Ten Years Gone: The Energy Evolution as seen through DistribuTECH

By H. Christine Richards

At DistribuTECH 2006 I was a junior analyst at IDC Energy Insights fresh out of grad school — with just a hint of gray hair. I remember taking a course at the event to learn the basics of T&D, and at the time we were figuring out when IDC needed to launch a smart grid — or intelligent grid — research service. Which term would stick? Needless to say, a lot has changed since then.

It’s been fascinating to use DistribuTECH as a measure of change in the industry — from changing technologies to changing economics to changing companies. In this article, we’ll take a look at the energy industry through the lens of DistribuTECH over the past 10 years, and talk about the significant transformations we saw in the industry at this year’s event.

A Look Back Across 10 Years

From 2006 through 2008, smart meters and the smart grid were taking off and new vendors flooded the marketplace to serve these emerging technology needs. Things were looking up, but then came the Great Recession. I dug into my digital archives and pulled out one of my earliest writings on DistribuTECH from 2009:

“People across North America — and beyond — descended upon San Diego for a break from winter and, in a way, a break from the economic turmoil. With crystal clear days and temperatures in the 70s, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a few days at DistribuTECH. I figured the conference would be a bunch of doom and gloom, but it was a nice break from economic situation, but I knew it would only last for a little while. Even in San Diego, the industry couldn’t entirely escape. The clouds were looming. Rain and 50 degrees were forecasted for the weekend (that is winter there). Winter lingered on the horizon in San Diego in more ways than one.

“People were still optimistic about the future of the smart grid and intelligent utility. There were projects going on, announcements about new deals between vendors and utilities. Vendors were looking to the 3rd and 4th quarters of this year as possibilities for activity to pick up. Everyone was keeping a close eye on economic stimulus plans, with the potential for billions of investment.

“At the same, signs of the economic crisis lingered. Attendance numbers were about the same as last year, but the balance between utilities and vendors had shifted. As utilities cut back on travel budgets, vendors seemed to send more people to the conference to better their chances of capturing whatever business was out there. And this year, it wasn’t just utilities approaching vendors, but vendors approaching vendors. A few larger vendors that I spoke with said that they were approached by other vendors looking for partnership opportunities. One person pointed out that it seemed like some smaller companies ultimately wanted to be acquired in order to survive the economic crisis.

“Aside from economic woes, it seems like the technology focus shifts further and further away from just distribution networks. One year it was smart meters, then end-user devices — like home energy displays. This year there was much more talk about building automation and even partnerships between utilities and cities for joint projects on things like street light programs. It reflects what we see as the trend for the smart grid. It is not just about the utility in isolation anymore. Utilities will increasingly have to interact with other groups, building in more information and interaction across as the energy value chain and even beyond it. That’s where the biggest challenges are because it is not where utilities traditionally have had control.”

Wow, that was heavy. Yet, even in the doom and gloom of 2009, there was the hint of bigger things to come that are now being realized — things like smart cities and the internet of things. And from 2009 on, the topic areas continued to expand. Beyond smart meters and smart grid, we saw the DistribuTECH data and analytics rush of 2012, then on to the Cloud, and then managed services in 2015.

DistribuTECH in 2016

Unlike those gloomy days of 2009, DistribuTECH 2016 buzzed — there was so much going on and so many folks there — and yet for the first time in 10 years I didn’t see a clear theme or idea that resonated throughout the conference.

Even the DistribuTECH theme, Focused on the Future, was vague. What does that really mean? What is this future we’re focused on? No one really seemed to agree, and it couldn’t be couched in a single buzzword. However, the uncertainty definitely had a different vibe from 2009, it is one of immense opportunity instead of the survival of these technologies. Here are some key things I noticed this year:

• What is the future? Like we’ve talked about in recent articles, the accumulation of technologies that have poured into the utility industry over the past several years is transforming the very essence of the industry. At DistribuTECH no one could give me a great answer of what a utility company will look like in five years, or whether they’ll even exist.
• The actualization of buzzwords from DistribuTECH’s past. Okay, so the future is unclear, but at the same time industry needs to fulfill the ideas of buzzwords from DistribuTECH’s past. DistribuTECH represents the marketing mania by solution providers. The event plows through buzzwords — from smart meters to smart grid to managed services — but what is actually being done in these areas? There is a still a lot of progress to be made. An ABB survey released at DistribuTECH showed that much of the smart grid and smart meter data has yet to be used to its fullest potential. And an Oracle research project showed that is the Cloud is finally starting to get past the hype and head on its way to broader adoption by utilities several years after it was first hyped at DistribuTECH.
• Who wasn’t there. I primarily cruised the show floor, and it was interesting to note companies that are or could significantly alter the industry weren’t a part of the discussion. Think about groups like Google, Nissan, Tesla, Solar City. The energy industry has expanded its scope over the years, but DistribuTECH is still very focused on the utility when there is a broader energy conversation that needs to happen.
• Partnerships. I’ve seen a lot of mergers and acquisitions over the years, but this year seemed to be more about partnerships to address the complex needs of the industry. With all these technologies converging — the internet of things, machine learning, huge data sources, distributed energy resources, and the list goes on — there were partnerships everywhere. Companies like SAS, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, OSIsoft are coming together to address the complexity. No one company has a solution that can address everything anymore.

The industry has come a long way, but we still have a ways to go. This is something we’ll continue tracking: the massive change going on in the industry. Help us track this change by participating in Zpryme’s first Chaos Index survey. We want to hear from you about how all this industry change looks from your perspective. Take the survey here.

About ETS16 (March 29–31, Austin, TX)

We’d also love to have you participate in the deeper discussions about the change taking place at ETS16, March 29–31 in Austin, Texas. Learn more about the event here.

H. Christine Richards is the research director for Zpryme. You may contact her at h.christine.richards@zpryme.com.