Paper
Fault-Tolerant Edge Computing: An Essential Foundation for Operational Resilience in the Renewables Sector
Edge computing platforms are ideal for building resilient IT infrastructure in Renewables, enabling operations teams to run mission-critical software and capture on-site data with maximum reliability.
White
Introduction
Renewable energy development is essential for increasing electrification, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, enabling broad decarbonization, and achieving global climate targets. The transition to renewable energy is already well underway. In 2023, global annual renewables capacity increased nearly 50%—the fastest rate in the past two decades—with wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) representing the bulk of this growth.¹ However, much more must be done to achieve the COP28 goal of tripling installed renewable sources worldwide by 2030.²
As organizations bring new renewable energy capacity online, they face a whole host of new challenges: managing decentralized grids, operating and servicing distinct and geographically dispersed assets, and ensuring asset performance visibility for optimization and maintenance. These new activities require resilient computing infrastructure that is capable of supporting the unique demands of these distributed assets. Whether it’s automation and control, data collection, connectivity and remote management, cybersecurity, or advanced software deployment, organizations need sufficiently available and reliable computing power at edge locations and in operations centers in order to connect teams to assets and information.
Modern edge computing platforms that combine built-in fault tolerance and virtualization are ideal for building resilient information technology (IT) infrastructure in the Renewables sector. These platforms provide flexibility and increase efficiency for operations teams, enabling them to run complex mission-critical software and capture on-site data with maximum reliability and minimal touch.
Other industries have already adopted edge computing to solve practical challenges posed by reduced connectivity, limited bandwidth, and fewer on-site IT staff. Renewables will need to overcome similar challenges if the sector is to unlock its full potential.
This whitepaper explores the unique suitability and distinctive advantages that a fault-tolerant edge computing platform offers for resilient IT infrastructure for the Renewables sector. From developing smart equipment to deploying advanced software and cybersecurity, edge computing that is simple, protected, and autonomous provides a solid foundation for the operational success of Renewables owner-operators, field service teams, and equipment manufacturers alike.
Operational challenges in Renewables
The Renewables sector faces a variety of challenges that have a direct impact on IT infrastructure design. Navigating these challenges requires a comprehensive IT approach that emphasizes resilience, flexibility, scalability, and robust cybersecurity. Owner-operators must build these capabilities in partnership with the manufacturers that build their assets, deliver their equipment, and provide long-term maintenance. Similarly, manufacturers must deliver greater equipment reliability and improved performance by modernizing or re-powering operators’ existing assets, meeting project budgets and regulatory requirements, and ensuring successful installations.
Realizing the full value of Renewables will require leveraging digital technologies to overcome the logistical and technical challenges of extracting data from remote equipment.
Common operational challenges in Renewables include:
Intermittency & variability
Solar and wind energy production fluctuates day-to-day and month-to month.
Addressing this challenge requires:
Agile systems and distributed compute infrastructure capable of seamlessly transitioning between production fields and grid management systems in order to ensure a stable and reliable energy supply.
Regulatory compliance
Evolving regulations.
Addressing this challenge requires:
Adaptable IT designs that support compliance as standards evolve.
Cybersecurity threats
Decentralization
Renewable sites are often in remote, unmanned, and occasionally hazardous locations.
Addressing this challenge requires:
Robust IT infrastructure that supports efficient coordination, monitoring, remote management, and control of widely distributed assets
Unplanned downtime
Assets are susceptible to unplanned downtime caused by extreme weather events, system failures, and other factors.
Addressing this challenge requires:
Resilient IT infrastructure that can withstand harsh environments and minimize risk of downtime by predicting and addressing potential failures before they interrupt operations.
Extending digitization to remote production sites and grids, often far away from IT support, exposes the renewables sector to cyber threats.
Addressing this challenge requires:
Reliable cybersecurity solutions and measures to protect critical infrastructure and data integrity.
