The global energy sector is undergoing rapid transformation, with renewable energy, natural gas and alternate clean fuels at the forefront of the shift toward sustainability and energy security, driven by digital innovation. Nations worldwide are aligning with this energy transition by embracing cleaner alternatives, technology-driven solutions, and diversified energy portfolios. However, this growth brings several operational challenges, which are common across energy infrastructure projects worldwide. Key issues include data fragmentation, unaccounted-for gas (UAFG), power transmission and distribution losses, instrumentation and metering inaccuracies, asset integrity data silos, operational inefficiencies, and rising cybersecurity threats. Addressing these challenges requires advanced process automation & integrated new age technology solutions that support real-time monitoring, automated reconciliation, anomaly detection, and resilient operations.
The rapid advancement of Industry 4.0 driven by automation, digitalisation and AI and the emergence of Industry 5.0 ambitions emphasising the balance between new age technologies and human well-being, creativity and sustainability, have ushered in a new era of industrial transformation. The multiple challenges faced by the Indian energy sector have made adoption of new-age digital technologies and AI, a necessity. Such fast paced developments and integrated operations are also posing escalating cyber threats to these critical infrastructure operations.
In the Indian energy sector, the emerging growth scenario poses enormous opportunities while bringing along immense challenges. As India charts its path towards a $5 trillion economy, clean energy transition is an important cog in the wheel in this growth endeavour. The Indian government is committed to a net zero target, putting in place an integrated energy transition strategy. At the same time, the Indian energy industry provides unprecedented opportunities and complex challenges, in the light of expanding thermal power generation and distribution infrastructure, creation of a national gas grid of transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Some of the important goals of the Indian government gives a clearer picture of the shape of things to come – Integration of Renewable Energy targeted to reach 500 GW capacity by 2030; Gas industry target to increase the share
of natural gas in India’s energy basket from 6.5 % today to 15%
– implying that the current consumption of natural gas must jump multiple times from the current 70 BCM to 200+ BCM by 2030; Creation and operation of a National Gas Grid of more than 50000+ KM of gas pipeline network.
There is a compelling need for the government and the industry to work closely with the right technology partners and implement robust system through the project phase and later, during operations.
In the midst of this growth, Alethe Group, an Indian Energy Tech and OT security company, is making major strides in unlocking the full potential of digital technologies by providing state-of-the-art AI and Digital solutions for the energy sector and end-to-end cyber security for business and operations (OT Security) across various industries.
The enormity of the task is better understood by understanding the key imperatives and challenges facing the power and gas sectors, as depicted below:
Power Sector – Key Imperatives and Challenges
Key Imperatives
- Creating a cleaner future
- Building reliable grid operations
- Integrating cleaner energy supplies eg. solar,wind energy etc, from multiple locations into the grid
- Data Integration, Business Analytics
- Scalability and OT Security
Key Needs and Challenges
- Reduction in Emissions
- Improving auxiliary power consumption
- Reduction in maintenance costs (Predictive Maintenance)
- Improved Safety through Data Integration and Analytics
- Diagnosis and cutting of T&D losses
- Operational Efficiency and Asset Security
Gas Sector – Key Imperatives and Challenges
Key Imperatives
- Creating a cleaner future
- Building a reliable , efficient and safe network operations
- Digital Twin of Assets and Processes – Key components of the system like Gas Turbines / Compressor operations, Instrumentation and Metering spread across the states
- Data Integration, Business Analytics
- Scalability and OT Security
Key Needs and Challenges
- Diagnosis and cutting of Loss and Unaccounted for Gas
- Gas Leak detection
- Reduction in maintenance costs (Predictive Maintenance)
- Improved Safety through Data Integration and Analytics
- Operational Efficiency and Asset Security
Gas Transmission Sector
In sectors like pipeline gas transmission, city gas distribution and gas processing, the process of data validation and reconciliation of gas input and output is critical for ensuring measurement accuracy and accountability of the overall process to increase efficiency & reduce losses. Accurate reconciliation is the first step in detecting and mitigating gas losses, which may arise from metering / measurement errors, data entry issues, leaks, theft, or operational faults.
To tackle these challenges effectively, advanced process automation & new age digital technologies are essential. This paper provides the details of the technological solutions and AI technologies based on our company’s implementation experience.
The combination of process automation, real-time streaming data processing, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is proving to be transformative for the gas industry including but not limited to pipeline, refinery, process plant & more. These technologies allow continuous collection and analysis of large volumes of operational
data across geographically distributed systems. Real-time streaming enables immediate anomaly detection, while AI/ ML models trained on historical data enhance predictive diagnostics and proactive decision-making.
The use cases in major oil and gas companies have shown that Machine learning techniques have helped in identifying complex patterns and correlations, such as metering deviations caused by pressure and temperature fluctuations, which might go undetected using traditional statistical methods.
Case studies from large gas networks (size of approx. 15000 KM) demonstrate that implementing unified reconciliation & data validation, process automation using AI based platforms for metering, reconciliation, and diagnostics can significantly reduce UAFG, enhance efficiency, and support sustainable operations.
Power transmission and Distribution
Similar to the Diagnostics and AI / ML models implemented
in the gas sector, the power sector also needs solutions to address their more complex problems. The Indian power sector has historically been facing challenges of transmission and distribution inefficiencies resulting in significant power T&D losses, power outages, revenue losses and unreliable last-mile networks. Integration of renewable energy on a large scale, compounds the problem in terms of ensuring grid stability and reliability of supplies.
Power-plants do often suffer from a lack of visibility into operations due to its expansive networks and there are persistent issues of reliability, safety and compliance, as the data needed to operate the facility are highly scattered and lie in different silos. To overcome this challenge, power system operators need a connected, automated and digitally enabled system that provides a platform to gather huge amounts of data from multiple locations, perform robust analysis to provide operational intelligence, enhance system safety, ensure significantly better power availability and meet internal and external regulatory compliances.
OT security – the backbone for reliable and secure operations
As the systems get tightly integrated and digitally enabled and connected across multiple locations, sophisticated cyber-attacks on both Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) systems will be a major challenge to tackle and they are on the rise globally.
These attacks pose a direct and indirect threat to critical infrastructure networks and apply across industry on all critical infrastructure – manufacturing, telecommunication, energy, aviation etc.
Operations would need end-to-end OT Security solutions to cover the Enterprise zone at the highest level to the Manufacturing / Operations Zone to the Cell / Area zone. The OT Security Fabric protects the digital attack surface of OT and IT networks. Deploying such an end to end security
system is a journey to a desired state that provides visibility, integration, automation, and resilience in your security environment. The Security Fabric can be achieved in stages that are aligned with organisational security priorities.
In conclusion, digitalisation and AI technologies in Operations and OT Cyber Security go hand in hand. A holistic approach to implementation is the need of the hour. In the digital transformation journey, it is always recommended: Think and plan holistically and implement in stages. Integrated approach and strategy is the key for cost optimisation, security and long term value.
Ravishankar
Chief Executive Officer
Alethe Labs India Pvt Ltd
+91 98106 16643
