Trends of fuel and energy complex digitalization market

Main article: Trends in the Russian IT market

2021 - 2022: Technological trends of fuel and energy complex digitalization

Smart devices for monitoring equipment and resource accounting, digital twins, solutions using machine learning and artificial intelligence, computer vision systems and Internet of things platforms, as well as low-code tools are the technological trends that participants in the fuel and energy market most often talk about. Let's look at these and other trends in more detail.

Smart monitoring

One of the main digitalization trends in the fuel and energy complex of Russia for the coming years is to equip all energy segments with smart devices for monitoring the state of equipment, accounting for the supplied resource and controlling payments for electricity.

Soon, the sensors will not only collect equipment performance indicators or the number of kilowatts consumed by consumers, but also digitize, analyze data and offer an algorithm for solving emergency situations or optimizing current processes, "explains the Timur Rakhimov head of the department for working with the company's fuel and energy complex SATEL."

Digital doubles

Large companies begin flexible optimization of operations, technological processes, production infrastructure based on their reflection and modeling "in figure." To do this, all assets need to be seen in the virtual world "in depth" and "in width," explains Dmitry Sokolov, an expert at the Digital Production management of Siemens in Russia.

The "deep" vision means that the digital double must be exhaustive both in various disciplines (physics, geometry, electrics, hydraulics, software control, etc.) and in model accuracy, sufficient to solve optimization and prediction problems.

For example, if you model a turbine or compressor, you need to know and track all the dependencies of the unit's operating parameters from each other in order to detect and predict even minor deviations in time. In addition, you will need a reliable mathematical or hybrid model of the operation of the reference unit in order to compare it with a real object and look for the optimum in the multidimensional space of its control levers, "says Dmitry Sokolov.

A "wide" vision means embracing the entire production infrastructure with a single, holistic digital twin from which to optimize end-to-end processes from raw materials to the final product, thereby achieving new levels of efficiency.

For example, for the production of LNG, such a digital model should cover the work of both wells and the gas collection network (GSS), as well as the gas treatment and liquefaction plants themselves, including the storage and shipment of products, the Siemens expert explains.

Computer vision

As a rule, customers look for a boxed product to solve a specific problem. When there are 3-4 such projects, the configuration is still manageable, but when we talk about large production holdings, this approach generates a zoo of solutions, which ultimately rests on the manageability of this configuration and mass training of models.

SAS is approached, firstly, in search of a certain "umbrella" system that will cover box products and carry out their "management," and secondly, we receive requests from companies that are at the beginning of the journey and want to organize the process correctly. I.e. when the cameras will serve as a purely data source, and all models will be created, worked out and trained on this stream, "says Ivan Shilov, an expert on working with industrial companies, SAS Russia/CIS.

Other trends

Common technotrends for all fuel and energy sectors

Among other technotrends relevant for fuel and energy enterprises, experts mention the transition to low-code platform solutions in terms of machine learning and artificial intelligence, initiatives in the field of the Internet of things, continuous monitoring of capital construction processes and increased interest in operational risks.

Mature companies in terms of solving analytical problems began to understand the limitations of using only open source architecture. Ivan Shilov, an expert on working with industrial companies, SAS Russia/CIS, explains that SAS began to receive requests for solutions, where, on the one hand, the analytics life cycle is covered, starting from DataOps to ModelOps, and on the other hand, Low-code tools are used, there is a connection to analytical projects of civil date-saentists.

With regard to operational risks, there is a link to incidents in Norilsk Nickel. Companies are concerned about creating a more flexible risk management system to reduce losses and ensure the future.

SAS historically has a strong position in this direction, so fuel and energy companies turn to us directly, "adds Ivan Shilov.

Technological trends in the digitalization of the fuel industry

In the fuel industry, digitalization is aimed at maintaining the level of resource extraction, increasing margin and reducing processing costs. In this segment, expert solutions support systems, ZD-visualized software complexes, energy equipment monitoring and control systems, digital doubles, and industrial safety systems are in demand.