Data Management & analytics
Processing vast amounts of data.
Addressing this challenge requires:
Effective data management and protection to ensure data integrity, greater efficiency, cost reduction, and informed decision making.
Technological evolution
Rapid advancements and novel technologies.
Addressing this challenge requires:
IT infrastructure designs with the scalability and flexibility to integrate emerging technologies seamlessly.
Edge computing provides numerous opportunities for Renewables owner-operators, field teams, and equipment manufacturers to harness production data, deploy performance-optimizing software, and develop intelligent equipment to meet their goals for operational excellence, performance, safety, and reliability.
Edge
Edge computing refers broadly to computing that occurs outside the data center and closer to the equipment and processes where data is generated. This data can then be sent to a control room, operations center, data center, or cloud location for further analysis and management. Edge connectivity to a centralized cloud or data center is key for data-hungry enterprise applications but is often hindered by limited connectivity.
Edge computing resources address data latency and limited bandwidth by providing local processing that maximizes the value of real-time data. Moreover, advanced compute platforms that are purpose-built for specific operations can bring intelligence to legacy equipment, assets, and processes. These platforms transform data collected from remote assets into a solid foundation for the organization’s data management strategy.
Organizations can derive insights from analytics processed on edge computing platforms and share data collected via this distributed computing model to the cloud or centralized networks, even only intermittently, to facilitate enterprise-wide visibility and deeper analysis.
Industrial edge computing platforms that incorporate redundant architecture provide fault tolerance that eliminates the possibility of a single point of failure so that critical applications can run continuously. They also deliver performance in a ruggedized form factor that is ready for installation at sites alongside production equipment or power grids. Platforms that are purpose-built for the industrial edge can be installed and maintained by operational technology (OT) staff while still meeting information technology (IT) requirements for interoperability and cybersecurity right out of the box. This ease of use is essential for Renewables locations with limited on-site staff.
Modern edge computing platforms also provide highly efficient operations via virtualization, which allows multiple software applications to run on a single platform backed by fault tolerance.
Virtualization solutions simplify software deployment, reduce the IT footprint and maintenance costs, and lower the total cost of ownership. In addition, they enable optimized resource utilization and rapid failover.
Edge computing platforms provide a strong foundation for greater reliability and real-time insights by connecting sophisticated automation with enterprise-class software and analytics. They are a pre-requisite for advanced capabilities such as predictive analytics, digital twins, and other Industry 4.0 solutions that offer significant value for remote power generation assets.
The newest edge computing platforms acquire data from production sites, monitor performance, and draw insights from sensors, meters, and data loggers—all in real time. Harnessing this data is fundamental for success in Renewables grid management, regulatory compliance, operational excellence, and performance optimization. The abundance of computing capacity at Renewables sites increases the reliability of automation and control and provides real-time visibility on asset performance for informed decision support and predictive maintenance.
Edge infrastructure requirements for digitalization in Renewables
Advanced edge computing platforms solve logistical and technology challenges and enable real-time data acquisition, accelerating digitalization in Renewables to deliver:
Maximum reliability: Currently many high-value, mission-critical applications are run with basic industrial personal computers (IPCs) incapable of offering the level of reliability that remote assets require. Edge computing platforms by contrast ensure zero downtime with minimal need for human intervention or support. They deliver new levels of application and equipment reliability and availability with built-in fault tolerance in ruggedized form factors that are perfect for the industrial edge.
Zero-touch operation and remote management: With limited on-site support staff and access, Renewables operators require computing platforms that can be managed remotely to run software and equipment continuously. In many cases, proactive health monitoring, alerting, patching, and issue resolution must be handled remotely as well, often by OT staff rather than IT.
Convergence of OT and IT: Operations and field service teams are responsible for managing industrial control and automation such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), distributed control systems (DCS), and programmable logic controllers (PLCs); higher-level applications such as asset performance management (APM); and all the underlying IT infrastructure. They need compute platforms that facilitate provisioning and operations without on-site IT support. Edge computing platforms must be built for OT applications and easily serviced by operations teams.
