Such that all may partake

By Jaz Rabadia

Yesterday a Mrs Cathy Smith, general manager at Cisco South Africa and dear Aunty of mine, shared with me an article describing the 'digitisation of energy', a concept which I interpret to characterise the digital monitoring of power use, from production through to consumption. Collecting, collating and analysing these data would, it argues, allow energy companies to minimise wastage and greatly increase the efficiency — and cost effectiveness — of their power delivery. Data analytics is a tool which has shown considerable success at optimising processes in manufacturing, and its implementation on a industry-wide scale strikes me as a great way for the energy sector to make overtures to the carbon neutrality the world so desperately needs if we are to avoid the worst of climate change.

That said, I have some reservations when it comes to anything that falls under the umbrella of "big data", the main one being the (digital) age-old issue of access. The production of large, fruitful datasets is likely to entail a considerable investment on the part of energy companies, and so I can't imagine that they would feel any great inclination to share these data without compensation. The adoption of such a position would be a shame, especially to those involved in academia; as a student I personally have relied heavily on the privilege of free use of the diverse geographical datasets made available by governmental bodies such as the USGS and Ordnance Survey. Who knows what kinds of innovative research — both institutional and crowdsourced — that could be achieved if inquisitive minds are allowed to access the wealth of information resulting from the digitisation of energy? A commitment to the concept of open data need not merely be a lofty ideal, but a principle which has been repeatedly demonstrated to be economically beneficial.

Even more important than the sharing of data outside of an industry is sharing within it. Consider my post several weeks ago in which I discussed the views of the British energy lobby. One point that stood out for me was their proposal to restructure the UK sector's regulatory system by introducing a 'systems architect': a body which would be better suited to coordinating an efficient power supply network as it takes on an increasingly decentralised structure. For such a system to be effective must require a great degree of co-operation is required between its various components — from power station operators to government regulators to local consumer-side organisations and everything in-between. It seems to me that the only way to achieve such frictionless collaboration is the removal of barriers to access to information. Greater integration of the power supply chain with outside parties would come as a bonus, with benefits both commercial and intangible. With energy being rapidly digitised, I believe that the resultant data must be made open if the industry is to make serious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.