The Power of Data and Analytics in an Uncertain World

Mother Nature's wrath was felt worldwide in 2022 – from a record-breaking heatwave in California to a devastating wildfire season that engulfed large swatches of land throughout Europe. In addition to the effects of climate disruption, utilities continue to face several of the same challenges highlighted in Itron's 2021 Resourcefulness Report, including incorporating distributed energy resources to preparing for electric vehicle adoption.

This year, our Resourcefulness Insight Report examines how real-time analytics can turn data into accurate insights that solve modern-day challenges. The fact is, there is no shortage of data. During the time it takes you to read this sentence, a staggering 11 MB of new data will be produced for every person on earth. By next year, the number of devices connected to networks will outnumber humans three times over – and in North America, there will be 13 connected devices for every person.

Every day, a staggering amount of data is created. Now we need to ask ourselves: how can data be used to solve our biggest challenges?

We set out to explore this topic in our ninth Resourcefulness Insight Report, "More Intelligence, More Possibilities: How Data is Transforming Utilities and Cities," which was released today at Itron Inspire 2022. The 2022 Resourcefulness Insight Report summarizes key findings of a commissioned independent research survey of 600 utility executives and 600 informed consumers from across five countries – United States, Australia, India, Spain and the U.K.

There has never been a more important time to focus on data and analytics. More than nine out of 10 utility executives (93%) surveyed view real-time data analytics as very or extremely important and it is little wonder why: Power and water providers globally face disruption on a historic scale—and in virtually every aspect of their business. So how can data and analytics help? Utility executives indicated these six use cases are most critical:

• Operational efficiency: For utilities and consumers, improving efficiency to lower costs was the most important use for real-time data and analytics. Utilities worldwide are facing rising operating costs and are looking to drive inefficiencies out of their business. AMI systems are a foundational layer of real-time data analytics for operational efficiency. It is the top technology deployed today and also the #1 investment priority over the next five years.
• New revenue streams: Developing new revenue streams is the current top use of data analytics among utilities (62%). And it ranks second behind improving operational efficiencies as the most important use case. Utilities must use insights to anticipate what customers will want and need as well as better managing distributed energy resources (DERs) to develop microgrid options.
• Personalized insights: As energy costs continue to rise, consumers want insights to help them monitor usage to save money like usage spikes, real-time outage alerts and savings tips. In fact, our research found that more than half of all consumers globally would pay up to 7% more for those personalized insights. Analytical insights gathered from real-time AMI meter data offers this advanced information to help consumers reduce their energy bills.
• Integration of renewables and promotion of sustainability: Consumers are acutely aware of the impact of climate disruption – three out of four (75%) consumers say it is extremely or very important for utilities to deploy data analytics to drive conservation and sustainability efforts. While our industry is moving toward the promise of a greener future with DERs, they can complicate service delivery and load management. Analytics plays a critical role in ensuring the grid can support DERs.
• Extreme and devastating weather: These events only seem to worsen as time goes on – whether it is monitoring vegetation management for wildfire prevention to restoration management during outages – and continues to threaten grid reliability. Currently 38% of utilities see AMI systems and sensor technologies as top technologies to use now; however, this shifts over the next five years to analytics systems being the top priority at 35% followed by AMI (32%) and sensors (32%).
• Smart city services: With urban growth on the rise, smart city services like traffic management, flood monitoring, EV charging locations, smart lighting and air quality monitoring are critical. Across all the countries surveyed, EV charging is the top priority while consumers rank smart streetlights as the top issue. Technologies such distributed energy resource management systems (DERMs) will assist utilities in overseeing the demands on the grid to ensure greater reliability and resiliency.

Now, you may wonder: how do we get this all done? Real-time data and analytics solutions available today infuse more intelligence from the grid edge to the central office. The possibilities are endless, but prioritization is key. Looking to achieve operational efficiency? Look at asset management, theft detection, and EV/DER management. Are you rolling out a demand response program? Focus your time on being able to access and share real-time usage, outage spike alerts, and energy use by appliance.

I invite you to download a copy of Itron's 2022 Resourcefulness Report and check out the research at www.itron.com/resourceful to explore how data analytics can help utilities and municipalities meet the challenges of tomorrow—and ultimately unlock more possibilities.