I believe there is a strong positioning proposal for forming an Intelligent Integrated Energy Ecosystem to confront the growing Grid Crisis.

Let’s Frame the Challenge– Across Europe, as well as the United States of America and multiple countries or regions globally, electricity grids are reaching structural limits

Increasing renewable penetration, growing electrification, distributed energy resources (DER), and the rise of prosumers have created a coordination problem of enormous complexity.

Taking a different approach to this forming a Grid Alliance

Today’s grid challenges are not the result of technology gaps—they result from ecosystem gaps:

• Fragmented renewable integration approaches
• Distributed assets without unified aggregation or operational schemas
• Intermittency unmanaged across boundaries
• Grid operators unable to access DER flexibility at scale
• Investors, OEMs, aggregators, policy makers and system operators working in parallel—not together

This is the classic coordination failure that the Intelligent Integrated Business Ecosystem (IIBE) I have been building was made to find a resolution.

The grid is no longer just a “utility problem.” It is a multi-party ecosystem design problem requiring shared infrastructure, neutral governance, and coordinated intelligence.

A Radically New and Different Proposal:

**The Grid Alliance — An IIBE-Designed Energy Ecosystem**

One potential part of a cluster of Energy Flexibility & Resilience Ecosystem Alliance.

Inspired by exemplars such as the AMPShare Battery Alliance, the proposal is to create a neutral, orchestrated, multi-party Grid Alliance where competitors and stakeholders collaborate on shared infrastructure, shared intelligence, and interoperable standards—while continuing to innovate, compete, and differentiate on applications, markets, and services.

This Alliance would become the coordination fabric enabling Europe’s energy transition to operate at speed and scale.

Why the AMPShare Alliance Offers Potentially Breakthrough Templates

The AMPShare Battery Alliance demonstrates a strategic principle central to IIBE thinking: it rose above competition by collaborating on the foundational layer to unlock greater markets, greater speed, and shared system-level benefits.

Studying this through an Ecosystem Lens any Energy Ecosystem alliance can gai key transferable design lessons that “dampen” competition and elevate co-creation:

1. Shift from Product Logic to Platform Logic

As AMPShare made the battery the platform, the Grid Alliance makes grid flexibility, DER orchestration, and shared intelligence the platform.

2. Standardisation Creates Network Effects

Shared grid data models, interoperability standards, and aggregation protocols would unlock exponential value. More participants → more benefit → more adoption → greater resilience.

3. Coopetition at Its Best

Participants collaborate on the grid-level infrastructure while competing on energy services, optimisation algorithms, customer propositions, and market participation models.

4. Lowering Transaction Costs Across the Entire System

Just as AMPShare removed friction for consumers, a Grid Alliance can without doubt remove friction for:

• DER participation
• Interoperability
• Cross-market flexibility trading
• Grid services procurement
• Investment flows

5. Governance Enables Scale

A neutral platform, transparent rules, staged innovation cycles, and open membership would create credibility and attract new entrants—including start-ups, innovators, and regions lacking legacy infrastructure advantages.

6. Multi-Sided Value Creation

The Alliance increases value across all stakeholder groups: so fully engagement them

• Grid operators: visibility, flexibility, stability
• DER owners: revenue, access to markets
• OEMs: expanded demand for devices, inverters, storage
• Retailers/aggregators: new service models
• Regulators: faster compliance and implementation
• Communities & consumers: resilience, lower cost, energy security
• Investors: predictable scale and reduced risk

The Ecosystem Opportunity- Addressing the Crisis head on

Current Drivers Are Creating “Fertile” Ground to Explore

1. Renewable Penetration is Reaching Critical Stability Limits– The system is buckling under variability, inertia loss, and complexity.

2. Battery Costs Have Collapsed -Mass storage and local batteries can be orchestrated into a virtual grid asset—if standards exist.

3. Regulatory Windows Are Opening (e.g., FERC Order 2222 equivalents in Europe) – Policymakers increasingly mandate DER participation and interoperability.

4. Timelines for Grid Reinforcement Are Too Long Twenty-year infrastructure cycles cannot support five-year energy transitions.

5. Value Is Shifting From Assets to Coordination – The future energy system is less about building more assets and more about orchestrating what already exists.

