[Report] Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award: 2020 Global IIoT Platform for Power Generation Product Leadership

[Report] Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Award: 2020 Global IIoT Platform for Power Generation Product Leadership

The fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, delivered the Industrial IoT (IIoT), which leverages the internet and computing infrastructure to connect machines, processes, and people. According to Frost & Sullivan’s estimates, as of 2019, the potential revenue opportunity for Industrial IoT in power generation was $1.97 billion.

The revenue opportunity will accelerate in the first half of the next decade, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 17.4%, owing to a combination of factors, including the need for flexible assets, recovering investment costs, and saving unwanted maintenance costs. Thus, Frost & Sullivan’s research analysts expect potential revenue opportunity to rise to $2.87 billion by 2025 due to an increase in adoption rates. The IIoT adoption proliferation will improve asset performance drastically by unlocking value from siloed information, leading to better outcomes and reduced downtime for power plant operators.

How Industrial IoT can Help the Power Generation Industry Overcome Challenges

The power generation industry is one of the more mature industries facing extreme challenges to its traditional business process due to several factors, including new developments in smart technology, changing customer preferences, a shift to renewable sources and distributed generation, and the increasing need to deliver energy-efficiency solutions as part of a wider decarburization agenda for the industry.

For a sector that has been traditionally well-protected, and therefore, slow-moving, these challenges present two key threats to the long-term viability of many power utilities. The amount of operating hours is increasingly being influenced by market signals dictated by variable supply and shifting consumption patterns, consequently impacting monetary flow back to the operators. Moreover, a shift in traditional business models to distributed, innovative business models in the industry is making power generation markets increasingly competitive. In addition, prevailing issues regarding sizable data volumes and the widening knowledge gap continues to plague the industry. According to Frost & Sullivan’s estimates, by 2030, 30% of the power workforce is eligible for retirement, placing the onus on utilities to reskill and reinvent to face future challenges. Therefore, the increasing adoption of IIoT will play a vital role in asset upgrades and management, and seamless portfolio integration with efficient data management, aiding in managing the workforce efficiently.

Learn about the best practices Uniper Energy has in place as the recipient of Frost & Sullivan’s 2020 Global Industrial IoT Platform for Power Generation Product Leadership Award.

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