As Asia-Pacific utilities confront rising renewable penetration and grid complexity, Nikunj Desai, Area Vice President, Asia, Itron, says real-time data, AI and edge intelligence are emerging as the foundation for flexibility, resilience and customer-centric energy systems.
Q: How can real-time data, AI and edge intelligence unlock grid flexibility and DER integration?
The accelerating shift to a decarbonised, decentralised and digitalised energy system is reshaping the traditional electricity grid, which was originally designed for one-way power flow from central generation to passive customers. Today, the grid faces bidirectional dynamics driven by solar PV, battery storage and electric vehicle charging.
Growing pressures on the grid have made stability and flexibility harder to maintain. These pressures demand a paradigm shift: utilities can combine real-time data, artificial intelligence and grid edge intelligence to gain granular visibility, automate decision-making and orchestrate flexible resources at scale.
Beyond operational agility, edge intelligence also redefines how utilities think about data, connectivity and resilience. By processing data where it originates at the edge, utilities can act within seconds instead of minutes, maintaining voltage stability, preventing transformer overloads and reducing outage duration. This is especially critical as the grid grows more complex, with millions of sensors, endpoints and Internet of Things devices creating vast streams of real-time data.
When intelligence shifts to the grid edge, utilities gain real-time visibility and control where variability actually happens, at the point of customer generation and consumption. AI and edge analytics enable instant responses to load changes, solar generation surges or EV charging spikes, transforming the grid from a static network into a dynamic, data-driven system.
As DERs proliferate and climate resilience becomes a priority, edge intelligence will be key to unlocking grid flexibility across the region. However, as more operations are automated at the edge, the critical challenge is ensuring back-end systems maintain a complete, accurate picture of grid activity. Interoperable platforms that seamlessly link edge data to enterprise systems are essential, not just for smarter decisions but to give operations teams the visibility and control they need to act with confidence.
Across APAC, utilities are already realising tangible benefits. In the Philippines, Meralco’s smart metering rollout with Itron has enabled real-time visibility and faster outage response. Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence solutions extract actionable insights directly from the data processed in field devices, enabling proactive management of voltage, load and DER variability.
The same edge architecture supports scalable DER integration, flexible load management and seamless data orchestration, all essential for APAC’s path toward net zero.
Q: What is the role of advanced metering infrastructure in enabling demand response and empowering customers?
Advanced Metering Infrastructure forms the digital backbone of modern energy systems, a critical enabler for demand flexibility and customer engagement. Through two-way communication and edge processing, AMI delivers real-time visibility to customers while providing utilities with actionable intelligence to optimise grid operations and balance supply and demand dynamically.
When paired with analytics, it helps households visualise consumption patterns, automate load shifting and participate in demand-response programmes, lowering peaks and driving measurable efficiency gains.
Across APAC, utilities are scaling AMI to meet surging energy demands and renewable integration. Meralco in the Philippines has deployed more than 100,000 smart meters and is targeting several million over the next decade, supported by its partnership with Itron to accelerate expansion.
Thailand’s Provincial Electricity Authority and Malaysia’s Sarawak Energy have also adopted Itron platforms to enhance revenue assurance, outage detection, load visibility and operational efficiency. In Thailand, the deployment shows how AMI can unlock real-time intelligence at the grid edge, enabling flexible demand response, empowering customers and supporting climate-aligned infrastructure.
Itron’s platforms exemplify this approach, helping CIOs build adaptive, customer-centric energy ecosystems that are scalable, secure and future-ready.
Q: How can digital interconnection platforms streamline approvals and accelerate project timelines?
Across APAC, the pace of DER integration is often held back by fragmented approval processes, inconsistent data formats and opaque grid connection rules. This is especially true in fast-growing markets such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines, where utilities face mounting pressure to scale clean energy access while managing legacy infrastructure.
Digital platforms bring transparency, automation and standard workflows into the process, allowing projects to move from application to connection faster. Platforms such as Itron’s Temetra streamline approvals by centralising multi-vendor, multi-commodity meter data in a cloud-native system and providing real-time visibility into network status, endpoint connectivity and consumption.
This reduces manual validation while automated workflows accelerate project execution, enabling faster interconnection approvals and deployment. For APAC utilities, this means smoother DER integration through improved data visibility, device interoperability and unified data management, foundational capabilities for meeting national net-zero targets and accelerating time-to-value in clean energy projects.
Q: Why is data-driven grid planning essential to avoid curtailment and optimise renewable uptake?
With renewables and storage growing rapidly in APAC, from Australia and Vietnam’s solar boom to Australia’s battery deployments, the hidden cost of curtailment is emerging as a barrier to clean energy adoption.
As utilities expand DERs to meet net zero targets, they risk underutilising assets or overbuilding infrastructure if they lack granular, real-time data. Data-driven grid planning uses real usage data, scenario modelling and capacity analytics to prioritise investments where they deliver the highest impact.
The result is more renewables staying online, better utilisation of network assets and stronger commercial returns alongside sustainability goals. Itron’s Grid Edge Essentials provides enhanced visibility into grid performance, transforming raw data into predictive insights that help utilities make faster, evidence-based planning decisions.
In markets such as Thailand and Malaysia, this approach helps avoid stranded assets, maximise renewable uptime and align infrastructure spending with long-term decarbonisation objectives.
Q: How can the CIO play a part in driving utility innovation and aligning IT and OT systems for climate resilience?
CIOs are increasingly central to driving utility innovation in an era of intensifying extreme weather events. By aligning IT and OT, they create unified data ecosystems where real-time operational data feeds predictive analytics, helping teams identify faults before outages occur or dynamically balance loads during heatwaves.
This convergence enables smarter use of renewables by translating field data into actionable insights, allowing utilities to plan proactively and recover faster. CIOs are also leading the shift to cloud-native architectures, creating agile, data-driven foundations where IT and OT converge and unlock the full value of operational intelligence.
Beyond technology, CIOs are shaping enterprise governance, cybersecurity and ESG transparency, ensuring innovation supports both performance and purpose in a rapidly changing energy landscape.
Q: What can Singapore learn and apply from other APAC cities facing similar grid challenges?
As Singapore continues to lead the region in solar deployment and grid reliability, it faces growing complexity in integrating intermittent renewables into a dense urban grid. Rising midday solar oversupply and increasing demand for flexibility make regional lessons increasingly relevant.
APAC cities are experimenting with advanced grid strategies that offer practical insights into decentralisation, consumer empowerment and dynamic grid management. These include time-of-use tariffs in Tokyo and Seoul, residential battery incentives in Australia, peer-to-peer energy trading in Bangkok and Melbourne, vehicle-to-grid integration in Shenzhen and large-scale demand response aggregation in South Korea.
Community solar models in the Philippines and Indonesia and real-time grid transparency initiatives in Taiwan also demonstrate how consumer engagement and data visibility can accelerate decarbonisation. By adopting proven regional practices, Singapore has an opportunity to supercharge its smart grid evolution, turning data into action and renewables into reliable, responsive power.
