To predict failures in wind turbines, the recent team-up between Nokia Corp. and OSIsoft LLC enabled real-time data analysis of the turbines through high-speed wireless communications. At the Broken Bow II wind farm, Sempra Renewables LLC is currently running a trial to monitor its turbines with connected sensors, expected to cut the cost of repairs by up to 90 percent. With maintenance and operating costs accounting for close to 20 percent of the cost of wind power, reductions can make a potentially huge impact in renewables.

“We work across both energy companies that are in the mining oil gas, as well as the electric utility sector, encompassing distributed energy resources, generation, transmission, distribution and the like,” said Todd Nate (pictured, right), vice president of the global energy sales practice at Nokia. “We’re allowing them the ability to have a technology platform off which they can pivot, not only to be able to respond to the threats to the market but also the opportunities in a very quick fashion.”

Nate and Michael Kanellos (pictured, left), head of corporate communications and technology analyst at OSIsoft, spoke with Jeff Frick (@JeffFrick), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the PI World US event in San Francisco. They discussed the need for an immediate connection between customer data and the interpretation of that data. (* Disclosure below.)

Preventative maintenance decreases service disruptions

Many companies are exploring options to cut down on service disruptions. Preventative maintenance has become the key to achieving this goal, according to Nate. “It’s not only disrupting the energy companies themselves, it’s disrupting the client. Because you’ve got to remember the energy companies … don’t want to be caught without enough power,” he said.

Not only is maintenance important, but interaction with customers is also key. Customers demand certain energy, whether it be clean or cheap. This means that there are more, varied assets to keep track of, allowing OSIsoft and Nokia to create a specific environment their clients need.

“[A] highly interactive environment, [a] highly autonomous environment, and providing that connectivity, the pervasive connectivity, to enable that, whether it’s machine to machine, whether it is client to customer, and vice versa, it’s really an any-to-any environment, and that’s what we set up,” Nate concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the PI World US 2018 event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for PI World. Neither OSIsoft LLC, the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE