From Oil Rigs to Renewables: Building Digital Asset Intelligence for the Energy Transition

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.

Dr Hema Wadhwa, Associate, Data & 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’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.

The conversation covers the unplanned career arc from floating production systems into renewable operations, the control-room moment — “Are you here to take my job?” — and the year it took to bring operators along. Hema explains why the solution providers have to evolve, not the operators, and lays out the operational maths of renewables: one gas turbine versus a hundred wind turbines across ten farms.

The episode digs into the absence of standards across vendor SCADA screens and UIs, why there is no AI magic without the data groundwork first, and the cognitive load on lean frontline teams drowning in PDF reports and tools that land as a burden. OT/IT convergence, cybersecurity, OEM warranties versus asset-owner access to their own data, recording data when it changes instead of on a fixed scan rate, and predicting failures months ahead all get practical treatment. Hema closes with why the real cost driver is people — and why it only stacks up if it scales across assets.

Key takeaways from this episode:

• The energy transition breaks the old operations model: managing one gas turbine is fundamentally different from managing a hundred wind turbines across ten farms — the data, the people and the processes all have to change
• People matter more than technology: “Are you here to take my job?” — digital transformation only works when operators are brought along, not bypassed
• No AI magic without the data groundwork: expecting machine learning to work without a solid data foundation is not ethical to sell to clients
• Solution providers must evolve, not operators: the assets are the assets — the tools and platforms have to meet operators where they are
• Record on change, not on a fixed scan rate: you don’t need the temperature every half a second, only when it actually changes
• One source of truth, different views per role: data should be presented so it guides a decision, not buried in PDF reports
• Predict failures months ahead: order the gearbox, book the crane, plan the outage — turn downtime into planned work
• The real cost driver is people: technology costs are falling, but it only works financially if it scales across assets

Featured Quote

"He opened the door. I said, ‘I’m Hema, from the Sydney office.’ He held the door and he said: ‘Are you here to take my job?’" — Dr Hema Wadhwa

About the Guest

Dr Hema Wadhwa is Associate, Data & Analytics | Asset Management and Performance at Aurecon. Her career traces the energy transition itself: 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. With an engineering background and a focus on bridging the gap between operational teams and digital tools, Hema brings a practical, people-first perspective to industrial data transformation.