The global energy industry is facing disruption as it transitions from fossils to renewables (and occasionally back again). Its challenges include balancing growing demand in developing nations with the need for sustainability, and predicting the effect of extreme weather conditions on supply and demand. Against this backdrop, GE Power - whose turbines and generators supply 30 per cent of the world's electricity - has been working on applying Big Data, machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) technology to build an "internet of power" to replace the linear, one-way traditional model of energy delivery. Ganesh Bell – first and current Chief Digital Officer at GE Power, tells me "The biggest opportunity is that, if you think about it, the electricity industry is still following a one-hundred-year-old model which our founder, Edison, helped to proliferate. "It's the generation of electrons in one source which are then transmitted in a one-way linear model.

The global energy industry is facing disruption as it transitions from fossils to renewables (and occasionally back again). Its challenges include balancing growing demand in developing nations with the need for sustainability, and predicting the effect of extreme weather conditions on supply and demand. Against this backdrop, GE Power - whose turbines and generators supply 30 per cent of the world's electricity - has been working on applying Big Data, machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) technology to build an "internet of power" to replace the linear, one-way traditional model of energy delivery. Ganesh Bell – first and current Chief Data Officer at GE Power, tells me "The biggest opportunity is that, if you think about it, the electricity industry is still following a one-hundred-year-old model which our founder, Edison, helped to proliferate. "It's the generation of electrons in one source which are then transmitted in a one-way linear model.