PUBLISHED DATE: 2025-08-11 22:00:17

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

SPEAKER: Grid reliability is a top concern for most utilities. With a drive toward energy transition and the need for a more resilient grid, utilities are investing much more in grid modernization programs where data and analytics are key drivers of a more reliable, efficient, and effective energy grid. But what exactly are the opportunities for utility providers? At Publicis Sapient, we identified five key areas that can help utilities make the most of data and analytics.

  1. You need to prioritize initiatives that require a boost in analytics usage. For example, complying with a new regulatory policy or setting up a clean energy program, or it could be improving service reliability during an extreme weather event.
  2. To help prioritize use cases, you'll need to go beyond traditional frameworks that are based on business value and complexity, leadership support, bringing users in at the ideation stage, and injecting analytics insights into existing processes. Some advanced utilities have actually reported these steps as better signifiers of success.
  3. It's really important for you to measure business value in new ways as reporting becomes more and more critical to building support for future investments. When thinking of potential value pools, those should be identified around revenue generation, cost savings, and other key metrics like safety and customer satisfaction.
  4. You should treat data governance like a never-ending marathon. One of the big challenges for utilities is data quality and data governance. That's because not only is data coming from modern sensor-enabled grids and smart meters, it's also found in antiquated systems and employee desktops with little control on versioning, security, and context.
  5. Utilities that have shifted from a waterfall to an agile delivery model reported great success in prioritizing and implementing new initiatives faster and with stronger alignment between business and IT teams. And here's a bonus tip, an agile model can also benefit the data governance program.

By following these principles, utilities can better tackle numerous challenges, including extreme weather event response, asset replacement and modernization, renewables integration, IoT data management, and much more. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below. And until the next video, don't forget to subscribe and turn on the notifications button.