20 Years Connected – What the Grid Has Taught Us

In May 2006, Gomero’s first SIPP units transmitted their initial measurements automatically and wirelessly. The mission was narrow: to ensure traceable, documented management of the transformer bund. Today, the same platform is used by utilities across three continents, and the work of digitalizing full substation maintenance is already underway. This is a 20-year journey that reflects both an industry in transformation and how a concrete problem can become the starting point for something much bigger.

It started back in 2002 with a clear and well-defined problem. Beneath every power transformer sits a bund designed to capture oil in the event of a leak — but one that also gradually fills with rainwater. Traditionally, emptying was done manually: a pump, a visual check, and a judgment call about whether the water was clean enough to discharge. That meant environmental risk, inefficient use of resources, and — fundamentally — an information gap. No one really knew what was happening in that bund between visits.

That was exactly the problem we set out to solve when the first connected units went into operation 20 years ago.

– When we connected the first units in 2006, it was about solving a concrete environmental problem. What we didn’t understand at the time was that we had actually started building something much larger — an infrastructure for how the energy industry would one day make maintenance decisions. That insight has shaped everything we’ve done since.

Jan-Eric Nilsson, Co-founder, Gomero

Each generation of SIPP reflects not just a technical upgrade, but a shift in what utilities actually needed.

2002 - SIPP Mobile 1.0

What was new: Continuous oil content measurement with Bluetooth transfer to a handheld device. Manual emptying but with digital measurement and manual documentation. Developed on behalf of Vattenfall.

The need it addressed: Move the water quality decision from the eye to an instrument. Ensure no oil reaches soil or waterways.

2006 - SIPP Mobile 2.0

What was new: First cloud connection. Automated documentation flow and direct equipment control — no handheld needed. Deployed with Göteborg Energi, Fortum, and Ellevio.

The need it addressed: Stop documenting manually. Let the equipment handle the flow from measurement to report automatically.

2009 - SIPP Node 1.0

What was new: First stationary unit, permanently installed at the bund. Automatic emptying around the clock, with notifications and alarms. Developed alongside eight utilities in Sweden, Norway, and Germany.

The need it addressed: Ensure emptying happens often enough and at the right time. Let the equipment manage itself and report when something actually happens.

2016 - SIPP Node 2.0

What was new: New IoT platform with remote management of installed units. API integration with the customer’s own systems, built on experience from thousands of installations.

The need it addressed: Data that doesn’t stay siloed but flows where the organization already works — and equipment that can be managed remotely without a field visit.

Now and ahead

Direction: The entire substation in a connected flow of data and decision support.

The need: Understand the actual condition of every asset — before something goes wrong.

And the journey continues – the next chapter is about the entire substation, from transformer health and SF6 monitoring to power quality and battery systems.

The question we answered in 2006 was fundamentally binary: is the water clean or not? But once data started flowing in, the conditions changed. Utilities realized that continuous information — even from a single process step — opened up possibilities that periodic manual checks simply couldn’t. Patterns became visible. Decisions could be made proactively. Documentation could happen automatically.

The interest in asking more questions grew naturally: What’s happening with the transformer itself? With the oil? With the temperature? With the bund? Every new question was a step away from scheduled, reactive maintenance routines and toward something more fact-based.

The industry changed around us in parallel. What was called M2M in 2006 evolved into IoT. Cloud services became the norm. Requirements for documentation and traceability grew. And the energy transition added new layers of complexity: more assets to manage, higher demands on grid reliability, and fewer maintenance resources per unit.

Despite everything, the core challenge is the same as it was in 2006. Utilities need to keep their grids running, at reasonable cost, with the resources they have. That requires the right information to be available where decisions are made — about maintenance, reinvestment, or prioritization of action.

That’s still what we help with. The tools are more advanced, the platform is broader, and our customers are now in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Australia, and several other countries. But the core question — how do we make data useful for those responsible for grid performance — is the same.

There’s a kind of knowledge that only builds over time. We’ve seen what digitalization journeys actually look like in practice: how organizations adopt new technology step by step, what works and what doesn’t, and how requirements shift once the value becomes clear.

Since 2006, our units have documented the discharge of nearly 2 million cubic meters of water — every time with full traceability and without unnecessary field interventions.

That experience is hard to buy. And it’s exactly what we bring into the next 20 years.

The energy transition will place entirely new demands on grids in the decades ahead: more renewable generation, more distributed resources, and aging infrastructure that needs to last longer. That requires not just better tools. It requires a deeper understanding of the actual condition of every piece of equipment — in real time.

That’s where the shift toward predictive maintenance is heading. And that’s where we continue our work alongside our customers.

Want to learn more about how we work with digital maintenance in the energy sector? We’d love to hear from you.