored and maintained. Out in the field, many u li es have only scratched the surface of opportuni es to embrace IoT-enabled predic ve asset management, which can reduce costs associated with deploying engineers on the road and increase the overall life of expensive assets. Say what?: "The IoT network will make it increasingly easy for u li es to connect devices in the smart home and in their own opera ons beyond the smart grid." "U li es assets and the IoT are a match made in heaven." - Survey respondents THE TECH: BLOCKCHAIN What's the deal: Long associated with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, blockchain is a distributed ledger technology which allows for fast and super-secure transac ons between mul ple par es in a network. Held on mul ple computers as a huge distributed database, a blockchain ledger is both secure and immutable: falsifica on is impossible, because of the impossibility of changing every distributed record and its hash- encoding at the same me. Why it ma ers: The poten al for blockchain to disrupt the u li es industry is enormous. It is the ul mate accompaniment to the rise of distributed energy resources, offering to enable peer to peer trading of energy between prosumers. But while rapid and distributed energy trading is perhaps the most talked about u li es applica on for blockchain, other uses for the technology are also being explored in the industry today. UK blockchain leader Electron has developed a blockchain enabled switching service, for example, which could allow consumers to flip their supplier in a ma er of seconds. Then too, there is the poten al for blockchain to play a major role in tacking rising problems for u li es around fair treatment of vulnerable customers. Pilot schemes are underway to see if the technology pla orm could enable rapid and secure informa on sharing between government systems, banks and service providers. Such an applica on might overcome exis ng problems experienced by both energy and water u li es in iden fying vulnerability. It could also provide a workaround to increasing restric ons and regula on regarding data sharing. THE TECH: HYDROGEN What's the deal: Hydrogen is gaining increasing popularity as a poten al answer to the ongoing challenge of decarbonising heat. This is because when burned, hydrogen is zero carbon at the point of use, with only two by-products – heat and water – making it the ul mate clean fuel. There have been a series of reports inves ga ng the feasibility of conver ng the gas network to carry hydrogen. Recently, Ofgem awarded £9 million of innova on funding to Northern Gas Networks' hydrogen project, H21 to further explore this poten al. A further £1.3 million of support for the project will be contributed by the UK GDNs. Why it ma ers: Four words…The Climate Change Act. This Act lays down the challenge of achieving an 80 per cent reduc on in 1990 carbon levels by the year 2050. And while major carbon emission reduc on have already been achieved in rela on to power genera on, heat remains something of a blank slate. In reality, it's unlikely we'll see a UK wide conversion to hydrogen gas networks for hea ng our homes. It's more likely our heat future will be a blended one, making use of bio-gas sources, heat pumps, geothermal energy and hydrogen where appropriate. It's a case of watch this space. Say what?: Dr Keith MacLean OBE, chair of the UK Energy Research Centre Advisory Board: "Hydrogen has the poten al to provide technically and economically viable decarbonisa on solu ons in all three energy sectors - heat, transport and electricity. This poten al could be the ul mate disruptor." I N A S S O C I A T I O N W I T H NETWORK / 33 / MARCH 2018