Author

Sam Hill

Published

14 August 2026

Estimated Read time

6Mins

Sam Hill, Investment Analyst at TDK Ventures tells us why electrical transformers must evolve to enable them to deal with the power demands of the AI age.

The electrical transformer is one of the 19th century’s most enduring engineering achievements. Designed to step voltage up or down, conventional iron-core transformers have been the backbone of our power grids for over a century. As a testament to their ingenuity, the technology has remained largely unchanged in its fundamentals, consistently facilitating power delivery to cities, factories and data centres alike.

However, as the demands on the grid fundamentally shift, so too must the transformer. The boom in demand for energy infrastructure – driven by renewables, BESS proliferation, electrification, and more recently, the massive requirements of AI compute – has placed the conventional transformer at the centre of an emerging bottleneck.

Inherently passive, these devices cannot adapt to the bidirectional power flows of distributed solar, nor can they respond to real-time fault conditions on a dynamic grid. Modern applications, such as data centres and megawatt-scale charging facilities, demand significantly higher power densities and efficiencies, creating a growing mismatch with legacy infrastructure and necessitating eventual replacement of the installed base. The U.S. grid alone hosts an estimated 60 to 80 million distribution transformers today; well over half of these units are more than 35 years old and are rapidly approaching the end of their design life.

Despite burgeoning demand, supply is failing to scale. Lead times for manufacturing, fabrication and delivery now exceed 24 months, while prices in certain categories have risen as much as ninefold. Even as lead times extend, incumbent manufacturers have remained reluctant to expand capacity, concerned with geopolitical and policy uncertainty, questions over the sustainability of demand growth and structural incentives to maintain constrained supply. Ultimately, the conventional transformer is becoming the grid’s most consequential bottleneck.

Solid state transformers for expanded capability

The solid-state transformer (SST) is emerging to solve this bottleneck. While a conventional transformer relies on copper windings around a laminated ferrous metal core to inductively transfer energy, an SST performs the same voltage conversion using high-frequency power semiconductors. Often based on silicon carbide, these semiconductors switch thousands of times per second, resulting in a device that is smaller and lighter, yet far more efficient and robust.

Power flow is actively controlled by software at all times. This enables SSTs to function as dynamic, programmable power platforms rather than passive components. The SST can accept and deliver both AC and DC inputs and outputs across a range of voltages, each reconfigurable within the same device. This level of control means SSTs can absorb the functions of several conventional components – step-down transformers, UPS systems, protection switchgear and power factor correction banks – into a single integrated platform.

Because SSTs are built from semiconductor components rather than wound copper and electrical steel, their manufacturing lead times align with electronics supply chains instead of the volatile commodity metal markets. Consequently, their cost trajectory follows semiconductor learning curves rather than commodity price cycles. Furthermore, modular SST architectures can handle failures through redundancy and be repaired in minutes through hot swapping of individual power stages, bringing significant reliability benefits to critical infrastructure.

SSTs on the critical path for data centres

The most immediate and commercially urgent application for SSTs is the AI data centre. Power architectures underpinning today’s hyperscale facilities were originally designed for rack densities measured in single-digit kilowatts. However, NVIDIA’s latest GPU clusters demand hundreds of kilowatts per rack — a trajectory pointing toward megawatt-scale densities within the decade.

The industry has rapidly coalesced around DC bus architectures as the solution, such as the 800 VDC architecture proposed by NVIDIA. These designs bring medium-voltage power closer to the rack, reducing copper runs, cutting resistive losses and improving end-to-end efficiency margins.

In this shift to DC, SSTs are becoming a key building block. Only a solid-state platform can directly convert medium-voltage grid power to 800V DC while simultaneously integrating backup energy storage. This eliminates the need for UPS rooms, grey-space switchgears and step-down transformer banks that currently consume a significant share of a data centre’s physical footprint.

These efficiency gains, often spanning multiple percentage points, directly expand the “compute-per-megawatt” available within a fixed power envelope – a metric that now drives decisions from board-level components through to the siting of entire campuses. Furthermore, SSTs accelerate deployment speeds in the race to bring compute capacity online, as they benefit from both structurally shorter lead times and the consolidation of multiple pieces of equipment in the powertrain into a single unit.

