Security is a cornerstone in resilience for utilities in meeting the challenges of the day in their digital transformation. Resilience is an increasingly multi-faceted term for utilities today encompassing not only the traditional storm preparedness but the many other technical and business challenges being brought by the three ’Ds’ – decarbonisation, decentralisation and digitalisation – of the energy transition. These challenges are set to intensify into the future as the sector evolves, and as the last year has shown us with the COVID-19 pandemic and governments’ responses to it, they are coming with an increasing level of uncertainty brought about by external factors.

Cybersecurity

One example is the widely reported outcome of the past year of an acceleration in the number of cyber attacks on individuals and businesses. Cybersecurity has been a growing concern for the sector over the past decade with the build out of smart metering and smart grids. In a recent Global Power and Energy Elites webinar , cybersecurity was polled as the number one threat to a resilient business, well ahead of the next placed weather preparedness and electrification of transport and other sectors.

“I would say that is absolutely not surprising,” commented Vivian Bouet, Chief Information Officer of the Texas utility CPS Energy and one of the webinar panellists. “As you look throughout the nation, the elevated sense of threats is very disturbing and utilities and like businesses are beginning to see that this is something they have to pay attention to. Because the landscape changed so significantly and it’s escalated at a pace that is quite alarming, keeping pace with that it’s going to be really important.” The wide-ranging webinar brought together four diverse utilities from […]

Image: Oracle