HCL Technologies and Indra partner in the utilities space

HCL Technologies (HCL) and Indra, a top technology and consulting company, have tied up to bring an industry Internet of Things (IoT) solution - Active Grid Management (AGM) - in the utilities space.

The AGM solution demonstrates how the convergence of IT and OT driven by IoT solutions bring cost-effective data intelligence to secondary substations and other grid assets that have historically not justified these investments. With the increasing penetration of renewables and other distributed energy resources (DERs), utilities are seeing the value of monitoring grid assets on the low-voltage system.

The Active Grid Management solution is designed for utilities that are responding to significant and rapid changes in the way electricity is being generated. The AGM solution consists of software and edge device components, built on top of a powerful IoT platform (iSPEED) that supports M2M technology, data filtering, big data management, and power analytics.

The modular architecture achieves these key goals: 1) powerful edge computing capabilities, 2) seamless interoperability, 3) grid scalability, and 4) zero-touch deployments. The gateway and installed devices (sensors and analyzers) are part of the Intel ecosystem, assuring security, interoperability and manageability of the deployed components.

These tools enable benefits that lower Opex and Capex through improved grid management, maintenance, monitoring, and planning. It also results in better grid observability and situational awareness that translates into faster recovery from outages, more accurate energy and load forecasting, and improved power quality.