Not if but when

Historically, the industry has questioned whether the technology has been ready. That question has now largely been answered. Power electronics, particularly silicon carbide devices, have matured dramatically over the past decade, driven largely by the EV and solar industries’ demand for higher voltage, high-efficiency inverters. These sectors have cultivated a new generation of power electronics talent – engineers with deep experience in translating power electronics technology advances into commercially viable products. SSTs will be deployed in 2026.

Simultaneously, the supply crunch in the conventional transformer market is creating a durable market opening. The massive AI infrastructure build-out is creating a class of motivated customers willing to support first-wave commercial deployments at scale. With DC architectures now squarely on the industry roadmap, SSTs have moved onto the critical path for AI. As these products take shape and real data is generated in pilots, customers can quantify a compelling business case, demonstrating that the cost of this new technology is justified.

The benefits of SSTs, first realised in data centres, will soon extend to a wider array of transformer applications. For high-power EV charging sites, where construction timelines and physical footprints often constrain site development, SSTs offer higher power density and shorter build cycles than conventional electrical infrastructure. On the distribution grid, replacing aging transformers with SSTs would introduce capabilities such as active voltage control, automatic fault isolation, phase balancing, and reactive power support. This would enable a more distributed, dynamic, and software-defined grid while enabling utilities to extract substantially more kilowatt-hours from existing poles and wires. As early adopters such as data centres drive SSTs down the cost curve, these mass-market utility applications will become increasingly viable.

In short, the commercial moment for SSTs has arrived. In recognition of this, Amperesand (a TDK Ventures portfolio company) raised an $80 million Series A in late 2025. The company is preparing to deploy 30 MW of medium-voltage SSTs with hyperscale and critical power customers in 2026, ahead of a projected volume ramp in 2027. Their value proposition is stark: an 80% reduction in electrical footprint, a 50% cut in installation labour and a 10x acceleration in time-to-power compared to conventional methods. Meanwhile, challengers like Heron Power and DG Matrix have collectively raised >$200m to date and incumbents across the ecosystem, including heavyweights like Infineon, Delta, GE Vernova and Eaton, are actively developing solutions to meet the clear market signal for SSTs.

Solid-state transformers are one of the essential building blocks needed to overcome the power wall AI is currently facing. The companies that combine technical performance with scalable manufacturing and system-level integration will define the category. Those that arrive at scale first will shape the power architecture of the AI era.

Sam Hill, TDK Ventures.

  • Infrastructure & Cloud

Author

Ben Kitson

Published

5 August 2026

Estimated Read time

5Mins

Ben Kitson, Head of Business Development at Precision Micro explains how chemical etching is quietly powering some of the most advanced technologies around.

In a world driven by the demand for cleaner, smarter and more efficient technologies, energy has become the common thread, pulling together innovation across multiple industries. Whether on the ground in electric vehicles, deep in the hydrogen supply chain, soaring through the skies in next-gen aircraft or even orbiting the Earth aboard space missions, energy systems are evolving. At the heart of many of these breakthroughs is chemical etching.

Chemical etching might not grab headlines, but it’s quietly powering some of the most advanced technologies around, from satellites to hydrogen fuel systems. By using controlled chemical reactions to remove metal with pinpoint precision, it creates complex, stress-free components that traditional methods like stamping or laser cutting can’t match.

However, as demand for high-complexity components continues to rise, etching is stepping into the spotlight. This shift is most visible in energy systems across multiple sectors.

Space

Recent surveys suggest a boom in space missions from both public agencies and private operators. This has created a demand for small but vital components like thin, etched nickel interconnects used in lithium-ion batteries for satellites and exploration vehicles that will study exoplanets.

Although the components may sound simple, their applications are anything but. They are used in systems built to operate in the extreme conditions of deep space, as seen in projects like the Mars Rover. That’s a remote-controlled robotic vehicle developed to explore the Martian surface and the upcoming ExoMars mission in 2028, which aims to search for signs of past life on Mars.

This is engineering at its toughest. It’s not about producing large volumes of simple components, but about processing specialist materials burr-fee, stress-free, quickly, flexibly and with precision.

Chemical etching is ideal for this because it keeps tooling costs low and allows for rapid design changes, making it perfectly suited to high-precision work where there’s no room for error.

