Ericsson discuss the utility providers’ digital transformation

Ericsson participated at the World Future Energy Summit, hosted in Abu Dhabi, to discuss how ICT can transform the utility sector.

During the event, Rutger Reman, President of Industry and Society at Ericsson Region Middle East, spoke at the panel session ‘Building the utility provider of tomorrow’ to discuss how the sector needs to transform to tackle the current challenges that the industry is facing.

“The utility provider needs to figure out how to use data, analyze it and get tangible content from it. Utility providers do not only provide resources, they also have data and by analyzing it, the interaction with the customer becomes bidirectional and closer,” said Reman during the panel session.

Communications technologies are disrupting the utilities sector, as Reman explained, and the application of smart devices throughout the utilities company network can improve quality of supply as well as operational and economic impacts.

“We need to learn from our experience in Europe, where we have observed distortions in terms of planning. It is also important to make customers responsible for their behavior, which again means giving them complete visibility on what they do and at the same time provide right cost and price messages.”

The session was moderated by Nick Carter, Associate Director at Baringa Partners LLC. Frederic Abbal, Executive Vice President, Energy Business and Middle East and Africa operations at Schneirder Electric; Graeme Sims, Executive Director, Regulation Supervision Bureau (Dubai) and Abdullah M. Al Shehri, Governor, Electricity and Co-Generation Regulatory Authority (ECRA) also attended as panelist to discuss the future of utility providers.