By Ashwini Nagendra Prasad, HEXstream lead—Integrations Center of Excellence

Utilities’ networks are growing more complex, more distributed, and generating more data every day. This is a good thing. It means we’re working smarter and implementing the new tools and techniques available to help us operate more efficiently. 

But that complexity, particularly in aligning utilities’ OT assets with the IT functions that optimize operations, can be overwhelming. That’s where tools like Oracle Utilities Live Energy Connect (LEC) become incredibly valuable. 

In short, LEC simplifies operational technology systems and the related device integration. LEC helps manage the system of systems within today’s smart grid as an operational technology-centric middleware platform that supports all major protocols, including ICCP, OPC, and DNP3.

The focus is integrating physical systems in real time. OT systems in the utilities sector are aging, they are increasingly in distributed environments that are difficult to access. They rely on point-to-point interactions. LEC helps manage these tricky systems–far beyond a mere SCADA approach–with today’s smart-grid strategies. LEC is a different class of technology. It can link to legacy applications and all OT systems to exchange data in real time. LEC is going to be a game-changer. 

With distributed energy resources (DERs), we have many more OT devices within our systems; think about all of the new EV-charging stations and smart sensors all with their own protocols. As an OT-centric middleware, LEC can handle whatever growth your utility experiences. It is flexible enough to add any and all new devices and all of the corresponding new protocols while managing the full flow of data across your OT systems to better predict demand patterns and better recognize grid-optimization opportunities. 

I tell my clients, “Spend your time and money reaping benefits from your data, not replacing the products you use to collect your data.” 

So where do we fit into all of this? 

HEXstream’s role is to help clients implement LEC. We manage the implementation, we perform the design and integrations, we manage the maintenance and support alongside our Oracle counterparts. We have unsurpassed utility-industry knowledge that we apply to LEC implementations. As an Oracle partner, we can reduce clients’ development costs and technical risks and quicken their time to market. 

Who can LEC benefit?

• Utilities that are spending too much time and money integrating their systems. 

• Utilities that want to eliminate time-consuming custom code writing for all of their integrations.

• Utilities that don’t fully understand how they can meet the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards. 

• Utilities struggling with extracting their information and properly loading their data. 

• Utilities that want to adapt to changing regulator requirements. 

If any of those sound like your utility, we’d love to talk with you about LEC. Click here to connect with us.