Aerospace

Aerospace is made up of a blend of legacy and future-facing technology. Today’s innovation is not just on electric or hydrogen-powered aircraft, but also on making current combustion engines cleaner and more efficient.

Thermal management is a key area of focus here. Compact aluminium heat exchangers rely on etched aluminium flow plates used in aircraft engines to manage cooling airflow with higher efficiency. These plates, with their intricate channel designs, are evolving into fuel cell bipolar plates in hydrogen systems.

They’re not speculative, they’ve been in the market for over a decade, but evolving manufacturing capabilities are helping to revisit and optimise them for the next generation.

Hydrogen and electric

The conversation continues with on-land vehicles too. Electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel systems are often seen as competitors, but the reality is more complementary, particularly when you zoom out and look at where each is most viable.

Wondering why this might be the case? Well, the European International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) highlights that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could soon outperform EVs in emissions reduction, provided they run on renewable hydrogen.

The study suggests FCEVs could emit 79 per cent fewer emissions than internal combustion engine vehicles over their lifetime, which is slightly better than battery EVs using renewable electricity.

That said, this doesn’t mean hydrogen will replace battery-electric vehicles across the board. It’s likely we’ll see a combination of the two. EVs dominate the passenger car market, while hydrogen is gaining real traction in heavy-duty transport, long-haul logistics and commercial fleets.

Behind both are systems built around connectivity, not of data, but of energy. Battery packs, fuel cells and heat exchangers all rely on etched components such as busbars, bipolar plates and printed circuit heat exchangers to enable power delivery and thermal management.

In hydrogen, this might involve supplying plates for electrolysers that generate hydrogen, or the heat exchanger flow plates that help compress and dispense it into a truck. The same principles apply inside the vehicle itself, whether that’s a hydrogen-powered lorry or a new-generation aircraft using fuel cell systems.

What’s interesting is how naturally this transition follows on from existing capabilities. Etching has long played a role in combustion-era automotive manufacturing, from injector components to under-the-hood systems. Now, the same process is enabling fuel cells, EV battery connections and the entire hydrogen ecosystem.

And unlike combustion, where the goal was incremental efficiency, the stakes here are existential. Hydrogen isn’t a side story, it’s a key piece of the energy transition puzzle.

Autonomous vehicles

That crossover is part of a broader trend in autonomous vehicles. For example, in the US, etched copper bus bars are being used in the battery packs of autonomous robo-taxis. As for the UK, a fuller rollout of self-driving taxis will come after the Automated Vehicles Act fully takes effect in late 2027.

These packs sit under the passenger seat, with rows of AA-sized cells connected by precisely engineered bus bars featuring break points that isolate failures and prevent full-pack shutdown.

It’s a classic pre-series development setup, with thousands of parts produced in moderate volumes, all within tight turnaround windows and changing specs. Chemical etching shines here, offering speed, precision and flexibility. While these vehicles may move to high-volume stamping processes later, etching helps in the early stages where design isn’t yet locked.

And there’s a wider trend to acknowledge, the technology used in an autonomous vehicle’s battery is structurally similarly to that used in satellites. The context shifts, but the engineering need remains constant to connect, conduct and control power. Yet, unlike in space, the development volumes are still in the thousands before higher production methods take over.

A cross-sector reality

The underlying message here is that there’s sectorial convergence. Energy systems in space, air, land and sea are being determined by the same fundamental forces. That’s demand for cleaner power, the need for agility in design and the pressure to deliver quickly.

Chemical etching can support rapid prototyping, deliver precision without introducing stress and work across a wide range of materials, making it a natural fit for the pace and complexity of modern engineering.

From pure nickel in satellites to copper in EVs and specialised alloys in space-grade systems, the process adapts across applications while maintaining consistency in outcome.

Energy is the thread connecting progress across multiple applications, whether that’s orbiting satellites or on-road innovation. After all, the future isn’t just on the horizon — in many cases, it’s already in production.

By Ben Kitson, Head of Business Development at Precision Micro.

