From Oil Rigs to Renewables: Digital Asset Intelligence with Dr Hema Wadhwa

<p>What changes when the assets you operate stop being centralised and predictable, and start being distributed, intermittent and weather-dependent? The old operations playbook breaks — and most digital programmes are still designed for the old one.</p><p>Dr Hema Wadhwa, Associate, Data &amp; Analytics | Asset Management and Performance at Aurecon, joins Phil Seboa and Ed Fuentes to talk about building digital asset intelligence for the energy transition. Hema&#39;s career is a live map of that transition: she started as a Floating Systems Engineer in global oil and gas, moved through subsea engineering and power generation operations, and now leads digital strategy and analytics for mixed energy asset fleets.</p><p>Key topics in this episode:</p><p>- The unplanned career arc — floating production systems and subsea engineering into renewable operations</p><p>- &quot;Are you here to take my job?&quot; — what digital transformation actually feels like from inside the control room</p><p>- Why the solution providers have to evolve, not the operators</p><p>- One gas turbine versus a hundred wind turbines: why renewable fleets break the old operations model</p><p>- No standard across vendor SCADA screens and UIs, and what that inconsistency costs</p><p>- Why there is no AI magic without the data groundwork first — and why selling it that way isn&#39;t ethical</p><p>- Cognitive load: lean frontline teams, PDF report fatigue, and tools that land as a burden</p><p>- OT/IT convergence and the cybersecurity questions that come with opening it up</p><p>- OEM warranties and whether asset owners really have access to their own asset data</p><p>- Recording data when it changes, not on a fixed scan rate</p><p>- One source of truth, different views per role — data presented so it guides a decision</p><p>- Predicting failures months ahead: cranes, spares, and turning downtime into planned work</p><p>- BESS as a trading platform, not just another renewable asset</p><p>- Why the real cost driver is people, and why it only stacks up if it scales across assets</p><p><br></p><p>Made possible by FlowFuse.</p><p>Connect with Hema on LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/drhemawadhwa/">linkedin.com/in/drhemawadhwa</a></p><p>Connect with Phil on LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/phil-seboa/">linkedin.com/in/phil-seboa</a></p><p>Connect with Ed on LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ed-fuentes-2046121a/">linkedin.com/in/ed-fuentes</a></p><p>Sign up for the Unplugged newsletter: <a href="https://unpluggediiot.com/newsletter">unpluggediiot.com/newsletter</a></p><p>Learn more about Aurecon: <a href="http://aurecongroup.com">aurecongroup.com</a></p><p><br></p>