Mobile applications for bypasses and inspections of equipment are also in demand, which allow you to remotely record the readings and state of technology, transfer data online, "adds Pavel Sergienko, general director of Infopro Group of Companies.

Technological Trends in Electric Power Digitalization

In the electric power industry, digital transformation is aimed at minimizing specific fuel consumption, increasing the level of automation of production, increasing the efficiency of operation at OREM, improving the reliability of power supply, as well as developing new services for interaction with consumers.

It implements projects for the implementation of MES systems, billing solutions, monitoring and assessment systems for the state of energy equipment with predictive analysis, creates platforms for the collection, processing and use of big data, tests the mechanisms of "demand management," solves the tasks of forecasting the generation and consumption of electricity, implements systems for strategic and investment planning.

Most digital solutions implemented are based on Internet of Things technology (sensors, smart meters, etc.) and advanced analytics (predictive analytics, remote monitoring and control system, etc.). Cross-technological solutions are in demand: modeling and forecasting the parameters of an energy object using a digital model (digital twin), a distributed system of energy storage, demand and load management, "says Pavel Sergienko.

Dmitry Kichko, General Director of Edith Pro Group of Companies, notes that in addition to process management systems, forecasting solutions and efficient energy consumption, electric power enterprises are introducing products to automate interaction with contractors and customers. Quite actively, companies are engaged in the creation and development of personal rooms and mobile applications of their portals, omnichannel contact centers, voice chat bots, RPA and additional services for customers.

For example, CRM solutions in the energy industry help not only track how a subscriber pays bills, but also use the data received to maximize the personalization of services: offers of more flexible tariffs or additional services.

This, of course, is a radically new level of communication and customer loyalty management. We really want to develop this direction in the energy sector for customers of the B2C segment, "says Kirill Shchepetov, director of the 1C solutions department at SIGMA.

One of the key IT trends for Russian energy is mobile solutions. Demand for them is growing steadily, as they solve a wide range of business tasks: from labor protection to reducing production costs and the risks of equipment failures.

Through mobile devices, personnel can receive tasks, undergo training, confirm work, and information about equipment inspections is instantly transferred to the main base, where managers or engineering personnel can work with them. According to the experience of implementing SIGMA solutions on the SIGMA: Alcor platform, this allows you to reduce data processing costs by an average of 30%, "said Yevgeny Odintsov, executive director of SIGMA.

In the energy segment, the strategic objective is comprehensive billing automation aimed at improving the speed and accuracy of calculations, improving the quality of interaction with consumers of all categories, reducing receivables and improving the accuracy of energy demand planning.

{{quote | This task is solved by the Neva billing digitalization platform - SIGMA's own development, already used in a number of energy retail companies in Russia, says Yevgeny Odintsov.

In recent years, the industry has also actively mastered artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning technologies. As for import substitution, it can be called the base trend, which today determines the strategy for the development of IT of almost every enterprise in the industry.

It requires considerable effort in the field of hardware base at all levels: from high-performance servers to household metering devices. SIGMA is ready to participate in the development of such equipment together with Russian manufacturers, we are open for negotiations and are ready to provide our software for such projects, "adds Odintsov.

For electric power companies, information security solutions remain extremely relevant, as these enterprises remain one of the main targets of hackers.

Also, the industry is gradually modernizing its IT infrastructure and specialized solutions, including automation systems for working with applications for technological connection to electrical networks, creating technical tasks for contractors, long-term production planning, as well as ensuring dispatching control over electrical networks, says Dmitry Kichko.

As for large generating companies, they have on the agenda - flexible management of generating capacities to reduce fuel costs or turbine resources. Dmitry Sokolov, an expert at Siemens Digital Production Management in Russia, says that such enterprises need to effectively respond to changes in energy demand and quickly adapt to the requests of the Unified Energy System System Operator. To do this, you need to collect historical data, build predictive models of equipment operation for the entire distributed generation infrastructure. This will allow a more even distribution of the load and more accurate planning of the inclusion of units, which leads to an increase in efficiency, an increase in resource and an increase in economic efficiency. Therefore, companies are moving from disparate management, data collection and dispatching systems to centralized systems that allow you to see a holistic "picture."