  • Sustainability Technology

Author

Dan Brightmore

Published

24 January 2023

Estimated Read time

9Mins

The digital landscape is changing day by day. Ideas like the metaverse that once seemed a futuristic fantasy are now…

The digital landscape is changing day by day. Ideas like the metaverse that once seemed a futuristic fantasy are now coming to fruition and embedding themselves into our daily lives. The thinking might be there, but is our technology really ready to go meta? Domains and hosting provider, Fasthosts, spoke to the experts to find out…

How the metaverse works

The metaverse is best defined as a virtual 3D universe which combines many virtual places. It allows users to meet, collaborate, play games and interact in virtual environments. It’s usually viewed and accessed from the outside as a mixture of virtual reality (VR), (think of someone in their front room wearing a headset and frantically waving nunchucks around) and augmented reality (AR), but it’s so much more than this…

These technologies are just the external entry points to the metaverse and provide the visuals which allow users to explore and interact with the environment within the metaverse. 

This is the ‘front-end’ if you like, which is also reinforced by artificial intelligence and 3D reconstruction. These additional technologies help to provide realistic objects in environments, computer-controlled actions and also avatars for games and other metaverse projects. 

So, what stands in the way of this fantastical 3D universe? Here are the six key challenges:

Technology

The most important piece of technology, on which the metaverse is based, is the blockchain. The blockchain is essentially a chain of blocks that contain specific information. They’re a combination of computers linked to each other instead of a central server which means that the whole network is decentralised. This provides the infrastructure for the development of metaverse projects, storage of data and also allows them the capability to be compatible with Web3. Web3 is an upgraded version of the internet which will allow integration of virtual and augmented reality into people’s everyday lives. 

Sounds like a lot, right? And it involves a great deal of tech that is alien to the vast majority of us. So, is technology a barrier to widespread metaverse adoption?

Jonothan Hunt, Senior Creative Technologist at Wunderman Thompson, says the tech just isn’t there. Yet.

“Technology’s readiness for the mass adoption of the metaverse depends on how you define the metaverse, but if we’re talking about the future vision that the big tech players are sharing, then not yet. The infrastructure that powers the internet and our devices isn’t ready for such experiences. The best we have right now in terms of shared/simulated spaces are generally very expensive and powered entirely in the cloud, such as big computers like the Nvidia Omniverse, cloud streaming, or games. These rely heavily on instancing and localised grouping. Consumer hardware, especially XR, is still not ready for casual daily use and still not really democratised.

“The technology for this will look like an evolution of the systems above, meaning more distributed infrastructure, better access and updated hardware. Web3 also presents a challenge in and of itself, and questions remain over to what extent big tech will adopt it going forward.”

Storage

Blockchain is the ‘back-end’, where the magic happens, if you will. It’s this that will be the key to the development and growth of the metaverse. There are a lot of elements that make up the blockchain and reinforce its benefits and uses such as storage capabilities, data security and smart contracts. 

Due to its decentralised nature, the blockchain has far more storage capacity than the centralised storage systems we have in place today. With data on the metaverse being stored in exabytes, the blockchain works by making use of unutilised hard disk space across the network, which avoids users within the metaverse running out of storage space worldwide. 

In terms that might be a bit more relatable, an exabyte is a billion gigabytes. That’s a huge amount of storage, and that doesn’t just exist in the cloud – it’s got to go somewhere – and physical storage servers mean land is taken up, and energy is used. Hunt says: “How long’s a piece of string? The whole of the metaverse will one day be housed in servers and data centres, but the amount or size needed to house all of this storage will be entirely dependent on just how mass adopted the metaverse becomes. Big corporations in the space are starting to build huge data centres – such as Meta purchasing a $1.1 billion campus in Toledo, Spain to house their new Meta lab and data centre – but the storage space is not the only concern. These energy-guzzlers need to stay cool! And what about people and brands who need reliable web hosting for events, gaming or even just meeting up with pals across the world, all that information – albeit virtual – still needs a place to go.

“The current rising cost of electricity worldwide could cause problems for the growth of data centres, and the housing of the metaverse as a whole. However, without knowing the true size of its adoption, it is extremely difficult to truly determine the needed usage. Could we one day see an entire island devoted to data centre storage? Purely for the purposes of holding the metaverse? It seems a little ‘1984’, but who knows?”

Identity

Although the blockchain provides instantaneous verification of transactions with identity through digital wallets, our physical form will be represented by avatars that visually reflect who we are, and how we want to be seen. 

The founder of Saxo Bank and the chairman of the Concordium Foundation, Lars Seier Christensen, argues, “I think that if you use an underlying blockchain-based solution where ID is required at the entry point, it is actually very simple and automatically available for relevant purposes. It is also very secure and transparent, in that it would link any transactions or interactions where ID is required to a trackable record on the blockchain.”