Future-proof technology to support Renewables’ asset lifecycles: While some Renewables assets can produce for decades, automation technology and traditional IT infrastructure have much shorter lifecycles. Controllers may also be tied to specific equipment. Edge computing enables equipment manufacturers and service providers to future-proof solutions, use open standards, deploy software that avoids obsolescence and vendor lock-in, and ultimately keep pace with technological innovation.
Easy software deployment and workload consolidation: Edge computing platforms offer built-in virtualization that can run software applications for specialized analytics, optimization, and other functions concurrently from any vendor—AVEVA, GE, Inductive Automation, Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, Siemens, and others. Using a single fault-tolerant platform creates tremendous cost savings, reduces your IT footprint, and can scale to run major wind installations or solar fields.
Cybersecurity at the edge: Cybersecurity is a significant concern for digitized OT assets, as more machinery and equipment incorporate Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) sensors to capture performance data and analytics. Cyber risks are particularly acute for assets in remote locations with few on-site IT resources. Even assets that appear to be air-gapped remain at risk from social engineering cyberattack techniques. Edge computing platforms enable Renewables operators to keep their equipment secure.
Critical applications & edge computing
Creating resilient computing infrastructure is essential for the Renewables sector and its broad range of energy assets, which include solar PV fields, wind farms, geothermal pipelines, and hydroelectric dams. A well-designed computing and data architecture lays the foundation for system scalability, reliability, and security that can meet both current and future requirements.
Using edge computing to run critical applications for power generation equipment and processes, data collection, and operational visibility opens up a whole host of benefits, including:
Reliability: For remote, low-staff assets, reliability is paramount. Deploying local edge computing supported by fault tolerance eliminates downtime and data loss and ensures the availability of mission-critical applications and equipment. Virtualization can extend that reliability to multiple processes and systems across the enterprise.
Monitor and control of critical equipment: Organizations in the Renewables sector can deploy edge computing with any type of equipment or asset. Edge platforms are able to run SCADA, DCS, and local historian software for monitor and control and can collect time-based data sets to track performance against expected parameters. Specific algorithms running on edge compute developed to analyze equipment and process variables can deliver additional efficiencies and eliminate unplanned downtime.
Data acquisition and storage: Renewable energy assets generate large volumes of data that require physical storage solutions and data historians for trending and performance analysis. These activities typically include a complement of local historians and on-premises storage connected to cloud services, with regular backup of databases and file systems to ensure that critical data is preserved, replicated, and available for fast restoration if needed. Edge computing platforms also offer store-forward data in the event of disconnection from the network.
Asset performance management for equipment uptime: Renewables organizations benefit from asset performance management and predictive maintenance programs. Through analysis and condition-based monitoring of critical assets, companies can avoid costly unplanned downtime. By acquiring asset performance data at the equipment location, edge computing provides real-time visibility into conditions unfolding in the field, making it easier to optimize performance and maintenance.
Additionally, implementation of real-time diagnostic tools is critical to identify anomalies and trigger automatic alerts, enabling proactive responses to potential failures.
Cybersecurity and recovery: Cybersecurity is essential for the critical nature of Renewable energy assets. Edge computing simplifies cybersecurity software deployment, including firewalls, antivirus, data encryption, and authentication. Operators can run multiple applications simultaneously on a single platform as using virtual machines (VMs) and can deploy software using orchestration tools.
A well-architected edge computing infrastructure also opens the door to intelligent automation:
Predictive maintenance: New analytical tools are using edge data to optimize performance and safety. As these tools are deployed, they will be crucial for improving decision making, providing insight into minor adjustments that can keep assets running at peak operating conditions, and determining when anomalies should be elevated for investigation. Similarly, edge computing platforms built with proactive health monitoring and engineered for easy field serviceability offer characteristics that are vital for platforms running mission-critical applications.
