The energy sector has been tasked with a simple mission: power the world and protect the planet.
Of course, achieving it will be anything but simple. The ability to access and analyze massive amounts of data will be required.
This is one of the reasons why we’re so excited to bring National Grid Partners on board as a strategic investor in our recent Series D funding round.
With the US rejoining the Paris Climate Accord and global leaders at the recent G7 summit reaffirming their goal to limit global warming to 1.5C and agreeing to protect and restore 30% of the natural world by 2030, the energy sector has a big role to play. It will have to undergo a big revamp in coming years to meet emission reduction goals. One of the biggest challenges that must be overcome to make it happen is getting real-time data to the business to make informed decisions.
Companies in the energy sector are already faced with several data-related challenges: meeting the needs of an increasingly digital consumer; incorporating renewable energy into an already complex electric grid; and keeping that grid safe, reliable and secure amidst extreme weather events and cyber attacks. Being able to respond to these challenges with the right actions is paramount.
It’s complicated
This is all complicated by the fact that, by and large, the industry is operating many legacy IT systems, including a wide array of bespoke proprietary systems and purpose-specific applications. There is layer upon layer of complexity, and because many energy companies are massive, highly regulated and/or government owned, it takes a long time to get IT modernization projects done. There are a lot more checks and balances they have to go through. This makes it exceptionally difficult to pull together data for analysis.
What Incorta can do is help organizations gain very rapid, secure access to a plethora of different application data sources and data archives and bring them into one common view for making informed decisions. They don’t have to wait for an IT transformation to take place.
There is a virtually endless number of energy sector use cases that require pulling together massive amounts of data for analysis.
Using data to solve big problems
The energy sector is helping to solve some of the biggest, existential problems out there. Being able not just to pull together internal data, but also to easily share data sources, is critical to that effort. Many obstacles are technical. Much of the data the industry has is in old systems that don’t interact with other systems or newer technology very well. Incorta has the power to knit together data across these systems seamlessly and allow insight that can improve business performance now.
When we think about investments for modernizing and greening the energy sector, we tend to think of renewable fuel sources, sustainable power infrastructure, and energy efficiency plays — not data infrastructure. But being able to access, combine and share massive amounts of data is absolutely critical to the industry’s mission to power the world and protect the planet. We’re excited to have National Grid Partners as a strategic investor to help us play our part.
Richard Biss is Director of Sales Operations Europe and Africa at Incorta. He also is affiliated with the UK’s government committee for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies, which advises on the adoption of AI and artificial intelligence across industries including the energy industry.