Once identity is established, it is true that it could potentially become easier to assess creditworthiness of parties for purchasing and borrowing in the metaverse due to the digital identity and storage of each individual’s data and transactions on the blockchain. However, although it sounds exciting, there must be considerations into how it could impact privacy, and how this amount of data will be recorded on the blockchain. 

Security

There are also huge security benefits to this set up. The decentralised blockchain helps to eradicate third-party involvement and data breaches, such as theft and file manipulation, thanks to its powerful data processing and use of validation nodes. Both of these are responsible for verifying and recording transactions on the blockchain. This will be reassuring to many, given the widespread concerns around data privacy and user protection in the metaverse.

To access the blockchain all we will need is an internet connection and a device, such as a laptop or smartphone, this is what makes it so great as it will be so readily available. However, to support the blockchain, we’re relying on a whole different set of technologies.  Akash Kayar, CEO of web3-focused software development company Leeway Hertz, had this to say on the readiness of the current technology available: “The metaverse is not yet completely mature in terms of development. Tech experts are researching strategies and

testing the various technologies to develop ideas that provide the world with more feasible and intriguing metaverse projects.

“Projects like Decentraland, Axie Infinity, and Sandbox are popular contemporary live metaverse projects. People behind these projects made perfect use of notable metaverse technologies, from blockchain and cryptos to NFTs.

“As envisioned by top tech futurists, many new technologies will empower the metaverse in the future, which will support the development of a range of prolific use cases that will improve the ability of the metaverse towards offering real-life functionalities. In a nutshell, the metaverse is expected to bring extreme opportunities for enterprises and common users. Hence, it will shape the digital future.”

Currency & Payments

Whilst it’s only considered legal tender in two countries, cryptocurrency is currently a reality and there is a strong likelihood that it will eventually be mass adopted. However, the metaverse is arguably not yet at the same maturity level, meaning cryptocurrency may have to wait before it can finally fully take off. 

Golden Bitcoin symbol and finance graph screen. Horizontal composition with copy space. Focused image.

There is no doubt that cryptocurrency and the metaverse will go hand-in-hand as the former will become the tender of the latter with many of the current metaverse platforms each wielding its native currency. For example Decentraland uses $MANA for payments and purchases. However, with the volatility of crypto currencies and the recent collapse of trading platform FTX indicating security lapses, we may not yet be ready for the switch to decentralised payments. 

Energy

Some of the world’s largest data centres can each contain many tens of thousands of IT devices which require more than 100 megawatts of power capacity – this is enough to power around 80,000 U.S. households (U.S. DOE 2020) and is equivalent to $1.35bn running cost per data centre with the cost of a megawatt hour averaging $150. 

According to Nitin Parekh of Hitachi Energy, the amount of power which takes to process Bitcoin is higher than you might expect: “Bitcoin consumes around 110 Terawatt Hours per year. This is around 0.5% of global electricity generation. This estimate considers combined computational power used to mine bitcoin and process transactions.” With this estimate, we can calculate that the annual energy cost of Bitcoin is around $16.5bn. 

However, some bigger corporations are slowly moving towards renewable energy to power their projects in this space, with Google signing close to $2bn worth of wind and solar investments in order to power its data centres in the future and become greener. Amazon has also followed in their footsteps and have become the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy. 

They may have plenty of time yet to get their green processes in place, with Mark Zuckerberg recently predicting it will take nearly a decade for the metaverse to be created: “I don’t think it’s really going to be huge until the second half of this decade at the earliest.”

About Fasthosts

Fasthosts has been a leading technology provider since 1999, offering secure UK data centres, 24/7 support and a highly successful reseller channel. Fasthosts provides everything web professionals need to power and manage their online space, including domains, web hosting, business-class email, dedicated servers, and a next-generation cloud platform. For more information, head to www.fasthosts.co.uk

Author

Kevin Davies

Published

5 January 2021

Estimated Read time

6Mins

Cities are increasingly, and massively, depending on water technology as sea levels continue to rise…

Water is the elephant in the room. As the IDTechEx report, “Smart Cities Market 2021-2041: Energy, Food, Water, Materials, Transportation Forecasts”, explains, cities increasingly and massively depend on water technology as sea levels rise and for other reasons. They will eliminate sewage systems by treating it where it is produced. Gone are thirsty, traditional agriculture systems, and their global supply chains. 

