The Smart Techie was renamed Siliconindia India Edition starting Feb 2012 to continue the nearly two decade track record of excellence of our US edition.
March - 2012 - issue > Business
IT is transforming Utility and Petroleum Industry
Juuhi Ahuja
President & CEO-Wise Men
Smart Grid
Utility industry is seeing a transformation like no other. Over the last 100 years very little has changed in the way power is distributed and consumed. The Power distribution grid is in desperate need of upgrades to meet the current demands and maintain its reliability. Since grid infrastructure is difficult to change, complex to maintain and upgrades takes a very long time, significant investments need to be made to make the grid scalable for next 100 years. With the advent of consumer driven generation, these devices need to be plugged into the grid and consumers can play the role of generators. Power generated needs to be measured for billing and settlement purposes, a significant change compared to current processes.
Utility industry, often compared to telecom industry has not evolved and does not leverage the technology to improve the service and lower its costs to operate. The difference is in the rate of transformation led by adoption of the technologies. Telecom industry deregulated long time ago and the competition in the market led to faster adoption of the newer technologies. The Utility industry on the other hand operated as regional monopoly, utility companies were paid a fixed percentage of the cost as margin and as such didn’t have any incentive in adopting new technologies in order to reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction.
What’s next?
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