As Australia’s energy system scales up for a net zero future, Autodesk shares key strategies to streamline the sector’s digital transformation.
The transition to renewable energy is well underway, with significant investments being made to scale and renew existing infrastructure.
Energy providers must constantly balance the short-term pressures of network reliability with the longer-term imperative to build capacity for future demand, while also maintaining compliance and grappling with a skills shortage.
Efficiently modernising infrastructure is critical to ensuring reliability for today and building resilience for tomorrow. However, managing multiple large-scale and highly complex capital projects can be slowed by siloed teams and spiralling costs.
Implementing a digital strategy can go a long way in reducing these pressures, helping to minimise inefficiencies, increase project predictability and attract a new generation of skilled and sustainably driven talent.
To drive innovation and long-term resilience, adopting a digital-first approach is essential.
Digitising enables effective collaboration across the organisation and more control over costs and timelines, and provides the data needed for asset optimisation. This ultimately leads to greater operational efficiency and improved talent acquisition and retention.
Focusing on an asset’s entire lifecycle – from creation to operation – and ensuring new projects are digital from day one is key.
Autodesk suggests three strategies to digitally transform energy infrastructure.
A digital approach to asset ideation and creation
The design, engineering and production of assets, such as substations and transformers, can be enhanced with digital design and collaboration tools. This strategy aims to optimise infrastructure projects, innovate greener solutions and improve supply chain management and agility.
Components and systems can be re-engineered at the design stage to minimise environmental impact.
For example, when given specific parameters and desired outcomes, generative design tools can help engineers explore designs that use more sustainable raw materials and minimise waste. Similarly, simulation in a virtual environment allows design teams to optimise products without the waste of physical prototypes.
Streamline capital projects with digital project delivery
Another strategy is taking a digital approach to all capital projects to help optimise costs and schedules.
Ensuring new projects are planned, engineered and delivered digitally from day one provides the data needed to maximise infrastructure performance once operational.
The ability to control project data that typically sits in silos across multiple delivery partners, for example, gives greater visibility over the entire project, facilitating accountability throughout the ecosystem of delivery partners.
A comprehensive digital platform integrates all aspects of the project lifecycle, allowing stakeholders to work in parallel and exchange the right data at the right time.
It also provides valuable insights, with historical data offering an opportunity to identify underlying patterns behind previous successes and failures.
Leverage technology ecosystems for digitised asset operation and maintenance
Optimising the health and performance of assets begins with making use of technology ecosystems to capture and utilise data across all stages of asset management.
Implementing solutions like digital twins, real-time monitoring systems, and internet of things (IoT) sensors creates a holistic, data-driven view of assets.
A dynamic digital model provides crucial insights into asset health, usage patterns and potential risks, enabling proactive asset management.
In addition, integrating real-time data with digital models offers predictive capabilities for timely maintenance and rapid response to emerging issues.
Incorporating digitisation into processes helps generate the data to understand what is happening across energy infrastructure, from design and engineering to project delivery and ongoing operation and maintenance.
This approach mitigates compliance risks, meets increasing customer demand and supports the journey to net zero.
As Australia charges ahead with its energy transformation, Autodesk is helping the industry scale its infrastructure and take control of the entire asset lifecycle.
For more information, visit autodesk.com.au
