Perspectives

Water and wastewater plant operators are embracing "master plans" meant to optimize their energy use, which unlike labor and chemical costs is something they can influence.

The 2019 Water Report explores the issues and complexities impacting today's water landscape. Water remains a challenge for far too many communities around the globe.

Data is changing the game in the infrastructure space, giving operators better oversight of their assets without needing to religiously follow the manufacturer's maintenance bible.

Today’s mining industry has reason to be optimistic, with the global appetite for increased connectivity, mobility, smart infrastructure and low-emissions transportation driving demand for metal resources. Following the adage, “If it is not grown, it is mined,” the mining sector is playing a starring role in building this futuristic society of tomorrow by providing steel for driverless cars, copper for mobile devices, and lithium, nickel, cobalt and vanadium for batteries.

5G could propel digitalization across industries, but making this jump requires technology trailblazing. While technology selection and construction could vary greatly among carriers, there are five technologies that are getting a lot of 5G buzz.

The cyber and real worlds are profoundly linked in a connected community, which is why communities are developing their foundational digital infrastructure as a first step.

Similar to the way that music services like Spotify and YouTube give artists a platform to share and monetize their product without the oversight of a record company, a DER marketplace can have the same impact on our electric grid.

Driven by a desire for increased monitoring, control and automation, improved reliability and efficiency, and a need to integrate DER, utilities are working to bring a massive new array of assets online in the distribution space.

Understanding key industry priorities and investment drivers can help stormwater utility managers balance the diverse and complex financial, regulatory and community needs involved in stormwater management.

The electric grid is undergoing the most significant transformation in its history, with digital technologies and devices being pushed to the edge to support dynamic, two-way power requirements in real-time while also ensuring reliability, efficiency and security.

According to DHS, U.S. utilities face down millions of attempted cyberattacks every day. Recognizing the threat these attacks pose to the national power grid, federal regulators actively are working to strengthen protections.

As generation, transmission and distribution technologies continue to rapidly evolve, Black & Veatch’s 2019 Strategic Directions: Smart Utilities Report finds that utilities are on the cusp of their most visible transformation in more than a century.

Utilities are under immense pressure in the pursuit of maximum uptime and resilience as well as enhanced power quality and lowered carbon footprints. New services are being demanded by customers and new and divergent forms of energy are testing the flexibility and capacity of their networks.

Digital technology and networks are breathing life into utilities’ aging distribution systems just as distributed energy resources (DER) and renewable energy are challenging traditional business models and centralized generation.

Here's a bit of irony: The key drivers of the investments that utilities are making in distribution system modernization stem from assets that utilities often don't own. In this case, we're talking about distributed energy resources such as rooftop solar arrays, electric vehicle sand battery energy storage systems.