Stop killing the sea

Currently, cities are killing the sea that is increasingly near to them. Dead ocean areas are spreading. They do this with untreated sewerage, salt from desalination plants, chemicals from factories, leisure activities, marine vessels, and farm runoff of toxins and fertilizer. Instead, they must farm the sea and maintain biodiversity and create benign marine tourism and leisure activities. Methods of distributing salt from desalination without killing anything do now exist, but deployment is slow.

Cities on the sea

Smart cities are planned at sea and on reclaimed land as at Forest City Malaysia, which promises a veritable jungle with “sounds of nature” and all that greenery self-watering. You can buy a DND house on and under the sea in Dubai. 

Independence

Cities will make all their own food, fresh water, and electricity for reasons of empowerment, security, and cost. That electricity-making is even pivoting to water with tidal turbines installed from Scotland to the Hudson River in New York and wave power, both being almost continuous and using almost none of the steel and concrete that produces 16% of global warming. Take a few hours to drop them in – not 10 years as for hydro dams. Part of the reason for water power is that there is less and less land for wind turbines and solar farms. Indeed, silicon solar works better cold, so it is migrating to sea or lake as floatavoltaics. New photovoltaic materials are even useful underwater, and photovoltaic paint is on the way, as explained in the IDTechEx report, “Materials Opportunities in Emerging Photovoltaics 2020-2040”.

Leaders in tidal power such as Simec Atlantis and Verdant Power have more and more companies chasing them. You can say the same for wave power leaders such as Seabased, Wello, and Eco Wave. Even ORPC RivGen horizontal axis water turbines are proving viable in shallow rivers, and they do not disturb fish. Most water power is virtually continuous – no massive batteries. See the IDTechEx report, “Distributed Generation: Off-Grid Zero-Emission kW-MW 2020-2040”.

Leisure and freight on water

Obviously, cities will focus more of their leisure industry and freight transport on the water. See the IDTechEx report, “Electric Leisure & Sea-going Boats and Ships 2021-2040”. IDTechEx sees several ways that even large ships can become zero-emission when today they each pollute as much as millions of cars. At the other extreme, Swiss Seabubble aquaplaning water taxis are zero-emission, charged by small river turbines under the landing platform. They are planned for Paris.  

Smart agriculture

Today’s farming systems on land gulp water and boost global warming. They are replaced by vertical farming (see the IDTechEx report, “Vertical Farming 2020-2030”), solar greenhouses, hydroponics in buildings, aquaponics and saline agriculture in marshes as sea levels rise. Genetic agriculture will save water. See the IDTechEx report, “Genetic Technologies in Agriculture 2020-2030: Forecasts, Markets, Technologies”. Meat and milk will be grown in city laboratories, and managing with one percent of the fresh water will become commonplace. See the IDTechEx report, “Plant-based and Cultivated Meat 2020-2030”.

Soliculture greenhouses on rooftops and elsewhere are adopting smart glass that provides electricity for the robots as well as optimally growing the plants again with almost no water. Robotic food cultivation is integrated with human facilities in parts of China, saving space and water.

Fish farming and barley, samphire, seaweed, and other vegetable growing in saline water is a done deal back to the ancient Sumerians, but it is necessarily broadening in scope as global warming and people moving to cities makes land even more scarce. The amazing thing is that there is a roadmap of many options to go even further. For example, aquaponics uses even less land than hydroponics, and it costs less. This is growing fish and vegetables in one closed system, the fish excrement feeding the plants.

Smart Cities Systems

Smart gardening

Some are planning turf that produces electricity as well as tapping and filtering rainwater for use. Xeriscaping is appearing in smart cities. It is the process of landscaping or gardening that reduces or eliminates the need for supplemental water from irrigation. It is promoted in regions that do not have accessible, plentiful, or reliable supplies of fresh water and is gaining acceptance in other regions as access to irrigation water is becoming limited. Xeriscaping is an alternative to various types of traditional gardening in necessarily frugal smart cities. 

On the other hand, the trend to multi-purposing even extends to damp turf, vegetation, and soil. Plant-e is a company that develops products that can generate electricity from living plants, and Harvard University has biofuel cells using such fuels. 

