She added: “We account for factors
such as capacity retirements. We also
look at generation and consumption
patterns and broader factors, such as
GDP growth, that impact consump-
tion of energy over time, and of
course digital penetration. We look at
customer trends, behaviours and pain
points that can be addressed through
digital solutions.”
Rolling out digital solutions requires
an understanding of the utility’s needs
and emerging trends. For GE Digital,
this starts with the deep relationship it
has with the customer, as well as hav-
ing the expertise that comes with be-
ing a sister company to GE Power.
“Because we work with customers
as both an OEM and digital provider,
we understand the issues around reli-
ability, availability of equipment,
O&M costs, worker safety, mobility,
etc. These are all factors in which we
are deeply entrenched with our cus-
tomers,” said Rae.
“We help them understand what the
right scope and approach is for them.
In some instances, it’s a very small
pilot to get them started. In other
cases, some are able to take on a
whole plant or critical assets. We have
a team of experts that works with the
customer through the entire imple-
mentation process.
“We congure a software and ser-
vices portfolio that enables the digiti-
sation of those assets and the plant
operations to optimise the utilisation
and minimise risk.”
Through its long-term R&D invest-
ments and long history in the power
industry, GE Digital has developed a
broad library of digital twins and
equipment blueprints covering about
50 per cent of failure modes and
equipment sites today, and continues
to add to those libraries. “Our strategy
is to maximise the ROI for the cus-
tomer by leveraging the deep exper-
tise that we have,” said Rae.
Digitalisation is certainly proving
its worth in the current pandemic,
which has brought home the impor-
tance of remote operations.
Rae said: “Most of the customers
I’ve talked to during the pandemic
have been operating with skeletal
staff… the indispensability of digital
solutions to ensure business continu-
ity while working with a skeletal and
largely remote staff has been eye-
opening to our customer base and to
us.”
She says there has been a sharp up-
tick in demand for GE Digital’s Re-
mote Operations digital solution,
which allows plant operators to access
the plant and x issues in a remote
and secure manner.
But implementing digital solutions
does not come without its challenges.
According to Rae the biggest of these
is the change management that utili-
ties have to go through as they adapt
their business processes to take ad-
vantage of the digital solutions that
N
avigating the changing energy
landscape is no easy task. In a
world where access to electric-
ity is still not a given for more than a
billion of the world’s population, end-
ing ongoing energy poverty is still a
challenge. Renewables and distribut-
ed energy sources have a role to play
here. Renewables are also key to mak-
ing the all-important transition to a low
carbon economy.
The transition and the inexorable
rise of renewables, however, has seen
utilities and energy companies having
to develop new business models and
draw on new tools to ensure they
continue operating efciently while
delivering reliable, affordable and
cleaner electricity to consumers.
As a major technology partner to
energy companies around the world,
GE Digital sees digitalisation as an
integral part of making that shift.
Linda Rae is General Manager for
the Power Generation and Oil and
Gas businesses for GE Digital. Hav-
ing taken up the position in January
this year she is responsible for run-
ning a segment of the GE Digital
business that is seeing an increasing
reliance on digital solutions to meet
the demands of the industry.
She identied availability of elec-
tricity across the globe, integrating
renewables, and meeting global cli-
mate change targets as the top three
issues driving today’s power genera-
tion sector and outlined the impor-
tance of technology in addressing
those drivers.
Rae noted: “Many corporations
have committed to achieving net zero
emissions by 2050 or earlier. Trillions
of dollars have owed into low car-
bon technology since 2010. Solar and
wind are now quite competitive in
most markets but with the majority of
the world’s power still coming from
fossil fuels, getting to zero emissions
in 30 years is a tremendous challenge.
“It will require tremendous innova-
tion in renewables and in smart grids,
and we believe that digital will play
an important role in that trend.”
Digitalisation is taking place across
the entire power sector value chain –
from generation, through transmis-
sion and distribution, to consumption.
Highlighting some of the key areas,
Rae said: “On the generation side, we
have been working with customers to
help them stay protable in a com-
petitive environment. Many are em-
bracing digitalisation to drive opera-
tional excellence. Operation and
maintenance (O&M) cost reduction
continues to be a major imperative for
our generation customers, and soft-
ware-driven reliability and mainte-
nance is a principle means of driving
O&M costs down. This is not just for
critical assets but also for the balance-
of-plant; so it’s really enterprise-wide
leverage of digital tools and predic-
tive analytics to drive O&M costs
down.
“They’re also looking at opportuni-
ties for business process automation.
This all helps to avoid unforeseen
outages and enable smarter choices
about how to maintain and operate
their assets.”