This is exactly the IIBE lens: intelligence + integration + interconnection as the way to “question and form”

The Proposal Suggested:

A Grid Alliance Based on the IIBE Framework

The Alliance would use the IIBE (Integrated Interconnected Business Ecosystem) as its structural architecture:

1. The Outer Purpose & Shared North Star

“To build a resilient, interoperable, intelligently coordinated energy system that supports the renewable transition, reduces risk, and accelerates grid stability through shared ecosystem collaboration.”

2. The Three Zones of the Intelligent Ecosystem to explore as “trigger points”

Zone 1 — Shared Intelligence & Visibility (The Adaptive Engine)

• Common data models and exchange frameworks
• Real-time system visualisation across DER, storage, grid flows
• Shared analytics for forecasting, optimisation, and incident prevention
• AI-based grid orchestration complements human oversight

Zone 2 — Shared Infrastructure Layer (The IIBE DOS)

• Interoperability frameworks for DER and battery systems
• Standardised aggregation protocols
• Coordinated flexibility markets
• Technical standards for VPP integration
• Security, safety and certification frameworks

This is the “battery platform” equivalent: the layer everyone must unite around.

Zone 3 — Differentiated Value Creation

Each party competes and innovates on:

• Consumer energy services
• DER optimisation tools
• AI optimisation models
• Demand response offerings
• Community energy platforms
• Market-facing products

Competition remains vigorous—but anchored to a shared foundation.

Why a Grid Alliance Is Necessary Now

1. The Problem Is Systemic, Not Individual

No single company, utility, regulator, or technology stack can stabilise the grid alone.

2. Ecosystem Dynamics Create a Multiplying Effect

Coordinated action increases adoption and performance far faster than isolated efforts.

3. Alliances Outperform Bilateral Models in Complex Transitions

The EV charging industry, smart home platforms, and battery alliances show that ecosystem-level coordination beats proprietary silos.

4. Without Cooperation, Everyone Loses

The cost of grid failure—blackouts, curtailed renewables, stranded assets, political backlash—far exceeds the cost of collaboration.

Finding the Strategic Benefits for all within the Energy Alliance

For Grid Operators

• Increased predictability
• New flexibility resources
• Avoided grid reinforcement costs

For Consumers & Communities

• Fair access to participation
• Lower cost energy
• More reliable systems

For OEMs & Tech Providers

• Expanded market adoption
• Faster ROI
• Lower integration complexity

For Regulators

• Practical implementation of policy goals
• A coordinated partner for system-wide planning

For Investors

• Lower risk through standardisation
• Predictable scaling pathways
• Higher confidence in returns

**The Call to Action:

Rise Above the Competition for Shared System Success

The grid crisis is the classic ecosystem moment: the system is failing not from lack of technology but from lack of coordination, integration, and shared intelligence.

The lesson from AMPShare is clear: Interoperability and shared standards unlock a market far larger than any single player can create alone.

A Grid Alliance—designed with the IIBE as its guiding architecture—offers a credible, neutral, strategic platform for bringing together:

• Utilities
• OEMs
• DER aggregators
• Storage providers
• Policymakers
• Grid operators
• Investors
• Research and innovation bodies
• Communities and prosumer groups
• Regulators

The aim is to solve together what no one can solve alone.

This is the moment where ecosystems become the operating model of the energy transition. It is the time to think and design in Ecosystems to build out those more connected and integrated solutions needed for the Grid Crisis we are facing today.

Contact me to explore this further

The post  Todays Need is for Flexibility & Resilience through Energy Ecosystem Alliances. first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

By fostering greater collaboration and co-creation within the Energy Industry, it is becoming crucial to consider Ecosystems in design and thinking. Ecosystems designed well are robust for navigating the complex landscape of any Energy transition.

The Energy transition we are all facing has such high levels of complexity and challenge. We are undertaking a radical redesign of our energy systems where renewables based on clean energy, decarbonization or low carbon, new distributed business models and rapidly growing demands for electricity are all compressed into a thirty-year agenda to achieve net zero. Collaboration, cooperation and coordination will be paramount, and this is where Ecosystems and Platform technology will become essential to manage these “multiple” transformations needed.

