Tech Talk | Taking the pulse of DSO digitalisation in Europe

Europe’s DSOs show varying levels of maturity across the value chain, a new survey from Eurelectric has revealed.

As we all know the digitalisation of utilities and the broader energy system is far more than having the latest IT system at head office, although that is one aspect.

Rather, it is about harnessing the power of IT across all aspects of the business from smartening the hardware to utilising all the data that is available to enable the grids to continue operating seamlessly in the increasingly complex decentralised setting to which we are moving.

Such digitalisation is of course an evolving capability with different utilities starting at different points and proceeding at different paces and with different priorities.

So what is the state of play in Europe?

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With the distribution grids seeing the greatest changes with the large scale integration of small distributed generation and the growth of electric vehicles and heat pumps, this was the question that Eurelectric set out to address for DSOs in partnership with Accenture, in a new analysis just released.

The findings are based on self-reported data supplemented with interviews from a sample of 31 DSOs that are considered representative, together accounting for almost one-third of the EU customer base.

The majority, 70%, are large with more than 1 million customers and the rest are evenly divided between small and medium size.

DSO capabilities

The study considers digitalisation in four core ‘capabilities’ that cover the end-to-end DSO value chain – ‘Build’, i.e. expanding the grid, ‘Operate’, i.e. using the grid to its full potential, ‘Maintain’, i.e. generating asset insights, and ‘Data-driven’, i.e. aggregating and using data from across the system.

Of these the ‘data driven’ capability was found to show the highest level of maturity, especially in the cybersecurity space, and ‘build’ shows the lowest as the capability least reliant on digital technology, while both ‘operate’ and ‘maintain’ show moderate levels of digitalisation.

It also was found that DSOs with a higher proportion of renewables in the energy mix demonstrate higher maturity across all capabilities, due to the increased complexity of their operations.

But DSO digital maturity was found to be not dependent on DSO size – a notable finding as traditional wisdom has been that the smaller DSOs are less likely to have access to the necessary skills and resources.

DSO digitalisation

Delving into the capabilities the ‘build’ maturity is strongly dependent on the industry environment’s digital readiness, such as permitting with municipalities or grid infrastructure contractors.

The DSOs overall demonstrate low to moderate use of digital tools and while the larger DSOs are leveraging digital technology more than medium size DSOs, overall they generally underutilise them to expand the grid, specifically in engineering and construction.

For the ‘operate’ capability the DSOs overall demonstrate average use of digital technology, with a trend towards advanced maturity level and it is not linked to the DSO size but rather is very DSO specific.

The capability that starts with being able to observe the grid in operation is highly influenced by regulation policies and in flexibility management and grid operational efficiency there is a large gap from the market leader maturity to average DSOs.

Similarly for the ‘maintain’ capability the DSOs demonstrate average use, although the larger DSOs are leveraging digital technology more than the medium-size DSOs.

DSOs are working on their asset database as a foundation to move towards predictive maintenance and also are working on automated decision making solutions between maintenance and new build.

But in vegetation management while the market leader is doing exceptionally well, the average DSOs are way behind.

In ‘data driven’ the DSOs in most aspects fall into the advanced stage and the trends, with technology related aspects falling into the emerging to advanced stages for most, are indicative of ongoing efforts to enhance their technological capabilities.

The maturity of the market leaders reflects that they are using the best technology available in the market.

Untapped potential

Among the overall findings are the untapped potential and opportunities for DSOs that there are with digitalisation.

With current DSO priorities including reliability and customer services, the current initiatives relate more to the ‘operate’ capability.

But there also are challenges for DSOs towards digitalisation, with key ones including the acquisition of talent and adapting to change, the availability of OT data in IT systems and its cybersecurity and the prioritisation of the digital initiatives.

Some other open questions that emerged are the use of off-the-shelf versus customised solutions and the compatibility of new technology with existing systems.

Jonathan Spencer Jones

Specialist writer
Smart Energy International

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