Smart assets: Edge computing enables equipment manufacturers and service providers the means to turn equipment into smart, connected Renewables assets that are software-driven and more efficient. Workload consolidation via virtualization further enables companies to run SCADA, historians, and advanced algorithms directly on the platform. Edge computing also gives smart assets the flexibility to re-program software and provide vendor-agnostic functionality.
Digital twins and reliability programs: Edge data captured from critical equipment is essential for maintaining operational digital twins and performing analysis and system monitoring. Digital twins are also key for project handoffs and commissioning to owner-operators, which in turn create opportunities for equipment manufacturers and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) firms to embed edge computing to maintain value throughout the lifecycle of Renewables equipment.
Unified operations centers: By capturing, storing, and processing data from edge locations, owner-operators get a centralized view for monitoring and controlling assets and tracking performance across their operations. Edge computing deployed in the field also supplies operational data to feed centralized, single-pane-of-glass operations centers and improves visibility, analysis, and decision making.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML): Recent advancements in analytics have focused on AI and ML, which rely on data availability and quality as well as strong connectivity between the edge and the cloud. The Renewables industry has long employed data analytics using large volumes of data to make technical and business decisions. AI/ML solutions also rely on local computing to run AI-driven agents to improve asset performance as well as safety for people and the environment.
Simple,
protected, & autonomous
platforms are essential for success in renewables
Success at the edge requires the combined efforts of people, processes, and technology. When assessing edge computing options for Renewable energy applications, operations and technology teams must look for platforms that are:
Simple: To ensure rapid time-to-value and simplicity of management even by non-technical staff, edge computing platforms must be easy to install, deploy, and manage across applications and infrastructure with zero-touch operation. Systems should also offer virtualization to deploy applications quickly, increase flexibility, maximize computing resources, and lower total cost of ownership.
Protected: Physical protection and cybersecurity of computing resources are critical for Renewable energy operations. Edge computing platforms must manage operational, financial, and reputational risk by ensuring “always-on” redundancy for zero downtime, protection against cyber threats and data loss, and continuous operation in rugged environments.
Autonomous: A core promise of edge computing is its ability to operate reliably in any edge location. To achieve this promise, platforms must run in any environment and deliver zero-touch computing that does not require human monitoring, maintenance, repairs, or support. Edge computing platforms that enable remote management, “call home” features, and 24/7/365 support further minimize the risk of unplanned downtime for critical equipment and applications.
Edge computing also delivers significant cost efficiency and value. The cost of an edge computing platform is a fraction of the aggregate cost of capital assets, equipment, and operating day rates.
Unlock value from the edge
Edge computing platforms provide Renewables companies the opportunity to deploy distributed computing architectures that extend mission-critical software applications to the operational edge and bring Industry 4.0 solutions to the sector. Edge computing puts operators on a path to increased automation and evolution of data from isolated to connected to predictive to AI-driven.
As the world races to transition from fossil fuels and coal-based power generation to sustainable energy production, it is time for the Renewables sector to harness edge computing for increased efficiency, reliability, and safety.
software and later deploy more advanced applications to add future capabilities. Built-in virtualization provides efficiency by running multiple applications concurrently in a single platform.
Remote operation & management – As organizations build decentralized grids and incorporate remote sites, edge computing becomes essential for remote management and monitoring from the desktop or mobile device. Remote desktop services provide single-pane-of-glass visibility that enables teams to easily monitor and control equipment from remote locations via smart phone, tablet, or laptop.
Security – Manufacturers must address both physical security monitoring as well as cybersecurity concerns. Edge Platforms enable efficient deployment of essential cybersecurity applications for endpoint detection and network monitoring. Additional, platforms themselves provide built-in security features such as restricted USB access and domain.
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1. IEA, Renewables 2023: Analysis and forecasts to 2028, January 2024.
2. COP28, Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge.
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