Augmented reality already a reality for utilities
In February 2017 the Economist magazine ran an article entitled The promise of augmented reality, saying:
“If companies ranging from giants like Microsoft and Google to newcomers like Magic Leap and Meta have their way, the next thing to leap from fiction to fact will be augmented reality (AR).”
The Economist is a bit behind the times on this one. The fact is, AR – the addition of contextually relevant information to real-world images – has already made that leap and the technology is being productively applied in many industries, particularly the utilities industry.
A couple of months earlier, in an article entitled Augmented and Virtual Reality Will Help Build the Utility Workforce of the Future, Greentech Media reported: “Other industries have found a 15 to 20 percent increase in efficiency with augmented reality,” and asked, “Can we transfer that to utilities?”
The answer to that is certainly yes and it does not take much digging to discover this.In February 2016, Forbes magazine reported: “Utilities are among the first group of businesses that are trying to figure out how to make use of [AR] technology.”
It went on to say that the Electric Power Research Institute, a non-profit focused on and funded by the electric utility industry, had begun a large-scale experiment with some of the biggest utilities around the world to see how AR could fit into the industry’s workforce.
“Participants include big utility players Duke Energy, Consolidated Edison, UK-based EDF Energy and Korea Electric Power Corporation,” Forbes said.
“EPRI expects the study should last around 18 months and the outcome will be a series of papers and recommendations around the technology.”
Back in January 2015, the Augmented Reality for Enterprises Alliance reported: “Contrary to what some may expect, utilities are rapidly embracing new technologies [such as AR].”
