Asset Performance Management: Software for the Energy Transition

We often hear in professional discussion circles that the grid industry is rapidly reaching an inflection point. Renewable penetration is already high and increasing every day. Renewables add massive complexity and risk to the grid due to their intermittent and often bidirectional power flows. This puts a huge strain on grid infrastructure, making it more challenging than ever to ensure a reliable and resilient supply of electricity. The time has come for utilities to invest in new solutions and ways of managing the grid – and that needs to happen fast. Without accelerating innovation, the grid will become a bottleneck to the energy transition.

But grid innovation presents some challenges. As much as we might want to, we can’t rip up and replace the grid. No utility has the resources for that. What utilities need to do instead is find new ways of making the best use of the assets they have available to generate, transmit, distribute, store, and use power.

That’s why utilities are increasingly turning to Asset Performance Management (APM) software. At their most basic level, these solutions identify and flag assets showing poor reliability and high risk. Within the software, a variety of algorithms process this data and report out the best ways for users to accomplish three outcomes:

1. Improve asset availability and reliability
2. Manage risks
3. Reduce costs

There’s truly no overstating the value of asset performance management for utilities businesses – especially those in the thick of the energy transition. APM solutions cater to many of the toughest challenges the modern utility faces

Growth of Renewables Penetration

For example, consider the growth of renewables penetration. To reach Net Zero commitments, all utilities are scrambling to increase the number of renewables supplying their grids. Synonymous with that increase is an uptick in distributed energy resources (DERs). DERs, as we all know, introduce complexity to grids, especially via their bidirectional power flows – something that many existing power assets were not designed to accommodate. This puts a huge strain on asset health.

Aging Grid

In addition, it’s no secret that grids are aging, and much of their infrastructure is nearing end-of-life. This means assets are even more vulnerable to damage from excessive usage and complex power flows. With asset performance management solutions, you can more closely monitor your assets and determine if any are at risk of failing from excessive loads or other factors.

Reliability Challenges

There’s also the challenge of keeping the lights on for consumers. Your customers don’t want to hear about the difficulties of maintaining a steady flow of power amidst severe weather events, unpredictable renewable energy, and other hurdles. And they especially don’t want to hear about an avoidable equipment failure that could take several days (not to mention potentially tens of thousands of dollars in emergency work) to recover from. asset performance management solutions can minimize the chances of  ever encountering that uncomfortable situation. The right solution can unlock better preventative maintenance by continuously monitoring asset performance and flagging potential failures in advance. Such advance notice is key to avoiding costly and disruptive asset failures.

Workforce Approaching Retirement

Utilities face another critical challenge that few in the industry associate with APM solutions – the labor gap. Every utility leader has lost sleep over the looming labor shortage in their industry. Hardly surprising, since the U.S. Department of Labor has projected that 50% of utility professionals will retire between 2022 and 2032. With this mass exodus, a lot of irreplaceable institutional knowledge will be lost – including knowledge of asset performance and reliability.

That’s yet another opportunity for asset performance management solutions. Current in-house expertise can be augmented with powerful, yet intuitive APM solutions that constantly monitor and generate insights about asset health, asset reliability, and performance. And when in-house experts inevitably retire, APM solutions provide a backup source of knowledge. 

Asset performance management solutions are an essential component of our Grid Software portfolio here at GE Vernova – a commitment that was recently recognized. We are proud to announce that GE Vernova’s APM solution suite has topped eight competitors to be named the #1 solution in Guidehouse Insights’ 2023 APM Leaderboard. 

According to the report, GE Vernova received this recognition due to its “advanced technology and holistic portfolios, innovative business models, flexible system architectures, and significant install base.” Guidehouse Insights also acknowledged GE Vernova's 300+ global asset performance management customers, strong customer renewal rate, and large equipment portfolio as other differentiating market characteristics.

Our asset performance management offerings take the form of multiple modules, which can be delivered separately or together as an interoperable, flexible solution. One of the most prominent (and the focal point of the Guidehouse Insights report) is Energy APM. Designed for either transmission or distribution settings, Energy APM offers a full suite of APM microservices and micro applications that assess and report on asset health, reliability, ability to reach targeted outcomes, and more. 

Even if utilities don’t currently leverage the full range of APM technology of the type described above, they still pour millions of dollars per year into protecting their assets. One of the most common means of protecting power assets is via vegetation management software. Many of GE Vernova’s customers augment their vegetation management efforts with technology, such as the Visual Intelligence (VI) software we offer through GridOS – GE Vernova Digital’s portfolio of software solutions designed exclusively for grid orchestration. Within VI, satellite and LiDAR scans are overlain with network maps. This makes it easy for users to identify overgrown or unstable vegetation that could potentially fall and damage assets and then intervene with targeted countermeasures.

It should be remembered, however, that vegetation management is only one piece of the puzzle for protecting power assets. In other words, vegetation management is a means of protecting assets from physical damage (e.g., falling trees). Uniquely, VI even goes a step beyond vegetation to identify defects like rust, corrosion, overheating, and frayed wires. That’s all certainly important, but what about non-physical damage, such as normal wear-and-tear? That’s where asset performance management software solutions come into play – together with solutions like VI that deter physical damage, the two form a highly comprehensive asset-protection strategy to keep assets performing at their maximum potential.

As the energy transition and its various challenges force utilities to push power assets to their limits, the need for APM software solutions, like those offered by GE Vernova, becomes all too clear. These immensely useful solutions can provide utilities with the insights and clarity needed to ensure their assets are fully functioning and capable of supporting the demands of a sustainable energy grid. 

If you are a utility seeking to better understand the value GE Vernova’s APM solutions can offer your organization, download a complimentary copy of the full Guidehouse Insights Leaderboard: Asset Performance Management report