Energy utilities

Ericsson’s Energy-Smart Site for Utilities

Upgrade your utility communication network with intelligent, sustainable, and efficient energy management solution for utility cell sites.

IoT Device Certification Program for Utilities

Together, Ericsson and CTIA have developed an IoT device certification program for utility devices, ensuring security and reliability.

Our cellular technology is empowering energy utility companies to:

The height of efficiency

How drones are raising inspection standards

Energy companies are increasingly choosing to operate equipment remotely, in order to raise safety and efficiency,

Camera-equipped and connected drones are able to inspect areas that can be hazardous to workers, such as reactors, transmission towers, power lines, wind turbines, and solar panels.

This approach is transforming how energy-producing facilities are inspected for the better. High-definition delivers the sharpest video, ensuring that remote inspections provide the same experience as a traditional inspection but without the safety risk. High bandwidth, required for live 4k video streams, and ultra low latency, for accurate control of the in-flight drone, are both available through cellular private networks.

Use case

Remote site inspections

With a private LTE or 5G cellular network delivering the sky-high connectivity that drones need, drone inspections can yield real results. According to estimates, this includes reducing downtime during inspections by 80%, cutting inspection times by 83%, and reducing operator exposure to radiation by 80%. Arthur D. Little have suggested that if all nuclear plants were to switch to drone inspections, together they would save USD $1.7bn.

Pushing for change

Phasing out the legacy equipment

Even though they’re costly to maintain and prone to outages, most of the energy industry still uses legacy network systems. So in the coming years, modernizing this legacy equipment will be necessary to ensure a secure and therefore reliable energy supply, and to enable future digitalization.

While phasing out will be expensive, it will be cost-efficient in the long run, and the new solutions will offer opportunities to boost safety and reliability levels by up to 40%, according to McKinsey. Arthur D Little state that for energy companies, the reduced annual systems costs will account for up to 80% of total savings and benefits.

The opportunities in replacing legacy equipment come from innovative new network solutions, such as push-to-talk and push-to-video.

Use case

Push-to-video

Private networks can deliver high-speed, high-volume data services like push-to-video. This can capture detailed images of equipment in need of service and get direct expert assistance on-site from a supervisor. Enabling push-to-video can reduce transportation needs and cut service costs from by 20%.

Expecting the unexpected

Keeping plants running with predictive maintenance

As operations become more digitalized and data-driven, energy utility companies are using this data to decrease downtime and operating expenditure.

By applying predictive maintenance, intelligent tracking of machines reduces downtime by predicting when faults may happen. Reduced downtime costs represents 50% of the total savings from predictive maintenance, with the other 50% from reduced service and labor costs, according to Arthur D. Little.

Capturing, collecting, and evaluating data lakes is only possible with a 5G network like Ericsson’s, providing the required ultra-high network security, low latency, and high connection density.

Use case

Predictably efficient

Both maintenance costs and production downtime can be improved through predictive maintenance. By analyzing the huge amount of data collected through sensors, energy utility companies can detect faults, prevent leakage, and fix grid failures more quickly. According to Arthur D. Little, this can reduce downtime by 32%, reduce maintenance sessions needed per plant by 25%, and reduce loss of income through downtime by 25%.