Seeing the whole system: Turning Intelligence into Sustainable Growth

The case for data sharing to enable a more resilient and productive UK economy.

Head of Policy Beth Barker and AVEVA’s Théo Farineau argue more data sharing is needed to enable a more resilient, productive and lower carbon UK economy

Data sharing is key to our economic resilience

Recent supply chain shocks across the global economy have put energy infrastructure resilience front of mind for political and business leaders alike. Low-carbon, domestically generated energy is becoming a strategic advantage, and countries who have been able to accelerate electrification are proving more resilient. The technologies needed to future-proof infrastructure already exist, but the trusted data frameworks that enable systems to communicate, coordinate and respond in unison are often missing from the increasingly complex energy systems in many nations. In our interconnected world, intelligence-sharing is becoming the salient precondition for operational resilience when facing shocks such as extreme weather to energy crises. Digital infrastructure is now essential infrastructure in its own right.

 Scoping the scale of the challenge

The data needed to coordinate the UK’s energy infrastructure remains deeply fragmented. Power generation, grid networks, water utilities and industrial operators often optimise their operations in isolation, without being able to tap into a shared view of the whole system. The result is inefficiency, vulnerability and missed sustainability gains. As the UK transforms its energy and industrial systems, this lack of visibility is becoming a strategic weakness.

Yet where connection is possible, the benefits are clear: UK Power Networks, which serves more than 8 million homes and businesses across the South East of England, used integrated data and analytics to move from reactive to predictive network management, identifying faults before they caused outages and optimising for more distributed renewables. The gains multiply when organisations share data. In California, ZGlobal and Silicon Valley Clean Energy created a cloud-based data community that lets producers, purchasers and grid schedulers share near real-time operational data through a single platform. For one 160 MW solar facility, enough to power 64,000 homes, this approach has led to faster operations, lower costs, stronger security and annual savings of 315,000 tonnes of CO₂. IMD research finds that the more openly organisations share data with each other, the greater the benefits for everyone involved.

The benefits of a systemic view

The biggest gains come when data sharing crosses entire networks and knowledge systems. The energy–water nexus is a clear example. Water utilities depend on energy for pumping and treatment and are often a power utility’s largest customer, while energy systems depend on water for cooling and generation, yet the two are planned, regulated and managed separately.

India’s Pimpri Chinchwad Smart City, home to more than 1.7 million residents, shows what an integrated approach can achieve. By connecting data from more than 4,600 municipal systems across water distribution, wastewater, energy, traffic, waste collection and environmental monitoring, the municipality gained a consolidated, real-time view of its civic infrastructure, enabling proactive decision-making. Water losses fell by 15–18% through smart leak detection and pressure management; energy use and emissions fell by 15–20% through smart metering and grid optimisation; and traffic flow improved by 20–25% through synchronised signals, reducing congestion and air pollution.

The same principle can be applied to ports, where energy, freight and logistics intersect, and to industrial clusters where shared data could support heat recovery, resource efficiency and emissions reduction at scale. The Port of Rotterdam, through its data-sharing platform Portbase, has been able to save 249k tons of CO2e by optimising the departure, arrival and customs processes of more than 27,000 vessels.

Barriers to connection

IMD research shows only 27% of industrial businesses frequently share data with external stakeholders, despite 74% of industrial leaders considering digital data ecosystems a priority. While the operational benefits are clear, the main barrier is not technical capability but, surprisingly, governance. Commercial sensitivity, cyber security, unclear standards, poor interoperability and expensive integrations continue to limit collaboration. These concerns are real, which is exactly why trusted frameworks and incentives are needed in place of ad hoc data exchanges.

What needs to happen

Integrated and open cloud platforms are designed for systems to work together, providing controlled access, near real-time visibility, lower integration costs and stronger trust between stakeholders. Initiatives such as the World Economic Forum’s Transitioning Industrial Clusters programme show how coordinated data ecosystems with clear governance frameworks can deliver benefits at scale, bringing companies and different sector clusters together to share resources and best practice.  The emissions reduction potential is significant: estimated at around 870 million tonnes of CO₂ across the 40 clusters part of the initiative. When you consider that this is roughly twice the UK’s total annual emissions, the scale of the prize is clear.

The time to act is now

The UK government is reshaping the electricity grid, water sector and planning system, as well as delivering 10-year infrastructure and industrial strategies. We are now at an inflection point: a generational moment to embed new operational models. The Government’s Industrial Strategy [link] made a start, with up to £12 million for data-sharing infrastructure, and the Clean Power Action Plan recognised that poor sharing of energy-system data was hampering distributed energy. Nonetheless the Infrastructure Strategy stopped short of a wholistic approach, where interdependent systems are joined up at regional, industrial cluster or city level to drive benefits at scale.

Tech leaders are clear on the imperative for action: government must strengthen policy by working with the industry. Setting common standards for interoperability and security, establishing a body accountable for cross-sector data sharing, and setting up pilot funding for the places best positioned to prove the model can help the UK to leapfrog to the front of the efficiency queue. Britain should also use the levers it already holds, from well-established systems of public procurement to regulatory incentives, to reward organisations who move fast to collaborate and build the networks that will underpin success. China, now referred to as the first “electrostate” and a reference on industrial development, shows the benefits that can be achieved through operating at scale, and how quickly they can be unlocked when supported by concerted policy action.

Seize the prize or suffer the consequences

The next phase of economic competitiveness will depend on how effectively infrastructure leaders can share information and operates as a connected system. The UK has a major opportunity to make data sharing central to national infrastructure and regional growth, helping to build a more resilient, productive and lower-carbon economy. Let us not waste it.

To read the original BusinessGreen article, visit www.businessgreen.com/opinion/4534876/seeing-whole-intelligence-sustainable-growth