Accenture
Melissa Stark is Accenture's Global Renewables Lead. Scott Tinkler is Accenture's North America Utilities Lead.
PUF: How does your company view the electric industry's transformation (decarbonization, electrification, digitization) — technologies, resilience, operational efficiency, customer experience?
Melissa Stark: The journey of every market to a cleaner, variable, and decentralized electricity system differs significantly, but we do see some themes common to all markets.
First, we see renewables becoming more dispatchable, meaning more controllable, with renewable operators combining wind, solar, hydropower, and storage — virtually or physically — to deliver committed production.
Our clients continue to improve the accuracy of production forecasting and use power electronics that allow them to provide ancillary services. In June, we held an event on commercial optimization with fifteen leading renewable generators. The focus was "moving from maximizing production to maximizing margin/MWh" and virtually all had access to real-time production data to incorporate into their power marketing processes.