Top 10: Uses of IoT in Energy

Imagine a world with less energy wasted, improved distribution and more reliability. 

Digitalisation in the energy industry is helping to achieve all of these and, ultimately, cost savings. 

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of devices embedded with sensors, software and network connectivity, allowing for data collection and exchange. 

Energy Digital has ranked 10 of the top uses of IoT in the energy industry. 

10. E.ON

CEO: Leonhard Birnbaum
Headquarters: Essen, Germany
Founded: 2000
Revenue: US$102bn (2024)

E.ON uses IoT sensors in a variety of ways including in E.ON Home. Home is the company’s app that aggregates data from electrical devices, allowing households to monitor and control energy consumption. Users of the app can also track how much energy their solar system is generating and storing. 

"The energy transition to a greener world is happening everywhere – from energy generation and distribution to end consumers,” says Victoria Ossadnik, COO Digital and Innovation at E.ON.

“Digitalisation and digital technology are the keys to orchestrating this transition — and we are right there, working hand-in-hand with our partners and other innovative businesses to make new energy work.”

9. ENGIE

CEO: Catherine MacGregor
Headquarters: La Défense, France
Founded: 2008
Revenue: US$73.8bn (2024)

ENGIE’s Darwin platform is a digital tool to collect, store and share real-time operating data from installations, helping to solve technical underperformance. It collects data from wind, solar, biogas and hydroelectric assets around the world. 

The company uses Microsoft’s Azure IoT Edge in the platform to deliver dashboarding and advanced analytics in real-time. 

Sebastien Gauthier, Head of Darwin Delivery at ENGIE Digital, told Microsoft: “Darwin is a major component in our transition to renewable, low-carbon energy sources and Azure is key to providing the infrastructure and insight we need to support it.”

8. EDF

CEO: Luc Rémont
Headquarters: Paris, France
Founded: 1946
Revenue: US$129bn (2024)

IoT sensors and smart meters are used by EDF to improve network performance and support the integration of renewable energy. The real-time data collection IoT sensors can provide can be used for better outage detection, asset management and energy distribution. 

EDF’s R&D division works with Nokia to test IoT technology for industries 

Stéphane Tanguy, Head of IT Systems at EDF R&D, said: "The Internet of Things offers tremendous opportunities for our group. Many use cases can be enabled by IoT technologies in various businesses from power generation to marketing. 

“As the R&D engine of the EDF Group, it is our responsibility to characterize the objects, their connectivity, their integration into IoT platforms and the related end-to end cybersecurity properties.”

7. Duke Energy

CEO: Lynn Good
Headquarters: North Carolina, USA
Founded: 1904
Revenue: US$30.3bn (2024)

Duke Energy uses custom-built applications to help anticipate future energy demand and identify how and where to update the power grid. These applications run on AWS and help the utility to advance its data-driven grid investment plans. 

“Duke Energy and AWS share similar commitments to a smarter and cleaner energy future with net zero carbon emissions,” said Sarah Cooper, General Manager of AWS Industry Products. 

“These Intelligent Grid Services leverage the proven scalability and reliability of the world’s leading cloud and will help Duke Energy meet energy demands while maximising the use of clean energy sources, such as solar and wind power, to serve their customers.”

6. National Grid

CEO: John Pettigrew
Headquarters: London, England
Founded: 1935
Revenue: US$25.7bn (FY23/24)

Weather can impact energy operations dramatically – how much solar or wind power can be generated and how much current can be delivered through a given stretch of power line. 

National Grid works with Tomorrow.io, a company that aggregates IoT data from more than half a billion partners’ sensors combined with nearly 12,000 traditional weather sources to give granular “microweather” forecasting. 

This hyper-local data can help National Grid to improve energy demand management and outage prediction. Its venture capital arm, National Grid Partners, has invested in Tomorrow.io. 

5. Southern Company

CEO: Chris Womack
Headquarters: Georgia, USA
Founded: 1945
Revenue: US$26.7bn (2024)

Southern Company, Georgia Tech and Smart Wires are collaborating on a project funded by the US Department of Energy to implement dynamic line rating (DLR) and advanced power flow control (APFC) technology. 

