Within the Energy Transition, the hunt is on for strong spillover potentials

Visual image IEA

Recently the IEA published an important document called “Energy Technology Perspective- Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation,” which has set about establishing technology families and their potential footprint in the low-carbon value chain.

They have grouped possible technology innovations into six families at present:

  1. Electrochemistry: modular cells for converting electrical energy into chemical energy and vice versa), this is explored more in this post
  2. CO2 capture where the processes to separate CO2 from industrial and power sector emissions or found in the air
  3. Heating and cooling exploring efficient and flexible designs for electrification
  4. Catalysis that generate more efficient industrial processes for converting biomass and CO2 to products
  5. Finding lightweight materials and their integration into wind energy and vehicles
  6. The digital integration between data and communication to make energy systems more flexible and efficient

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Show me the Electrolyzer to deliver Hydrogen and Decarbonize our Energy System

There are an awful lot of different Electrolyzers already in the market. The different parts of the industry will need to come together and establish some standards and common definitions and measurements to allow the focus to return to technology, resolving the basics of the Electrolyzer and bring it into a robust Industrial solution on a higher level of automation and scale.

I have referred to several technical documents offered by the Hydrogen Council, the Hydrogen Europe, and specifically, a white paper by Dr. Philipp Lettenmeir of Siemens called “Efficiency- Electrolysis,” written in January 2019.

So, getting into the different choices of Electrolyzer first, drawing from the different papers. Continue reading

A sharp acceleration towards Clean Energy is required.

Today the International Energy Agency (IRA) released a long-awaited update on where innovation needs to be in the energy transition we are undergoing.

At their own admission, it has been three years since they (IEA) released its last Energy Technology Perspective (ETP) report. Although they argue they have been reflecting on the critical technology challenges, it is way overdue.

In this new report, “Energy Technology perspective: Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation” released today, 2nd July 2020, they have developed some improved modeling tools to bring a higher capacity to answer key technology questions in greater detail. This is good news.

IEA will further follow up later this year with a flagship ETP 2020 publication later in the year to keep a tighter and more consistent focus on the role and need of innovation to accelerate clean energy transitions.

They, the IEA are planning an IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit really soon to convene ministers and CEO’s to the aim of driving economic development by this more robust focus on clean, resilient, and inclusive energy systems. Continue reading