Is Your Enterprise Investing Enough in Digital Software to Advance Your Sustainability Goals?

Make no mistake, the energy transition is here. We see it in action all around us, with every wind turbine and solar farm erected, and as coal plants give way to gas power or simply fade away. We see it, too, as battery storage, carbon capture and hydrogen as a fuel source inch their way toward maturity and mainstream adoption.

And while the goal of net zero is necessary, we must balance this future with the growing demand for available and affordable power today. Every step towards reaching net zero adds potential fragility to the entire ecosystem. Traditional power generation wasn’t built for the dexterity needed today, let alone the future.

This isn’t to say we should stop or even slow our progress. Quite the opposite.

The energy transition is a multi-variate equation that only grows in complexity with every advancement.

For example, a thermal generator can burn more fuel on spinning reserve and spend more money on replacement power to make up for uncertainties, all for the sake of availability. Additionally, we see renewables not fully utilized due to unknown risk. In either case, the result is burning fuel unnecessarily, a sin in the energy transition. These select examples highlight that what we’re doing isn’t working. It hasn’t for some time.

And while it will take decades to modernize our physical infrastructure, software that tangibly accelerates progress is here today. Software can collect and synthesize disparate sources of data – both internal and external – for the purpose of real-time asset condition visibility into the status of operations. It can apply AI/ML for insights and industry expertise for strategic recommendations. Software can orchestrate fleets to balance demand with emissions.

We commissioned Reuters Events – the world’s leading media organization with a focus on the energy transition – to conduct a blind study on our behalf. The resulting report on software and the energy transition highlights what we’re already seeing:  the interest in software designed to make power, energy and materials needed for clean energy more reliable, affordable, and sustainable is growing year over year.

The energy transition requires big, systems-of-systems thinking.

Addressing asset reliability or uptime alone and at a single plant or site is not enough. Fixing a point problem with a point solution doesn’t account for the enterprise-wide orchestration required to make marked gains in decarbonization.

As the report reveals, ironically, smaller organizations were more than twice as likely than their larger counterparts to choose enterprise and integrated (composable) software that allows them to select and assemble software components within an interconnected iiot platform to meet their needs. Reuters Events analysts suggest larger enterprises have the means to create their own point solutions and therefore don’t have a preference to integrated and composable solutions.

Paradoxically, nearly a third of respondents within larger enterprises said composable software
was much more valuable than point solutions – a disconnect exists between their beliefs and actions.

We see another dichotomy in the results where respondents say their individual organizations are investing enough in digital transformation, while they rate the industry overall as underfunded. This could be a result of physical hardware, or infrastructure, gaining more visibility than software. This could also be explained by traditionally anemic investment in software at the organizational level, and therefore any increase in investment is seen as adequate.

An additional interesting finding is that of the software use cases offered, not one strategy stood out. Much like the physical transformation needed, the tools for a digital transformation are also diverse, requiring not one solution, but many. This perhaps best underscores the need for an integrated, composable technology stack to enable faster time to value and insights.

Despite our focus on hardware and software thus far, there is yet another lever in the energy transition equation: People.

In some cases, software can run autonomously, requiring little to no human intervention except for the occasional audit or upgrade if not running in the cloud. However, the majority of software solutions require workforce adoption, including through software that enables flexible and mobile remote operations, if outcomes are to be achieved.

For this reason, the software solution, as well as the implementation, requires industry expertise. It also requires executive sponsorship and functional leader empowerment of the workforce’s use of digital solutions. Additionally, we know that adoption is greater when the digital solution is built with the understanding of the business use cases and personas accountable for success.

All paths lead to digital software.

We’re proud to enable the energy industry as it finds its way to net zero. We know there’s no one way through this journey, but we know that all paths require software. Learn more about what our survey with Reuters Events revealed.