Energy companies could boost turnover by an average of 9% – equivalent to around US$217 million (£164 million) – over the next five years by adopting industrial internet of things (IIOT) technologies, but face numerous hurdles.
That was the conclusion of new research published by Inmarsat this week, which concluded that the energy sector had a “great deal to gain” from IIOT adoption.
The new report, dubbed ‘Industrial IOT on land and at sea’, found that energy companies were increasingly turning to IIOT applications in a bid to improve their capabilities across the spectrum, but most notably in fault monitoring and demand forecasting.
Inmarsat concluded that companies involved with the distribution of energy, like network operators, stood to benefit the most from IIOT applications and were typically ahead of the rest of the energy sector when it came to adopting the technologies.
But while the benefits were clear, respondents to Inmarsat’s survey flagged numerous concerns and hurdles to more widespread adoption of IIOT, including a lack of necessary skills, hesitance over expected returns on investment and fears over how IIOT might open up infrastructure owners and operators to cyber security threats.
Respondents were almost unanimous in their concerns over cyber security; 99% of those surveyed agreed that more widespread IIOT applications on the energy network would open them up to malicious attacks.
Paul Gudonis, president at Inmarsat Enterprise, said that while IIOT was emerging as a “major force” for modern enterprises, business were struggling to handle the challenges associated with their deployment at scale.
Meanwhile, just over a third of respondents (34%) said they considered there to be a lack of requisite skill sets in the energy sector to truly understand and extract value from IIOT technologies, with 80% expecting to outsource much of their management to third-party contractors.
But those concerns have not stymied early-stage adopters. Around 44% of those surveyed said they had already deployed IIOT technologies and around 90% expect to have deployed full solutions by the end of next year.