2020

The fuel and energy complex is one of the most dynamically developing sectors of the Russian economy, the role of information technologies in which is very high. Over the past few years, amid a steady decline in revenues from the sale of hydrocarbons, companies in the real sector of the economy, including the fuel and energy complex, are increasingly aware that modern technologies can increase profits and minimize costs. They can increase efficiency and safety of production, improve working conditions, optimize the number of personnel, reduce downtime and reduce accidents. Consider the main trends in the use of IT in the fuel and energy complex, which market experts most often talk about.

Technological adaptation of companies to new realities

Projects related to adapting the business to new economic realities and new management methods remained in demand in 2020.

This year showed a high need for migration "to online" of many client and internal services not only in retail and e-commerce, but also in many production sectors of the economy, including fuel and energy enterprises. The load has increased not only on internal corporate portals, transactional systems, but also on external sites and mobile applications, the availability of which directly affects the customer experience and revenues of companies, "said Alexander Savchenko, sales director at Ramax Group, in a conversation with TAdviser.

Due to the massive transition to the "remote" in the industry, there was a boom in demand for systems for the remote execution of business processes, including production ones.

This year's events, which affected all industries without exception, forced energy enterprises to turn to virtual desktop (VDI) technologies. Many of them first encountered this class of solutions, which significantly complicated the implementation and created an additional burden on the IT infrastructure, "said Maxim Zubritsky, head of the department for working with oil and gas companies Infosystems Jet.

Systems for organizing teamwork were also in demand.

Being in the context of restrictions on face-to-face meetings, videoconferencing on various platforms has firmly entered business practice. At the same time, now such an interaction format can be called basic, and not alternative, as it was before. By the way, in recent years, in many large companies in the industry with remote production sites, videoconferencing has already been used quite effectively and little has changed for them in this regard, "Alexander Savchenko told TAdviser.

Due to disruption of the hardware supply chains and restrictions on the movement of specialists to configure it, cloud technologies showed serious growth.

This is traditionally a complex topic in the oil and gas sector for all market participants, but 2020 has shown that sometimes the use of advanced technologies is unopposed, "said TAdviser Alexander Savchenko.

According to Alexei Borisov, director of industry solutions at Krok in energy, integration developments were in demand, allowing companies to move to a single information space.

The limitations associated with coronavirus have certainly accelerated the use of single platforms for working with data. In our case - with engineering data on capital construction projects. The unified information environment of engineering data allowed many of our customers to maintain stability in remote working conditions, to withstand the deadlines for work on construction projects. 2020 showed that "paper" design and "paper" construction, when the main one is a paper document, are losing their viability in the current conditions, "said TAdviser Sergey Ponomarev, technical director of the Askon integrator direction.

Accelerating digital transformation

In 2020, the fuel and energy companies, like any other industry, were keenly faced with the issue of accelerating digital transformation. The trend was the use of open-source technologies to develop platforms in digital transformation centers created at industry enterprises. Due to the significant reduction in the timing of a number of projects, companies used flexible agile development technologies.

There is no time, no opportunity for long pilot projects, long-term testing. Everything needs to be done as quickly and cheaply as possible, "said Ivan Khovavko, head of the digitalization division of the fuel and energy complex of Force Development Center (Force Group of Companies), in a conversation with TAdviser.

Competent use of modern technologies

The introduction of information technologies in the fuel and energy complex is quite consistent, although some time ago there was an explosive interest in new "digital technologies."

Pilot projects were randomly launched: either on the robotization of business processes (RPA), then "digital deposits," then "digital twin," then BigData with predictive analytics, etc. However, only a few of these projects went into full-fledged, commercialized initiatives. At the moment, the industry's interest in innovation has been somewhat streamlined: the market has an understanding of where to start and what to do, "says Valentina Kulagina, head of the ICL product office.

An important role in such progress, in her opinion, was played by competent consultants of system integrators and consulting agencies, who, on the one hand, understood digital technologies, on the other, knew the possibilities of their application and integration into production processes to achieve the expected effect for business. The head of the Softline IoT group, Valery Milykh, connects this progress with the "complexity of the tasks facing the fuel and energy enterprises."

