Trends from survey data involving 132 tech professionals in the stated industries suggest various benefits, including reduced downtime and higher MTTR

In an April 2023 survey of 132 respondents (out of the 1,650 people involved in a simultaneous observability survey*), comprising technology professionals^ in the Energy and Utilities sectors, some trends were discerned from the data.

First, 66% of the respondents indicated that their organization received US$1m or more in total value from their observability investment per year — more than any other industry included in the larger observability survey. Based on annual spend and annual value received estimates, respondents in the energy and utilities industries in the survey indicated receiving nearly a 3x median annual return on investment (ROI). Half of the IT decision makers in this group of respondents saw observability as integral to establishing a technology strategy for the business.

Second, 56% of respondents indicated having deployed AIOps capabilities, including anomaly detection, incident intelligence, and root cause analysis, with 89% planning to have AIOps deployed by mid-2026.

Other findings

Further, respondents indicated experiencing outages at a higher rate than all other industries in the larger survey, with 40% experiencing high-business-impact outages at least once a week, compared to the larger survey’s average of 32%. The median annual downtime for energy/utilities respondents was 37 hours, highest across all industries surveyed, and 61% higher than the overall average of 23 hours. The median annual outage cost for energy/utilities respondents was US$34.31m —highest among all other industries in the larger survey. Also:

  • 87% of respondents whose organizations had achieved full-stack observability indicated that their mean time to resolution (MTTR) had improved to some degree since adopting.
  • The proportion of energy/utilities respondents using a single tool had increased by 1% since a similar survey in 2022. The average number of tools remained unchanged at six.
  • 68% of respondents cited security monitoring as the most widely deployed capability, and 99% cited expecting to have deployed security monitoring by mid-2026.
  • 44% cited “an increased focus on security, governance, risk, and compliance” as the top technology strategy or trend driving the need for observability.

According to Peter Marelas, Chief Architect (APJ), New Relic, the firm that commissioned the survey:  “Observability platforms are proving to be crucial for energy and utility providers (in the survey). As uptime and reliability become paramount to avoiding service disruptions, implementing and maturing observability practices offers a clear path forward.”

*across the France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom (24%), Canada and the United States  (29%) and the Asia Pacific region (47%: Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand)

^35% IT decision makers and 65% IT practitioners in large (58%), mid-sized (34%) and small (9%) organizations with staff counts ranging from 1–100 to 101–1,200 and more-than-1201.