The power of data: improving energy business operations and decision-making with operational analytics

The energy and utilities industry faces dramatic shifts from decarbonization efforts, highly competitive markets, supply chain volatility and technological advancements—all while managing 2% annual global energy demand increases.  

To navigate these challenges while increasing revenue, energy businesses must continually improve operational efficiency.  An excellent first step to enhancing operations is connecting your plants, systems and assets using an open, industrial internet of things (IoT) platform. It allows your business to turn data into actionable insights while alerting you to potential operational issues before they happen.

This approach is called “operational analytics,” and it can optimize your energy business operations and sustainability.

Connect your plant to the digital world using an industrial IoT platform

How can your energy business become data-driven and digitalized? You must seamlessly blend the physical and digital worlds to streamline data gathering and analysis. Unfortunately, many companies rely on outdated software for these tasks. With these legacy systems, even when data is available, it’s often incomplete or difficult to find, making it nearly impossible to gain valuable insights.

To overcome these challenges, your business can adopt an industrial IOT platform. It lets your business:

• Connect your machines and physical infrastructure to the digital world
• Take advantage of advanced analytics that turn raw data into actionable insights
• Apply real-time performance analysis to predict and diagnose plant problems before they happen

Use an application development platform to enable data-driven decision-making

To empower your engineering teams, adopt a low-code application development platform and accelerate data-driven decision-making. Using a low-code solution, your knowledge workers can:

• Quickly create and deploy highly customizable apps that allow you to act on data fast and make better decisions
• Drive innovation, increase agility and capitalize on the value of your core systems 
• Reduce time-to-market

A leading trading firm uses operational analytics to improve operational transparency

The North Devon UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (NDUB) protects an internationally important natural ecosystem larger than the city of London. Biosphere Foundation, the nonprofit trading arm of NDUB, works to create a scalable and credible market infrastructure that connects institutional-level investments with climate change interventions, restores nature and creates community prosperity.

In this case study with Biosophere Foundation, you’ll discover how they used operational analytics to:

• Reduce a natural capital marketplace time-to-market by 72 percent
• Collect secure data from multiple sensors, gauges and satellites
• Incorporate Siemens digital technology solutions to help make significant strides in nature restoration. 

Optimize operations and sustainability using real-time performance insights

With operational analytics, data produced by your plants, assets, and systems is quickly and efficiently collected and analyzed. Your engineering teams can use insights from this data to make smarter decisions that can improve operations and business outcomes.

Use a portfolio of comprehensive industrial energy management solutions to help your business continuously streamline systems and processes to accelerate innovation and sustainability. To learn more about operational analytics, watch the video.