Smart water transport

Transport systems are reinvented for smart cities, and necessarily, Hyperloop shooting passengers from city to city by magnetic levitation in a vacuum and Boring Company Loop shooting autonomous cars at high speed across cities will increasingly be tubes in sea, lake or river for at least part of the way. That even saves money. Autonomous underwater vehicles are zero-emission and they monitor offshore wind turbines, sea-floor mining, fish stocks, and more. Leisure submarines anyone – as taxis too?

Thirsty desert cities

The largest challenge of the $0.5 trillion NEOM smart city in the Saudi Arabian desert is drinking water – all desalinated from the sea. See the IDTechEx report, “Desalination: Off Grid Zero Emission 2018-2028”. The Bill Gates Belmont desert city in Arizona is nowhere near the sea, and the state gets its water from the Colorado River, which is drying up. By far its biggest challenge is water. It has to guarantee 100 years’ supply to be allowed to start. Arizona-based startup Zero Mass Water’s SOURCE photovoltaic panels make electricity but also use the sun’s rays to pull water from the air. Each panel has the potential to draw up to 10 litres (2.64 gallons) of water per day. That will help, but all the sources still leave that city with severe water conservation requirements.

Here is one. Bill Gates has proven from his investments that the elimination of sewage distribution and treatment farms is coming when it is treated at the source. That saves huge amounts of water. One new toilet has an electrochemical reactor that can break down water and human waste into fertilizer for fields and hydrogen, which can be stored in hydrogen fuel cells as a green energy source. Even the little water used is treated enough to reuse for flushing or for irrigation.

For more information on “Smart Cities Market 2021-2041: Energy, Food, Water, Materials, Transportation Forecasts”, please visit www.IDTechEx.com/SmartCitiesMats or for the full portfolio of Smart Cities research available from IDTechEx please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Research/SmartCities. 

IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Subscription and Consultancy products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information, contact research@IDTechEx.com or visit www.IDTechEx.com. 

Author

Andrew Woods

Published

8 June 2020

Estimated Read time

5Mins

Chief Information Officer Philip Clayson is putting digital agility at the heart of the company’s strategic transformation plans for the future, following the recent acquisition of SSE Energy Services by OVO Energy.

OVO Energy was founded in 2009 and redesigned the energy experience to be fair, effortless, green and simple for all customers. Following the acquisition of SSE Energy Services, today OVO Energy and its Retail partners serve nearly 5 million customers, all striving to deliver more affordable clean energy for everyone.

SSE Energy Services has been supplying power to millions of UK homes for decades. The technology infrastructure within the company had been built and maintained with dependability and assurance at its core.

Clayson is now empowering the 1,000 strong IT team to adopt a learn-fast, fail-fast culture and mindset, while at the same time maintaining the performance and quality of their outputs. Key to achieving this has been extending the company’s partnership with Expleo. Through the adoption of Expleo’ automated testing solutions, SSE Energy Services can now bring new products to market faster, without sacrificing quality.

With customers’ digital engagement increasing and the introduction of smart metering within homes, SSE Energy Services knew it had to focus on digital agility and innovative product offerings.

In order to accelerate this direction, SSE Energy Services appointed Philip Clayson as CIO in August 2019, bringing experience of driving fast-paced digital transformation for companies including News Corporation, BT and TalkTalk.

Clayson said: “With increasing numbers of new digital enabled products to deliver to market, at an accelerated pace, we needed to leverage technology and expertise to help us drive up our competitive advantage and increase our agility.”

SSE Energy Services formed a strategic partnership with Expleo, a leading technology and engineering consultancy. As the two companies previously worked closely together, SSE Energy Services had trust in Expleo’s expertise to help with a key part of the programme. This would help SSE Energy Services maintain performance and quality, but crucially boost agility, shortening product and system releases from several weeks to just a couple of days, by providing a pioneering approach to automation. 

Automation first

Expleo was in an excellent position to advise the company on how to best move to a framework that automated the entire testing lifecycle for all of its complex and integrated retail systems. 

Julie Heneghan, Client Director at Expleo, said: “Many companies use automation on low-risk, fringe applications and as a result deliver limited value to their organisation. However, our in-depth understanding of SSE Energy Services’ systems meant it was clear to us that an automation-first approach would deliver the biggest possible impact in terms of value.”

