For Immediate Release

HEXstream has launched its second-annual State of Utilities Report, which shares perspectives of some three hundred respondents to a survey focused on outage-management data, the acceleration of cloud computing, and developing actionable insights from utilities’ data.

Some trends that leap out among the survey findings include:
• Utilities are struggling to get accurate views of energy losses throughout their distribution networks.
• Challenges related to outage management are diverse and persistent. The lack of insights derived
from proper outage-management analysis is crippling utilities’ ability to prevent outages and
respond to them efficiently.
• Energy teams recognize the benefits of cloud computing, but various factors limit cloud adoption.
Similarly, strategic data integration is a recognized goal, but remains a challenge for many.
• There are multiple, diverse drivers for adopting smarter asset-management infrastructure.
• The overwhelming majority of respondents (88%) are gaining actionable insights from their data…an encouraging sign, notes HEXstream. for all of us who are invested in efficient utility operations. And the fact that this notes an increase from last year’s survey indicates that we’re headed in the right direction, they add.

Jamal Syed, HEXstream president and CEO, stated:  

This week we launched our annual report informed by insights gleaned from hundreds of professionals surveyed on trends in the utilities space. I encourage you to get your copy. Before you dive into the report, I’d like to share some of my thoughts.  

Utility operators know their businesses. They have been supplying us with power for decades and leadership within the energy sector are usually on the cutting edge of technology and techniques that enable them to operate more efficiently. I trust their perspectives on where we’re headed and how digitalization of processes is getting us there.  

Many of the shared challenges expressed in this report can be remedied by utilizing the data more accurately and efficiently. Using artificial intelligence, particularly with predictive and prescriptive analysis, can empower utility operators to improve performance.  

We at HEXstream are committed to AI approaches in all processes and are unveiling new solutions in the coming months that can supercharge operations. 2025 is the year of AI in utilities and HEXstream agentic AI solutions will help our customers utilize AI and ML to improve their performance.  

65% of survey respondents said they are considering moving their OMS to the cloud. Several utilities with whom we work have either moved or in the process of moving their AT and CT systems to the cloud, but there has been a hesitancy in moving OT in cloud for various reasons. I am happy to see that utilities are overcoming their inhibitions about it and are open to discover the possibilities in “looking up.”  

Around 72% of respondents for our report claimed that their biggest OMS data challenge is achieving real-time data synchronization between source and downstream applications. This mirrors what we’ve experienced with our customers. The good news is that HEXstream has a solution to this problem and several of our customers are taking advantage of it.  

Research reports like this always include a few surprises. With this report, I found it interesting how many survey respondents are confident in their ability to accurately identify energy losses in their distribution networks. This is a good thing, but there’s always room for improvement (which 52% of respondents noted). We see this with our customers—a recognition of the problem with distribution losses and a desire to remedy them as quickly as possible.  

As solution providers, we use insights from research like this to inform some of our approaches. Take, for example, Energy and Water Data Intelligence, which we are co-developing with Oracle, providing a comprehensive, cloud-based data analytics platform that can aggregate all operational silos to utilize a robust data feed for better performance. EWDI addresses many of the challenges detailed in this report; I’m excited to see the platform roll out more widely in 2025.  

CLICK HERE TO GET YOUR COPY OF OUR 2025 STATE OF UTILITIES REPORT.

Contact: Chris McNamara, HEXstream director of marketing & communications, chris.mcnamara@hexstream.com or 312-806-6908.