Utility Cloud Use Soars in 2017

I’ve been analyzing technology markets long enough to have observed the entire cloud computing hype cycle; it’s now a well-understood, mature technology. Which also means that there’s little to write about for an analyst more used to covering emerging technologies. However, from 2008 to 2011, I never got the chance to write a detailed report about cloud computing in the utility industry. While the cloud hype volume was cranked up to maximum, the utilities industry was doggedly refusing to move any IT infrastructure into the cloud. Which was a personal disappointment: for a fan of puns, it was difficult to resist the temptation to write a report titled Utility Computing in the Utility Industry.

I even advised a couple of cloud vendors that wanted me to tell them how to break through the conservatism of the utilities industry. My only advice? “Lobby the regulators, because utilities just aren’t going to budge on this one.” And why? Three primary reasons:

• Conservatism: No utility ever liked going first with something new. In any monopoly market, moving first was only ever a disadvantage. Rather, utilities would wait for someone else to stump up investment capital and let vendors learn from the mistakes of others before bringing a more reliable product to market.
• Security: I have been told more than once of security officers halting vendors’ cloud pitches midway because of security concerns.
• Regulatory: Some regulators would not let data be transported outside of certain geographic areas, killing off any idea for clouds based in other jurisdictions.
• Finance: The key selling point of cloud is its OPEX-based pricing scheme. While music to the ears of CFOs in other industries, it killed cloud’s chances in utilities rewarded for making capital investments.

Until a year ago, cloud’s adoption by utilities was slow and steady. However, 2017 has marked a dramatic change in the industry’s attitude toward the technology. There is no better way than using cold facts to describe the rapid acceleration of its adoption. In a recent call with SAP, I was astounded at the company’s growth in cloud-based revenue in the first three quarters of 2017: a 90% year-over-year increase on 2016. SAP’s utilities business unit recorded the second-highest growth in cloud revenue across the business, just behind retail.

Market Requirements Have Eroded Resistance to Cloud Adoption

This growth isn’t completely unexpected. European utilities are under significant pressure to reduce costs and are no longer concerned about the OPEX versus CAPEX argument. The cloud is helping them achieve this. Cloud vendors have also made great strides to improve security issues. So much so that investment in security is typically higher than a utility can manage for its onsite data centers. And with the growth in demand for cloud, vendors can build infrastructure in more locations, negating the need to move data across international borders.

What’s next? The industry is becoming more comfortable with cloud, and more IT infrastructure will be moved to it. However, this will be done in a controlled manner. Despite some (frankly laughable) claims to the contrary, private clouds will account for the vast majority of utilities’ use. Core IT infrastructure likely will never be moved to public clouds, due to the inherent increased risk.

Finally, a word of caution. I predict that some utility’s adoption of cloud services will be piecemeal, unstructured, lack a coherent strategy, and uncoordinated. Different departments will procure cloud services for their own departmental means. In effect, reversing the recent trend to consolidate data in a data lake or data warehouse. Instead, new cloud-based operational data siloes will be created, where access to data is restricted. To counter this threat, individual departments must be reined in just enough to ensure enterprisewide data management without choking innovation.