The New York Power Authority
(NYPA) is America’s largest state
power organisation, with 16 generat-
ing facilities and more than 1400 cir-
cuit-miles of transmission lines. GE
Digital has partnered with NYPA to
enable an innovative energy infra-
structure to forecast and prevent
equipment failures and signicant
outages with its predictive analytics
software. Online remote monitoring
of power plants, substations and
power lines is increasing plant ef-
ciency and productivity, reducing
unplanned downtime, lowering
maintenance costs and minimising
operational risks.
Rae says capacity forecasting and
planning is another way in which
digitalisation is helping utilities.
“Today’s energy market is pretty
complicated; daily decisions have to
be made by generators about what
they will produce and during which
period of time. Digitalisation helps
them understand how they will deal
with trading surpluses and pricing
maximisation over time.”
And at the cutting-edge, GE Digital
says it is seeing greater digitalisation
in areas such as control technologies,
drones and augmented reality for re-
mote maintenance and operation.
This is something that has certainly
been seen more since the Covid-19
pandemic. “Digitalisation is a way for
them to maintain operations with re-
duced stafng in their facilities,” said
Rae.
In transmission and distribution,
most digitalisation efforts have been
in making grids smart to allow more
efcient transmission of electricity,
smart communications between utili-
ties and consumers, as well as in the
integration of renewables.
Rae said: “Digitalisation enables
smarter decisions about when renew-
ables are utilised versus more tradi-
tional sources of energy, as well as
how that energy is passed through the
grid to optimise supply and demand.
And on the consumption side, digital
capabilities help to ensure energy ef-
ciency at the end-point as well as
enabling a potential reduction in peak
load demand.”
With such benets, it’s clear why
digitalisation is big business and
continues to grow. According to 2020
research carried out by Harbor Re-
search, the total Industrial Analytics
Software & Services market (includ-
ing manufacturing & resources seg-
ments) will grow to more than $80
billion by 2025 at a 24 per cent
CAGR. “We expect Power Genera-
tion Software and services to grow to
$6.7 billion by 2025 at about 17 per
cent CAGR,” Rae said.
THE ENERGY INDUSTRY TIMES - SEPTEMBER 2020
Executive Interview
14
Energy companies face a number of challenges as they continue to reinvent themselves in response to the changing
energy landscape. Linda Rae, General Manager for the Power Generation and Oil & Gas businesses for GE Digital,
says digitalisation is the key. Junior Isles
Digital transitions
they have adopted.
“There are years of entrenched
manual practices and ultimately we
are trying to automate those practices
and ways of doing business. This re-
quires a proactive approach to change
management and helping employees
get through that transition.”
As examples she cited: the chal-
lenges around gathering and under-
standing of data; making decisions
around capital allocation; and deci-
sions around risk versus cost.
“There are cultural challenges as
well as multi-generational challenges.
Many facilities have an older work-
force that aren’t as comfortable with
leveraging digital tools to make deci-
sions, juxtaposed with an inux of
millennials who are naturally tuned to
using digital. This can add to the cul-
tural challenge that customers are
facing.
“Also, the general shift from reac-
tive methods to condition-based
monitoring and maintenance can take
time for users to adapt to.”
Apart from the technology concerns
– the main one probably being cyber
security – Rae adds that a common
concern she hears, is “time to value”.
“It’s a fairly intense investment in
terms of resources and time and
money to undergo a digital transfor-
mation. So the question is always:
‘how do I know I will get the value to
justify this big investment?’ We help
customers understand how they can
shorten their time to value.”
The nal concern, she says, relates
to data – its availability, cleanliness
and the ongoing data maintenance
requirements. She assured, however:
“We work with them to help them
address all of these things.
“And of course we have a customer
success organisation that works with
customers throughout their subscrip-
tion to make sure they have ongoing
support and access to further expertise
and training if they need it. Our com-
mitment is to ensure customers get
the value they signed up for.”
Looking ahead, digitalisation will
no doubt grow as current trends con-
tinue to play-out, although a great
deal of policy and government inter-
vention work has to happen for sus-
tained progress.
Rae concluded: “The inux of re-
newables will continue to grow over
the next 10 years to the point that we
will see a fundamentally different
business model around producer and
consumer – the ‘prosumer’ – that will
dramatically change the whole energy
marketplace. The impact of decar-
bonisation will radically change the
sources of energy as well as the opti-
misation of capacity and efciency.
There will also be faster growth in
microgrids, more utilisation of data
over time, integration of data through-
out the entire value stream and ulti-
mately we will see a much more digi-
tally mature energy sector.”
Rae: Many corporations
have committed to achieving
net zero emissions by 2050
or earlier… It will require
tremendous innovation in
renewables and in smart grids,
and we believe that digital will
play an important role