The transformation path of power grid enterprises: turning data mines into data steel

A few days ago, I saw a set of statistics: the total amount of data of the State Grid has reached about 5PB. If it is stored in ordinary DVD discs, the stacking height exceeds 1,500 meters, including massive reports, pictures, audio and video, logs, geospatial data, time-scale measurement data, etc. Just looking at the statistics, the amount of data accumulated by power grid companies is already large enough, like a mine to be developed, but having a mine does not mean that steel has been made. For power grid companies that are committed to transformation, whether it is building a ubiquitous power Internet of Things or a digital Southern Power Grid, a large amount of data is far from enough. If you want to finally complete the transformation, the most critical thing is to activate this data and turn the mine into steel. Only in this way can its maximum value be truly realized.

Big data does not mean big data. External business needs to be explored.

Do power grid companies have big data? At first glance, this seems to be a false proposition. How could power grid companies, which have always enjoyed a monopoly advantage, not have big data, as they supervise power generation and use electricity, connecting both ends? Take State Grid as an example. From production and planning to safety supervision, infrastructure, transactions, and finance, each department has its own exclusive database, and the data reserves are large enough.

But big data does not mean big data. For some applications on the power grid side, power grid companies have indeed turned big data into big data, such as the condition-based maintenance (CBM) of main equipment and the support of power grid planning by power operation data. These data combined have the digital twin capabilities of Industry 4.0 for the transmission network and high-voltage distribution network, that is, the physical power grid can be mapped into a digital power grid in the sense of information, and the power grid is basically observable, measurable and controllable. However, the coverage of this kind of observation is far from the level of holography. According to some experts, even in the substations with the highest level of digitization, the existing number of monitoring points, plus robot inspections, only covers 10% of the physical equipment at most, and a large number of blind spots still rely on manual observation. This is also the foundation and confidence of State Grid and Southern Grid to build a ubiquitous power Internet of Things and a transparent power grid.

Power grid companies are already very mature in terms of management value drive, but what about customer value drive? For example, when the outline of the ubiquitous power Internet of Things was released, the internal business ideas were clear, and many points were raised for external business, but the specific content was mostly vague and there was not much implementation framework.

Xiangnenghui learned that the existing customer-side data of power grid companies is mainly marketing business data, such as customer files, customer engineering drawings, metering equipment files, customer payment information, and electricity consumption information collection data. The electricity and energy consumption on the customer side has not reached the most basic "observable and measurable" level, and is even further away from being controllable. There are huge digital barriers. These data are far from the stage of big data and can only be regarded as large data.

Digital assets are not physical assets and cannot follow the traditional operation model

An important direction for the transformation of power grid enterprises is data business, such as State Grid's ubiquitous power Internet of Things and China Southern Power Grid's Digital China Southern Power Grid. When power grid enterprises look at data business, they often tend to treat data assets as physical assets and build and operate data assets in the same way as physical assets.

In fact, data assets are a completely different kind of existence. Data assets do not wear out, and there is no such thing as depreciation cost, so it is impossible to gain income through "depreciation". It is not that data is collected and placed in a database and becomes a valuable data asset.

Data cannot be directly converted into customer value, but needs to be combined with various links in the industrial chain to achieve comprehensive energy service delivery. Even the most direct way to monetize big data power sales analysis requires a lot of cleaning, refining, training, and analysis, and it also needs to form a power sales package with power sales companies, data analysts, and even financial institutions before it can be monetized.

Data can only obtain the greatest value in an ecosystem. The thinking that "having data means mastering customers" is not suitable for the customer side. The party that masters the data is not necessarily the party that can monetize it.

For power grid companies, the biggest challenge at present is not to establish a ubiquitous Internet of Things technology system and accumulate a large amount of data assets, but to build a service-oriented organizational culture and system.

The power grid has always been the Party A in the power market, the Party A of power generation enterprises, the Party B in name of power users, and the actual management party. It is difficult to change roles and ideas from Party A to Party B. There are countless cases of failure in the transformation of large enterprises from asset-driven to service-driven. IBM, which successfully transformed from an information product provider to an information technology service provider, took ten years to complete.

In the energy industry, due to the high degree of "heavy asset" thinking inertia, this transformation is far more difficult than the transformation in the field of information technology. Although the two power grids and the five major power generation groups have proposed the "integrated energy service" strategy in recent years, there are very few truly mature service innovation models, and most of them are still stuck in the stage of grabbing "projects" and "assets". They are nothing more than the territory of asset construction, extending from power grids to industrial parks, and from power assets to cold and hot gas assets. They talk about service, but their bodies are honestly walking on the old path of "asset drive".

Data transformation has a long way to go and building a platform is the top priority

The core of "transforming from asset-driven to service-driven" lies in negation, that is, completely changing the practice of "building corporate goals around asset value" to "building corporate goals around customer value". The essence of "transforming from service-driven to data-driven" lies in integration, that is, how to better combine information technology and operational technology to create value for customers.

Creating value for customers with data-driven means forming a sustainable new business model for power grid companies. This transformation is very difficult for power grid companies. IBM has achieved a transformation to a "service-driven" model, but has not achieved a transformation to a "data-driven" model. Although IBM was the first to propose "cloud computing" and "e-commerce", it has never been able to get out of the old path of selling "IT solutions". It is Google, Amazon and BAT that have truly implemented these concepts and even formed new business models.

For today's power grid companies, they need to learn from Internet companies, especially from Jack Ma and Taobao 20 years ago, how to develop B2B e-commerce, attract customers to the platform, and achieve a profit and loss balance in platform business. When it comes to building platforms, power grid companies have a better foundation than Internet companies.

First of all, the State Grid is not only a network connecting power generation companies and electricity users, but also a hub for the conversion and utilization of various energy sources. Energy can be processed here. Isn’t this turning big data into new energy?

Secondly, the power grid is a platform for organizing transactions in the electricity wholesale market. With the trading of electricity and its varieties and attempts at electricity finance, even if the power system reform completely opens up the market, the rich and diverse demands of power market players and the highly unified and coordinated production, consumption and delivery of electricity will always be a contradiction, requiring the emergence of a platform that meets the services and needs of all parties. The network attributes of the State Grid have a natural advantage in this regard.

The essence of the platform-based business model is to encourage others to use it, and it is inevitable that you will give up many opportunities for direct benefits. For example, Taobao, as an e-commerce platform, does not sell a piece of clothing, but charges traffic fees, advertising fees, ranking fees, promotion fees, etc. If the current mechanism of the State Grid cannot achieve unification and scale, it will be difficult to generate benefits. Building a good platform to attract talents may be the best choice at present. As for the many sub-sectors in the industry, we can cultivate hidden champions in each sub-sector in the form of investment or holding, which can not only ensure better services for customers, but also make power grid companies bigger, better and stronger.

Fortunately, power grid companies have seen their own shortcomings and difficulties, and have also formulated service strategies and digital strategies. However, if the "customer orientation" from mentality to execution cannot be truly achieved in specific practice, it will be difficult for the future digital strategy to build real core competitiveness and face the attack of Internet companies. Internet companies are born with service-oriented DNA, coupled with the advantages of edge computing and big data technology. Once they find a way to enter the energy field, they will launch a dimensionality reduction attack on the real data dimension. For power grid companies, whether they can build an open and shared industrial ecosystem with a customer-oriented mindset is the key among the keys.