Pressure is mounting for energy and water companies to break down barriers to the visibility and use of data across organisational functions, company divides and sector borders. But do technology and business leaders in utilities buy into this ambition and how hard will it be for them to achieve?
Two years have elapsed since the Energy Data Taskforce recommended networks adopt a “presumed open” principle for asset data. In the intervening time, a drive to reducing barriers to the use of utilities’ data – in both the energy and water sectors – has gained traction in policy and regulatory circles.
Companies have responded proactively, pouring effort and expertise into cross-sector working groups tasked with creating new virtual system maps and common information models which should boost interoperability of data.
However, in a new report created by Utility Week – in association with Iotics – industry leaders acknowledge that significant difference of opinion still remain between key players about what the best architecture to support a zero boundaries world for industry data should look like. They are also still grappling with questions around how legacy technology stacks can adapt to new requirements for data transparency and accessibility.
Download the report to learn more about the views of senior data and innovation experts at UK Power Networks, Northumbrian Water, Northern Powergrid, SGN and more about what makes a common vision for open data so important, what essential steps they feel should be taken to enable it and why they are sometimes proving hard to take.