According to Oksana Vysochanskaya, director of key customer relations at HayTek, in recent years, industry companies "have come to understand that the competent use of modern solutions brings tangible profit, reduces costs, and optimizes interaction."

The very attitude towards digitalization has also changed. Companies realized that technology is just a tool and to achieve effect, it is necessary to correctly integrate this tool into existing processes and regulations, create new competencies to evolve and improve. And this is the hardest thing. Companies that realized this, get good business effects, develop further and serve as an example for the entire market, - said in the company ITPS.

Digital technology provides precision, transparency, and enterprise adaptability to changing market conditions. The decisive success factor is the speed of making the right management decisions, which cannot be built without a clear idea of ​ ​ the current state of production, without monitoring and managing real-time data, add to ITPS.

Increasing demand for Russian developments

The distinct trend observed in the industry is import substitution. Introducing domestic developments, fuel and energy enterprises, on the one hand, stimulate the development of Russian information technologies in Russia, and on the other, master new technologies.

The global trend for the entire industry is import substitution, which protects enterprises from changes in global market conditions, stimulates IT for development, and energy enterprises - for the development of new technologies. Given these priorities, we are developing our own developments. 5 out of 20 industry solutions for energy created in SIGME are already included in the Register of Russian Software, 3 more are in the process of registration. For example, in JSC Inter RAO - Electric Generation, our SIGMA system is being introduced: Alcor, registered in the Register, to automate the process of bypassing and inspection of equipment. It allows you to reduce the time to identify and troubleshoot problems on equipment, rationally schedule the loading of specialists, and based on the data received, purchase spare parts and materials, "says Sigma CEO Sergey Kolodey.

As part of import substitution, interest in Russian solutions is growing, adds Igor Okhrimenko, director of business development at fuel and energy complex "." Technoserv Consulting According to him, many large fuel and energy companies are more actively watching and testing Russian solutions, looking for analogues for introduced foreign products, and new industrial platforms are also appearing.

Many organizations focus on developing their solutions in the Industry 4.0 paradigm. Nevertheless, interest in already known foreign solutions remains stable, he explains.

According to relevant experts, foreign IT solutions in the industry still occupy a dominant share, but the share of domestic products is gradually growing.

For example, in the field of field development modeling, seismic data processing, geophysical problem solving, monitoring, etc. There is a noticeable interest in analytics and big data systems, robotics, unmanned aerial vehicles, software robots, artificial intelligence, 3D modeling, "said Oksana Vysochanskaya.

It should be noted that some of the domestic software products are even becoming a priority for companies in the fuel and energy market, "added Igor Parfenov, director of the department for working with the enterprises of the Satel fuel and energy complex.

Intelligent Big Data Analysis

Among the fuel and energy companies, the request for the implementation of systems for the mining of large amounts of data remains.

Information about the quality and quantity of raw materials, the pace and volume of production - from all this you can benefit from algorithms. For example, predictive analytics obtained using machine learning allows you to predict changes in the operation of equipment, to conduct diagnostics in time - this helps to extend the service life of machines, "says Maxim Zubritsky.

In 2020, against the backdrop of pandemic and global processes, in particular, a decrease in production under the OPEC + deal, companies needed to optimize production, says Dmitry Seregin, director of the Energy department of Technoserv. To optimize production processes, enterprises, among other things, used predictive analytics systems and resorted to process mining.

At the same time, the most common implementation of predictive analytics in the field of equipment operation and repair, but so far it is going with varying success.

There are new requirements for the automation of equipment maintenance and repair management processes, which ensure complete automatic control of the state of the equipment and the transition from regulatory repairs to predictive repairs for the state of the equipment, which, in turn, leads to an increasing demand for IoT and virtual modeling technologies, "says Arkady Karev, vice president of the Borlas group.

In addition, solutions based on BigData and Machine Learning technologies can be aimed at monetizing technological data on the operation of equipment for generating and power grid companies. Sales companies can monetize data on customers, consumption profiles, identifying commercial losses and smart receivables management, adds Alexey Borisov, director of industry solutions at Krok in energy.

