Powering real-time data management for utilities tackling climate change

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Indicium Dynamics has a vision to revolutionize data management across industries. Specializing in IoT and Data Integration services, Indicium develops custom IoT solutions that integrate data from any source to provide real-time insights that generate tangible real-world impact.

At the heart of Indicium’s solutions is the Indicium Platform, which offers a cloud-based centralized hub for integrating devices, connections, and data. The Platform seamlessly automates the collection and analysis of data from a wide range of sensors and devices, displaying data in an accessible real-time format via customizable dashboards. The Platform also allows users to create alerts, enabling prompt and effective decision-making that optimizes and improves business performance.

A core guiding principle and foundation of Indicium’s solutions is sustainability. Recognizing the potential of technology to deliver a positive impact on the world around us, Indicium is committed to helping clients across all industries ‘Measure what Matters’, fostering empowered decision-making that optimizes sustainable business practices. Indicium’s solutions have been particularly impactful within the power industry, supporting both modern and renewable energy providers to implement monitoring solutions that improve management efficiencies, improve reliable access to power, and build resilience in the face of challenges arising from climate change.

At the helm of Indicium stands CEO Rob Vernon. With a successful history in executive roles within the technology sector, Rob brings a passion for utilizing technology to combat the world’s intractable challenges.

Rob sat down with us and allowed us to pick his brain about the challenges particular to the power industry, and how Indicium helps organizations overcome them.

The power industry grapples with significant challenges stemming from a lack of real-time data, which can significantly impact service reliability. Without up-to-the-minute information, the industry faces difficulties in monitoring and responding to grid performance, making it vulnerable to unexpected outages and voltage fluctuations. Additionally, the absence of immediate insights hampers the industry's ability to effectively manage and maintain aging infrastructure, leading to potential failures and service disruptions. In the context of evolving energy demands and environmental factors, real-time data has become essential for adapting to changes swiftly and ensuring seamless service delivery, making it imperative for the power industry to invest in advanced data analytics and monitoring systems.

Addressing environmental risks, compounded by shifting climates due to climate change, stands as a pivotal challenge. Elements such as extreme weather, encroaching vegetation, and corrosion can erode infrastructure, giving rise to sparking, outages, and fires. Additionally, sagging lines, prompted by temperature variations or equipment wear, introduce safety and reliability issues. To uphold public safety and a reliable power supply, the implementation of robust risk mitigation strategies is imperative. Proactive management of these environmental factors is a critical step, serving to prevent potential disasters, sustain service reliability, and maintain the power industry's steadfast commitment to safety and continuity.

By way of example, we are currently working with Powerco, a New Zealand-based energy and gas distributor serving 900,000 customers in the North Island. Powerco is tasked with maintaining local electricity infrastructure crucial for serving households, businesses, and critical industrial facilities.

Indicium's data management solution for Powerco effectively addresses the challenges of service reliability and risk mitigation. It seamlessly integrates various IoT technologies, such as LoRaWAN and NB-IoT, facilitating efficient data collection and transmission. Moreover, it incorporates an OPCUA server, enhancing data utilization within Powerco's SCADA system.

This solution is future-oriented, supporting bidirectional communication between the SCADA system and IoT devices, which empowers operational control and adaptability to emerging needs and technologies. What truly distinguishes this solution are its unique data-handling capabilities. The Indicium Platform can connect diverse protocols and devices, standardize data into a unified format, and customize data transformations as they flow through the system. This approach streamlines data retrieval, saving valuable time and resources, ensuring data consistency across various devices, promoting precision and dependability, and maintaining scalability even as device loads grow.

For Powerco, the ability to leverage real-time data has given them critical insights into infrastructure performance. This capability enhances service reliability optimization and streamlines asset management efficiencies. Additionally, amid rising global temperatures, these data-driven insights play a pivotal role in mitigating risks such as fire hazards and grid outages.

Powerco has been incredibly impressed with the Indicium Platform. As stated by Ryan Aspden, Powerco’s Chief Information Security Officer.

“Everything we do centres around our customers – as a lifeline utility, establishing a set of scalable, maintainable, and secure data integrations to better serve them is a key challenge.

The team at Indicium understand where we’re headed and the Indicium Platform aligns with our strategic vision of being a data-driven organisation – it is the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of software integrations – seamlessly joining data silos so we can gain greater visibility over our distribution network, and drive value for our customers”.

Indicium assists utilities like Powerco in enhancing service reliability and mitigating risks in the face of climate challenges. Discover the transformative power of real-time data and analysis in IoT, and how it can empower informed decisions for your company’s sustainable practices, by visiting their website or contacting their specialized sales team.