Minister of Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Yeo Bee Yin (third right) visits ABB’s booth accompanied by Venu (fourth right) and other directors during the Conference of the Electric Power Supply Industry 2018 (CEPSI 2018) last month.
KUCHING: The global power industry is moving towards digitalisation in order to meet the growing energy supply needs of the world’s population in a sustainable manner.
According to ABB senior group vice president of the ABB power grids division for South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Venu Nuguri, Malaysia’s energy landscape will likely undergo an enormous transformation in the next 50 years or so as urbanisation, changing lifestyles and choices and growing population continue to exert greater demand on the current energy grid.
“The industry is seeing change in a big way; name any country right now and you’ll find that the energy industry is slowly moving into digitalisation and automation, as this is what is needed to meet the growing demand.
“The entire power value chain – from generation, transmission, and distribution-field components, transformers, switch gear – the whole network, is embracing digitalisation to become more efficient. What we are experiencing is the internet of things (IOT) for the grid,” Venu said in an interview with The Borneo Post.
Besides just increased efficiency, the digitalisation of Malaysia’s power grids is also expected to empower consumers with more information, and choices in managing energy consumption.
When utilities can access data from the grid on a real time basis, Venu said this bring more transparency and value to customers.
In the case of Sarawak, he believed new technologies and increased digitalisation of the energy sector would be of benefit to the state thanks to its vast lands and the remoteness of some areas from towns.
A good example is that of microgrids – micro self-sustaining grids that do not have to rely on being connected the main grid. This presents itself as a potential solution in powering some of our areas within the state that have not been connected to the grid due to geographical challenges.
“An example of how digital transformation enables reliable power supply and benefits utilities is our ABB AbilityTM Power Transformer. It is a game-changer because it is the world’s first integrated solution for digitally enabled power transformers.
“It transmits and analyses data of its vital parameters in real time so that we are able to monitor our transformers without sending someone over to inspect them.
“In the future all transformers will come with this integrated digital capability, because of the array of benefits and advantages to an existing grid. With the data gathered we can optimise efficiency in the power grid by lowering the losses of the transformer, and with the ability to remotely control the transformer, we will able to reduce labour and time resources, especially in more remote areas and extend the life of the equipment.
“Essentially, through digitalisation, there will be value-added in the entire energy chain as we will be able to build a stronger and smarter and greener grid.”
Besides this, Venu also shared his belief that renewable energy will become a huge focus in coming years as power industries are currently pushing themselves to build greener and eco-friendly grids.
“From a supply point of view, renewable energy is being pursued in a way that is unforeseen until now. In the next 20 to 30 years, countries all around the world will have set goals for their renewable energy sector.
“While renewable energy sources will be the way forward for our power industry, the increase of power demand might be an issue as renewable energy has its own limitations in terms of supply.
“The sun shines when it shines and the wind blows when it blows, so future grids need to be designed to deal with these fluctuations,” he enthused. “It has to be able to handle a lot of complexities from both the demand and supply side.
“While technology to integrate renewable energy into the grid has been tested and proven, the most important aspect of digitalisation is to deploy software-based solutions that help manage intermittency, and harness the vast amount of intelligence coming in to the entire power system to make it more efficient,” said Venu.
Besides digitalisation, Venu also added that other countries have gotten around the limitations of renewable energy through innovative supply chains and sources.
The extensive use of solar panels in residential areas for one has seen some popularity in certain countries.
“While earlier we used to have limited amount of energy supply sources, today, there are many more points along the grid where power is entering, including industry and even consumers, who are now also becoming producers of power through rooftop solar or microgrid installations. We call them prosumers.”
Looking forward, ABB which has had a long presence within Malaysia’s energy industry, and is well positioned with technology to support the country’s plan for green growth. The South Asia region and Malaysia in particular will see changes in our energy landscape soon.
“Malaysia’s power sector is also embracing increased renewable power, and pursuing energy efficiency, so is also on track towards digitalisation. South Asia is a growing region that checks on all the boxes such as new demands from rapid urbanisation and growth, and power is fundamental to this.
“With ABB’s history in the region and showcase of innovative solutions, we hope to focus on being a partner of choice in the region for enabling a stronger, smarter and greener grid.”