Coronavirus’s Impact On Internet of Things (IoT) in Utilities Market

IoT is considered as the next industrial revolution, Industry 4.0. The concept of IoT is to develop advanced solutions and services, enhance productivity & efficiency, solve critical problems, and improve real-time decisions. IoT is changing industry business models, and the utility industry is investing in IoT technology to transform its operations and enhance customer experience. In the current scenario, the utility industry is mostly governed by government policy and the need to comply with regulations. It is also driven by concerns about cost savings. Therefore, IoT helps the utility industry to overcome challenges and implement advanced services & solutions.

Furthermore, IoT connected utilities monitor support with real-time compliance and regulations about feeding power into the network to maximize remote monitoring & control in order to allow preventive maintenance. Moreover, IoT accelerates digital transformation in utilities. IoT technology helps the utility industry to shift to a decentralized process from a centralized one, and to remotely monitor energy consumption of the connected units and manage temporary shortfalls in energy.

IoT in utilities market is majorly driven by the rising adoption of smart meters. Smart meters provide real-time information about energy transmission and consumption. It is also boosting local and micro production of energy such as wind turbines and solar panels, which creates a platform for new revenue streams and improves efficiency of production and distribution. Furthermore, importance of IoT is rising in the energy sector due to the smart meter, as it enables digital measurement of consumer data. Decentralization of the energy sector is a key factor driving the IoT in utilities market. Some trends that are driving the adoption of IoT technologies in the utilities industry are regulation compliance & operational efficiency, strong customer relationships & new revenue streams, development of digital business models, and automatic meter reading.

A few restraining factors that are likely to hamper the IoT in utilities market are insufficiency of technically skilled workforce and a lack of standards. Increasing incidents of cyber security breaches across the industry is expected to restrain the IoT in utilities market.

The global IoT in utilities market can be segmented based on component, platform, and application. Based on component, the market can be classified into hardware, software, and services. The hardware segment can be further divided into sensors, RFID, connected devices, and others. The software segment can be bifurcated into on-premise and cloud.

The IoT utilities market witnesses several companies investing for advanced solutions and services. Some companies such as Microsoft Corporation are creating cloud ecosystem in order to support utilities for deployment of IoT. Furthermore, Microsoft Corporation is also expected to invest US$ 5 Bn in IoT in the near future. However, companies operating in the IoT in utilities market are announcing partnerships to launch advanced hardware, solutions, and services in order to manage and process the data generated by IoT platforms.