How Energy and Utility Companies Are Leveraging Industrial IoT in a Highly Competitive Business Environment?

Abstract

Oil and gas industry along with the power industry has been facing criticism since the past many years due to their contribution to the carbon emissions. There has been a growing geopolitical pressure on these players to keep their carbon footprint to the minimum. Also, energy companies are also facing challenges due to the declining resources. This has also led to decline in the margins for both these industries. Also, there is a need to move towards non-fossil-based and clean resources due to environmental reasons such as pollution and climate change. The best way towards reducing the carbon emissions is by making the energy production and consumption more efficient. There is a growing need to utilize technology to make processes such as the production of energy supplies and the generation of power more efficient. Leveraging IoT capabilities will enable these industries to capture efficiency which can help them not only in improving margins but also in reducing their carbon footprints. Application of IoT in the energy and utilities space not only helps in solving these issues but also opens up multiple opportunities such as effective distribution, predictive maintenance and so on. IoT might seem like a buzz word but it will soon become a norm in the industry. With a tremendous increase in the processing capabilities over the years, we are in a position to utilize these technologies to move towards a more efficient world. IoT in energy and utilities helps us reach that space. The paper discusses the applications and challenges of IoT in the energy and utilities space in this paper. (Al-Ali in Energy Procedia 100:34-38, 2016 [1]) (BP in BP energy outlook, 2017 [2]).