Establishing a digitally integrated modern energy system

At Siemens our goal is clear – our production facilities and buildings worldwide are to achieve a net zero-carbon footprint by 2030. It is evident, from our experiences, that the path to a zero-carbon future is exciting, challenging and realising this ambition will call for innovative and disruptive ideas, alongside maximising proven sustainable and low carbon solutions.
To ensure the UK achieves our carbon neutral commitments, it is critical that the UK energy sector maximises the value of existing (and future) national infrastructure, resources and the significant levels of existing and emerging data.
Realising this value however will call upon the energy sector to undertake a data-enabled cultural evolution. An evolution which actively enables open-data exchange, utilising data fed from multiple energy vectors, encompassing the breadth of the energy system and the plethora of stakeholders within. A true ‘whole systems’ approach which will give rise to a secure and managed service, a service affording access to the central data exchange for stakeholders wishing to illicit positive, innovative and lasting change within the energy sector.
Siemens will deliver a ‘digitally integrated energy system’ that supports a Common Data Architecture concept. Underpinning the vision is an implementation of the open-data platform, constructed upon the requirements of the users and employing a sector specific metadata standard to drive commonality, enabling data-exchange. To do this Siemens will create ‘Your Online Digital Architecture’.
The platform will be constructed upon the three relevant building blocks identified within the report ‘Energy Data Taskforce: A Strategy for a Modern Digitalised Energy System’ – incorporating asset registration strategy, data catalogue and digital system mapping.
Siemens promotes an inclusive approach to successful deployment, one which will be employed from beginning to end, facilitating user requirement capture workshops alongside show and tell events to provide insight toward the project outcomes and providing best practice guidelines. These events will support organisations who wish to utilise and embed the insight and outcomes, covering topics such as data transparency, data licensing and liability wavers, and data obfuscation / data protection techniques. Each of which are reflective of the metadata standard and Common Data Architecture underpinning ‘Your Online Digital Architecture’.
The challenge is clear – the true value in data, in support of the transition to a low carbon economy, is in enabling visibility, access and insight throughout the energy value-chain – the industry must embrace this opportunity as a true catalyst for change, creating an open, yet secure, data marketplace which will create a modern, digitalized, energy system – one which drives system cost reduction, increases levels of asset visibility, improves system stability, provides capability for informed system management approaches and enables impactful innovation at scale. All critical factors in a decarbonized, digitalized and decentralized energy system.