Utilities are continuously under an adaptation process, stressed Mihai Dârzan, general manager of Ringhel, during the event “Energy Breakfast Club: Utilities – beyond horizon“, organized by energynomics.ro. New needs are emerging in the market, every quarter or every month, new regulations and new types of concepts, such as blockchain trading, are emerging.
“Digitization is the solution, and this means not a singular action, but rather a process, a mindframe and a way of action. It is a process over a longer period of time, which requires a sustained effort from the participants. It also brings great benefits: collecting and integrating data from internal and external sources, increasing process transparency and easy reporting both internally and towards the regulator.
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Mihai Dârzan insisted on two important elements. The first is the creation of a data hub to facilitate communication between all market participants. The second has to do with the reporting process: “Reports need to be redesigned, so that ad-hoc information to be required no more, but to offer centralized access, and information structured in different ways,” he said.
Digitization offers the ability to react quickly to market movements with aggregated and up-to-date data, as well as the ability to interact with customers quickly, safely and easily, to provide them with accurate data and services.
“Most of the time, digitization is not an easy process, it requires the allocation of technical and business resources from both sides. Many stages of documentation and analysis must be completed. Since 2014 we have participated in many processes of implementation to our customers and we found that the lack of documentation and analyses are among the biggest obstacles”, he says.
The regulatory authority should not have the role of innovation, admits Mihai Dârzan, but it should support digitization through specific measures, to ensure that the market is open and transparent and that access to market is easy. “It has to set the rules of the game in order for the market to evolve,” says Dârzan. “Digitization will change the energy system in ways we wouldn’t even been able to imagine a few years ago. The energy sector is used to think in terms of decades, and the energy world is a slow moving entity. Digitization brings a completely different dynamic. Things are changing at a much faster pace and we have to think in terms of years, if not in terms of months”, Dârzan said, when presenting the company’s services.
Ringhel was established in 2011, but it was only since 2014 that the utilities have manifested their interest for software solutions to digitize their activity. “When we started, the word ‘digitization’ was everyone’s darling; now, everybody uses it; digitization and automation, these are the words we hear almost every day.”
Energy Breakfast Club was organized by energynomics.ro with the support of our partners: BCR România, Control Point powered by Valmet, Eaton Electric, Photon Energy, Ridgid – Emerson, Ringhel, Stratum Enclosures, Tinmar.