DLR can help to identify when power lines have spare capacity based on weather conditions and APFC can improve the power factor of an electrical system.

“The launch of this innovative project represents an important step toward more efficient and reliable integration of cleaner energy sources,” said Tim Lieuwen, Executive Vice President for Research at Georgia Institute of Technology. 

“This collaboration allows us to identify, develop and test new ways to manage the power grid in Georgia by co-deploying APFC and DLR technologies.” 

4. bp

CEO: Murray Auchincloss
Headquarters: London, England
Founded: 1909
Revenue: US$198bn (2024)

Each month, more than 250 billion data signals from bp’s global operating assets are sent to its IoT Hub. The company works with Microsoft to set up digital twin projects, allowing bp to monitor its assets and potentially even reduce emissions.

“By using this digital twin to look at both past data and predict future data, it’s invaluable,” David Boyd, Murlach Project Operations Lead at bp told Microsoft. 

“If this was rolled out across bp assets, we have the opportunity to reduce emissions by around 500,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent every year.”

3. TotalEnergies

CEO: Patrick Pouyanné
Headquarters: Courbevoie, France
Founded: 1924
Revenue: US$196bn (2024)

TotalEnergies is working with Rockwell Automation to implement a robot fleet management system that can support autonomous operations for its offshore platforms. 

This system uses IoT technology to allow onshore operators to remotely supervise and coordinate robots performing tasks. This technology will be extendable to wind offshore projects. 

“Because of the remote and often harsh environments in which oil and gas companies operate offshore, there is a strategic objective to minimise employee exposure on these platforms,” said Matt Graves, previous Director at Kalypso, a Rockwell Automation company. 

“Over the years, this has been achieved by improving the design and automating equipment. But there are still tasks that need to be performed manually, many of which involve observations by operators.”

It is also working to deliver energy and cost saving plans, including the use of IoT and AI tools for predictive maintenance. This, along with other developments like digitalisation and unmanned technologies, is expected to deliver savings of US$200m in 2027 vs 2024. 

2. Shell

CEO: Wael Sawan
Headquarters: London, England
Founded: 1907
Revenue: US$289bn (2024)

In 2021, Shell signed a deal with Hiber, an industrial IoT as-a-service startup, for well integrity monitoring systems globally. 

“After testing HiberHilo, the opportunity was clear,” said Ian Taylor, Shell’s Global Principal Technical Expert for Well Integrity. 

“HiberHilo is a simple solution to help oil and gas companies improve safety, optimise operations and reduce their environmental footprint,” said Coen Jansen, Hiber’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We’re thrilled to be working with Shell toward a technologically cleaner future.”

This solution can help Shell to reduce the amount of travel to and from wells in remote locations, alongside bringing more data on well performance to support the monitoring of well integrity issues. It hopes to improve the safety of remote and offshore wells. 

The tech is based on satellite technology and allows for real-time measuring of temperature and pressure on unconnected wells.

Across Shell’s operations, it monitors more than 10,000 pieces of equipment with machine learning, helping to maximise utilisation and prevent unplanned downtime.

1. ExxonMobil

CEO: Darren Woods
Headquarters: Texas, USA
Founded: 1882
Revenue: US$349.5bn (2024)

In the Permian Basin, a sedimentary basin in West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico, ExxonMobil uses IoT technologies to monitor and optimise a vast number of widely dispersed field assets. This data is stored in the cloud, allowing real-time access from anywhere in the world. 

Exxon uses these insights to enable performance optimisation and workflow automation. 

“Using advanced digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to make our Permian operations more efficient is a first step as we move towards closed-loop automation, a process that allows systems to recognise and respond to events without human intervention,” it says.

The company began a collaboration with Microsoft in 2019 to support this technology, expected to support Permian production growth by as much as 50,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day by 2025. 

“The combination of Microsoft’s technologies with our unique strengths in oilfield technologies, production efficiency and integration will help drive growth in the Permian and serve as a model for additional implementation across the US and abroad,” said Staale Gjervik, Previously Senior Vice President, Permian Integrated Development for XTO, a subsidiary of Exxon. 

“The unconventional business is fast moving, complex and data rich, which makes it well suited for the application of digital technologies to strengthen our operations and help deliver greater value.”

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