To help achieve the transformation, the relationship moved from a standard services delivery model, to a strategic and innovation-led partnership, with SSE Energy Services entrusting Expleo to deliver best-in-class testing and assurance that would reduce the cost and frequency of system defects.

Expleo helps SSE Energy Services to enable mass testing of the software deployed to customers for smart metering. This includes testing the smart meter itself before it’s installed into customers’ homes, to testing the app on the in-home display which helps customers see how much energy they are using.

“Now, instead of a traditional services supplier model, SSE Energy Services works in partnership with us to map out the future IT change roadmap safely in the knowledge that Expleo automatically delivers the quality assurance they need without any effort on their part.” says Heneghan.

Innovation to the fore

To best deliver the benefits of automation and other improvement initiatives in the future, SSE Energy Services and Expleo have created a joint innovation board with dedicated funds to formalise the creation of new ideas and concepts and ultimately put them into practice.

Combining the best of technology and engineering, Expleo is a digital partner for the future for energy and electric vehicle companies. As energy and mobility markets converge, Expleo provides clients with end-to-end expertise in the design, development and implementation of a seamless customer experience. Its track record of delivery in smart energy billing solutions, battery charging technology, electric vehicles and the wider smart grid puts it in a unique position to help its clients innovate for the future.

“Innovation is at the heart of what we do at Expleo,” says Stephen Magennis, Managing Director of Expleo’ s Technology business in the UK. “But for us, it’s about making incremental changes, on a continuous basis, to drive bigger overall gain. This also allows us to monitor and measure each innovation and work out what it’s actually achieved for our client’s business, so we can take a swift decision on whether to keep it or move onto something else that could potentially have even greater impact.”

SSE Energy Services has continuous insight into the progress of testing and innovation through Expleo’s Quality Intelligence Platform (QIP), part of its innovative AI and analytics offering. It monitors execution and results, demonstrating release on release productivity and efficiency gains by aggregating the data into a dashboard, giving a real-time and predictive view of progress, quality and velocity.

Tom Little, SSE Energy Services IT Delivery Manager, who played a leading role in the technical transformation, says: ‘’We want to get our solutions to market quickly, but we can’t sacrifice quality. There are critical journeys where customers rely on us to deliver every single day. Our automation-first approach and partnership with Expleo has helped us to deliver quality to our customers.”

Exceeding expectations

In applying the new automation tooling, SSE Energy Services is already seeing compounded benefits. These include smoke-testing new environments in near-real-time and a reduction in manual test effort of up to 65 per cent. “This enables the SSE Energy Services technology team previously involved in this area to have more time to focus on new initiatives for the company to accelerate the pace of change”, says Clayson.

The direct result for SSE Energy Services is that new customer offerings can be pushed through faster – helping it set the pace in the market. In fact, the speed of output is now 2-3 days, rather than 2-3 weeks or months with an overall cost saving of 60 per cent.

Technology + people + culture = pace

Having the right technological tools is a vital part of any digital transformation. But in order for the investment to be a success, there needed to be an internal shift within SSE Energy Services toward a highly engaged, learn-fast fail-fast culture and mindset.

To this end, SSE Energy Services invested  in upskilling staff, including introducing formal accreditation in delivery management techniques such as Agile as well as technological disciplines to increase agility from the bottom up. Expleo aided this programme by providing Scrum Master training to key SSE Energy Services team members, including project managers and product owners.

Industry leading digital transformation for growth

With the acceleration of digital and agility at SSE Energy Services, it is now much more nimble when it comes to dealing with change. This proved crucial with the unexpected arrival of Covid-19. The fact that both internal and external partner teams were able to quickly pivot to operating virtually, with no impact on services, demonstrates that its transformational journey has brought additional benefit to SSE Energy Services and ultimately its customers.

“Our digital transformation means that IT is now an engine for growth and competitive advantage. It enables SSE Energy Services to swiftly respond to change. The team and our partners including Expleo should be proud of being part of what must be the biggest digital transformation the sector has seen due to Covid-19.” says Clayson.

The company’s successful digital transformation, underpinned by its pioneering adoption of automation in partnership with Expleo, means that it is continuing to set the pace of change in the industry.