Mobile Jobs Growth

Experts notice an increase in the number of projects related to the creation of various mobile applications for fuel and energy enterprises.

This is primarily software for automating the activities of mobile teams and various inspectors, as well as means of providing convenient additional services for interacting with subscribers of energy retail companies. In general, mobile application technologies will be in demand further - due to the fact that territorial distribution is a common characteristic of business for fuel and energy enterprises, "explains TAdviser Arkady Karev.

The project manager of Reksoft Mikhail Yusupov adds that tablets and smartphones are used in the work of employees of oil depots, drivers of fuel trucks, regular employees of gas stations and other employees, with the help of which they report on the current results of work.

Increased attention to safety

Traditionally, the focus is on technological security, as a result - enterprises are actively interested in products in the field of information security.

Fuel and energy enterprises are often one of the main targets for terrorist hacker attacks, which can lead to technological malfunctions or cause a man-made disaster. Therefore, the issues of building integrated information security systems and, especially, the protection of research and development, are now being given great attention. The most important principle that allows you to build a controlled architecture that prevents attacks is the principle of segmentation of networks using unidirectional data gateways (Diode-class devices) on the perimeter of a critical infrastructure, "said Vladimir Leonov, technical director of AMT-Group, to TAdviser.

Sergey Ponomarev believes that the increased requirements for ensuring the security of storage and access to data entail the rejection of the use of public cloud solutions.

The ability to host the database on the enterprise server is one of the main criteria when choosing IT solutions, he adds.

Other trends

Other trends include growing demand for industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices and systems for interoperability and management. In tandem, peripheral computing (Edge Computing) goes with them.

They will compete with the cloud: depending on the goals and budgets, enterprises will choose one type or another. And the ubiquitous introduction of 5G networks, which will inevitably happen in the future, will make Edge even more valuable to industry due to the high growth in the number of APIs, which will expand programming capabilities and help eliminate infrastructure bottlenecks. All these technologies are indispensable when creating digital deposits, the projects of which, albeit delayed at the moment, are planned by most digitalization enterprises, "said Maxim Zubritsky.

Another trend is the "digital twins" of objects or processes. "Digital twins" of production processes are already appearing in some enterprises of the industry. The concept of the "digital twin," as well as "edge computing," in particular, was introduced into systems of remote monitoring and automated control of production processes, which are connected together within the framework of dedicated technology networks (private networks).

The interest of enterprises in developing complex applications on microservices is steadily growing.

Microservice architecture facilitates the integration of ERP, APCS systems and other critical applications of enterprises without the purchase of expensive software, "Valentina Kulagina noted in a conversation with TAdviser.

In addition, fuel and energy companies are striving to harmonize the software solutions that they use across platforms and development tools.

This is done in order to minimize future dependence on third-party IT service providers, while preserving the ability to service the solution with their own departments, "Dmitry Parshin, director of the development center of Artezio (Lanit Group of Companies), explained to TAdviser.

In addition to the general universal trends for all fuel and energy enterprises, specific trends of specific industries should also be mentioned. So, the key trends in energy consumption are the introduction of smart metering devices and the associated increase in interest in solutions for collecting and operational analytics on consumption, technical condition and other parameters, says Sergey Kolodey. According to him, the active development of electronic document management, billing and CRM systems is also associated with this.

Arkady Karev, vice president of the Borlas group, also expects an increase in the number of projects in the field of Smart Grid and Smart Metering.

The upcoming demand for these projects is not in any doubt, since the electric power industry has adopted a law on the mandatory installation of automated systems for commercial accounting of electricity (federal law of 27.12.2018 No. 522-FZ), under which enterprises must mandatory switch to smart meter technologies (Smart Metering and Smart Grid), he says.

In addition, stability of operation is very important in the power grid sector and the generation sector, so there is an active digitalization of equipment maintenance and repair, including monitoring the state of equipment, the operation of mobile teams, and the introduction of IoT for monitoring the state of equipment and transmitting infrastructure, adds Sergey Kolodey.

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