A year of system integration in the energy sector: Here’s what I've learned
With Enlit Frankfurt just around the corner, we’ve been looking back on the year that’s passed since Enlit Milan. A lot’s happened here at Greenbird.
System Integration: Now a focus for utilities and partners
One major change we’ve noticed is that utilities are finally focusing their attention on system integration and big energy data management. They’re now fully aware these areas are critical to achieving their strategic goals.
The latest research and market studies conducted by IDG, Mulesoft and Team Dynamic reveal that:
- 89% of organizations struggle with data and system integration.
- 90% of companies cite poor integrations and data silos as persistent blockers to innovation.
As a result, many utilities are now evaluating modern Enterprise iPaaS (Integration Platform as a Service) and cloud-native data lake technologies such as our Utilihive energy-ready integration platform. Utilities are exploring how these services can offer a backbone for delivering future intelligent energy services in a much faster and more agile way.
For us at Greenbird, it’s incredibly exciting that our clients and partners have now prioritized integration and real-time data processing. But even more exciting are the successes these solutions are delivering to our clients.
During the last 12 months, Greenbird’s international footprint has increased significantly. 11 new enterprise clients chose Utilihive as their integration & analytics platform to create the data foundation for smart operations. Today, Utilihive serves more than 230 utilities in 14 countries.
Based on the latest client success stories, we can clearly see some emerging trends and areas where our utility clients are focusing investment:
1. Next-generation AMI or AMI 2.0:
Modernizing the AMI landscape to leverage AMI data for intelligent grid operations requires the seamless integration of different types of meters, devices and sensors. And they need to be integrated across the entire value chain. Point-to-point integrations between HES and MDM or between MDM and Billing won’t work in the future. As a result, utilities are implementing Utilihive to enable a “composable” AMI architecture.
2. Real-time energy data use cases:
We’re rapidly moving towards a distributed energy system and flexibility services. Real-time transparency and insights are essential for creating situational awareness. The traditional point-to-point and often batch-driven integration approach, will not support those use cases. This means our clients are implementing Utilihive to create “Actionable Data”.
3. OT-IT integration:
Integrating more intermittent energy resources requires transparency across the entire grid infrastructure. Many of our clients see huge benefits in enhancing OT (e.g., SCADA, ADMS, OMS) with AMI data and vice-versa to empower intelligent grid operations. These clients are implementing Utilihive and leveraging its secure hybrid integration capabilities to establish a secure, near real-time OT-IT integration.
4. Smart Energy Services:
Many of our clients are looking to accelerate their shift towards smart e-mobility, decarbonization, DERs or producer models that tackle the energy crisis and climate change. This requires an infrastructure that can compose data from different systems, organizations, roles (e.g. DSO, retailer, DER operator, e-mobility service provider) and third parties. Several of our utility clients are already using Utilihive and Utilihive Datalake to integrate, harmonize and securely share data to deliver smart energy services.
Our latest success stories show that our utility clients recognize Utilihive’s cloud-native / cloud-agnostic and event-driven architecture and technology give them the flexibility, adaptability and elastic scalability they need to tackle the “uncertainty” of the future energy system.
In fact, our clients are significantly benefiting from the speed they can develop new services using our Utilihive Accelerators, a series of pre-configured and customizable building blocks.
At Enlit Europe, in Stand 12.1.E80 we’ll be demonstrating all our accelerators including our Utilihive Datalake, a modern distributed data lake featuring a "lake house" architecture optimized for energy use cases.
Over the years Greenbird has expanded its Partner Ecosystem and today works mainly through global and local system integrators and solution partners. Our partners fully understand their local markets and client needs. Together with our technology and support, they can offer the best solutions for solving specific client integration and data provisioning challenges.
Since Enlit 2021, our partners have successfully won deals and seen more client interest. We fully expect that additional projects, tenders and expansion plans will be high on the agenda for partners and utility clients at Enlit Europe in Frankfurt.
Enno Dreier
VP Business Development / Head of Sales
