DIGITAL DEVICES | UPGRADING AND UPRATING


Tiny technologies, big changes


Are small digital technologies a threat or an opportunity for the nuclear industry?


FOR THE NUCLEAR INDUSTRY, THE type of new technology that hits the headlines is often about big new developments and large technological advances. It’s new reactor designs, like the three reactor designs certified by the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, or small modular reactors. The same narrative applies for other power sectors too, like the rapid scaling up of offshore wind. But while the headline news across the electricity sector has often been about new forms of large generation, beneath the surface the sector has seen a different revolution – one that is centred around the small and the virtual. The energy industry – like other industries such as


manufacturing and transport – is benefitting from some major global trends like the dramatic cost reductions and explosion in use of small electronic devices like sensors. These solid-state devices can be embedded into systems and networks where their capabilities are rapidly increasing. They are intimately coupled with similar reductions in the cost and flexibility of storing huge


amounts of data, as companies move to ‘cloud’ storage. For the energy sector that also means the active participation of hundreds of new small-scale and specialist parties, from traders and asset managers to the owners of distributed generation. These are all opportunities, but they are threats to nuclear plant operators as well.


The data feedback loop Embedded devices such as sensors are becoming ubiquitous. In its review of manufacturing trends in 2019, Microsoft noted that the cost of motion sensors had fallen from $1.30 per unit in 2004 to $0.44 per unit in 2018. Costs are still falling, and Microsoft predicts that there will be over 36 billion connected devices by 2021. Metering company Landis and Gyr looked at the use of


sensors in electricity distribution networks and it too found that costs were continuing to fall. It highlighted a reduction in sensor prices from $0.66 per unit in 2010 to $0.29 per unit in 2020 – and it predicted a simultaneous increase in the market for such sensors from $2.3 billion in 2021 to $3.8 billion by 2026.


These billions of embedded electronic devices (EDDs)


provide a tsunami of data. In the past, that was not always a benefit as the limits to storage and processing were fairly low. But in the same way the cost of sensors has fallen, the cost and options for data storage and processing have also changed. The difference is so-called ‘cloud’ storage. Previously, installing large individual company-based


data stores represented a high capital cost, and hence a risk and barrier to making full use of data from EDDs. But ‘cloud’ services are flexible and have a relatively low upfront cost. They are being used more and more by electricity sector companies as initial concerns over data security and reliability have been overcome. The advent of cloud services and ‘storage as a service’ or ‘software as a service’ models has resulted in a feedback loop whereby the barrier to using the data from EDDs has disappeared and that has consequently made the installation and use of EDDs more likely. Energy industries were initially slow to adopt the cloud,


Above: Embedded digital devices present many advantages but also potential risks for the nuclear business Photo credit: Michael Dziedzic, Unsplash


due to concerns over data security. But those concerns have faded and cloud services are now routinely used by the energy industry, as well as by companies which provide software or central services (such as settlement) to energy companies. The concern that remains? In practice the ‘cloud’ is misnamed. It is a very ground-based set of data storage facilities that rely mainly on just three suppliers: Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google. That small number of providers is regarded as a concern in itself and has been U


www.neimagazine.com | June 2022 | 35


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