ICT for better connected power grids

ICT solutions provider Huawei recently hosted its second Global Power Industry Summit in Brisbane, Australia. The event, themed ‘Innovative ICT Empowers Better Connected Smart Grids’, gathered representatives from power companies, industry organisations and the academic community from around the world to share insights and best practices on building connected smart grids and explore upcoming trends in the power industry.

As part of the event, Huawei and IDC also released a joint report titled ‘Innovative ICT Empower a Better Connected Smartgrid’, and Christopher Holme, Senior Analyst of International Data Corporation (IDC) spoke about the role of innovative ICT technology in building better connected power grids.

“A better connected smart grid has four major features. Firstly, it should be interactive and compatible with renewable energy resources, then it requires a smarter dispatch that could adjust the electricity tariffs that regulate power consumption demands. In the meantime, IT and OT will be coordinated in the future that ask for a consolidated grid, and there is one pre-condition underlying these features, which is a robust and self-healing capability. A better smart grid will be a fully connected grid that provides electricity everywhere at every second, and utilises every watt,” said David He, president of marketing and solution sales, Huawei Enterprise Business Group.

The event included a number of keynote presentations and roundtable sessions including the first keynote session themed ‘Future Electricity Needs a Better Connected Smart Grids’, where executives from an Australian power company and Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation delivered insightful presentations on using smart grids to achieve enhanced response times and integrating IT and OT (operation technology) for power grids.