70 INTERVIEW have some amazing success stories. National energy reform has created both new challenges and opportunities for power producers in the country, and the Kansai Electric Power Company, Japan’s second-largest provider, turned to AVEVA PI System to improve operations and optimise maintenance in the newly competitive market. It uses AVEVA PI System at all nine of its plants to improve operations, reduce downtime and cut costs. This has enabled it to save $3 million per year at just one plant. The Japan Power Summit was held jointly with Microsoft in August and addressed several UES innovation, collaboration and partnership topics. We saw how findings from the California summit resonated with power grid companies in Japan, which face similar challenges, particularly around demand, energy security and the sustainability transition. Attendees were particularly keen to hear about datadriven technologies such as AVEVA PI Data Infrastructure, which creates full visibility across multi-site operating environments from edge to cloud, and CONNECT. Why is collaboration crucial for overcoming the challenges we’ve discussed and decarbonising the power sector? A common refrain at the UES was that no company can meet the industry’s challenges alone. Partnerships are indispensable to progress in the power sector. For example, public-private partnerships can manage complexities around integrating renewable sources, increasing demand from electric vehicles and data centres, and grid stability. In 2023, they helped bring 32.4 gigawatts of solar and 6.2 gigawatts of wind power online in the USA alone. Similarly, community and tribal partnerships like in Washington’s Tulalip Microgrid heighten local resilience, while working with regulators helps update policies and balance innovation with consumer protection. Finally, collaborations between technology providers and industry players will improve grid management with data and AI tools. Even here, partnerships between companies are moving the needle. Interoperability between AVEVA CONNECT and data analytics solution Microsoft Fabric, for instance, empowers the industry to unlock the potential of its data and lay a strong foundation for this era of artificial intelligence. Nearly half (43 per cent) of power leaders see a secure data-sharing and collaboration platform as a target investment with the greatest potential to drive opportunity for their organisation, according to the AVEVA Industrial Intelligence Index Report 2024. This is because sharing data with partners in real time helps drives innovation, efficiency and sustainability success. By combining public sector guidance with innovation from the academic and private sectors, we can accelerate grid modernisation while balancing reliability, sustainability and affordability. As Richard Wernsing Sr, senior technical director for EV Edison, said at UES: “If we all work together, we can benefit the customer and the utility, and hopefully keep the cost down.” Read more about grid transformation and energy transition at: bit.ly/4dUaz0M AVEVA led its Japan Power Summit in Tokyo in June 2024
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