Here in this post is a structured argument for promoting Business Ecosystem thinking and design for those involved in the Energy System, emphasizing the benefits of sharing IP, knowledge, research, market insights, and general improvement potentials when it comes to considering Ecosystems within the Energy Transitions, where collaborations are growing in importance and need. I outline ten areas of consideration.

There is a significant amount to think through when it comes to setting up and managing within a collaborative Ecosystem, especially in such an industry as the Energy or specific parts of it, be these geographical or sub-sectors (Grids, Hydrogen, Hard-to-Abate, Wind, Solar, Storage, Europe, China etc., etc).

There has been a reasonably protective environment in the Energy sector with limited choices due to the significant investment in assets and infrastructure, long-term financial commitments, managing these over extended times for risk and continuous investment, primarily operating in highly regulated market conditions over many years. The impact of suddenly opening up and understanding the risks and effects this might have on these investments is causing a natural pause in making a radical change, but can we afford this?

The energy transition brings huge uncertainty to all involved in it in areas of technological change, radically different competition and regulatory needs, the management of the different assets being installed, digitalization and community or customer engagement. It is not one way anymore or our way; this transition is very different.

The idea of collaborating across multiple needs will have to determine where and what value this brings to all the parties involved. This is the critical starting point of Ecosystem design. One prime example where collaborations can start to learn together to extend into an Ecosystem in design is the focus on converging technologies and adopting common standards and commonality.

I have recently provided extensive coverage of how Ecosystems often need to be interconnected to achieve a more outstanding design for sustaining and collective prosperity. In the seven-part series on my ecosystem4innovating.com, you can start by reading the summary of this hierarchy of business ecosystem needs. Equally in supporting this series I provided fifteen (I know!) posts on different aspects of Ecosystems to consider on my paul4innovating.com site, one example is breaking down resistence.

The need when considering any Energy Ecosystem thinking and design

1. Holistic Perspective and Transition Planning:
   • Energy transitions involve multifaceted challenges, from technological advancements to policy changes. A business ecosystem approach allows for a holistic understanding of the interconnected elements and their dependencies.
   • Collaborative efforts enable a comprehensive view of the entire value chain, identifying synergies and gaps that individual entities might overlook.
   • The Energy Transition involves diverse components such as renewable energy sources, grid modernization, energy storage, and sustainable technologies. A business ecosystem approach provides for a comprehensive and growing shared understanding of these elements and facilitates integrated planning and exchanges for a seamless transition.

2. Accelerated Innovation in Ecosystems for Sustainable Technologies:
   • Energy industry transitions require rapid innovation to meet sustainability goals and address climate change. Collaborative ecosystems provide a platform for pooling resources, expertise, and technologies.
   • By sharing knowledge and research, participants can collectively accelerate the development and adoption of innovative solutions, reducing duplication of efforts and optimizing resources.
   • Collaboration within the ecosystem can specifically target innovation in renewable energy technologies, energy storage solutions, and smart grid systems. Joint research and development efforts can accelerate the deployment of sustainable technologies crucial for the Energy Transition.

3. Mitigating Risk in Transition Investments:
   • The energy industry is inherently risky, with technological uncertainties, market dynamics, and regulatory changes.
   • By distributing risks across multiple stakeholders, the impact of uncertainties can be minimized, making it more feasible for organizations to invest in transformative projects.
   • Collaborative ecosystems provide a mechanism for risk-sharing, ensuring that the economic burden of uncertainties is distributed among multiple stakeholders, making it more feasible for organizations to invest in transformative projects.

4. Cost Efficiency:
   • Ecosystems promote resource efficiency by avoiding redundant investments in research and development. Shared knowledge and insights can lead to product development and commercialization cost reductions.
   • Coordinated efforts in infrastructure development, such as shared grids or storage facilities, can also lead to cost savings for the entire ecosystem.
   • Sharing insights and data across the Ecosystem provides a diverse range of knowledge and learning to improve efficiencies and seek higher productivity gains.
   • By providing growing insights and expertise encourages fresh investment and capital in understanding the data, benefits and impacts of assessing commercial returns.

5. Collective Influence on Global Energy Policies:
   • The Energy Transition is a global imperative, and collaborative ecosystems provide a unified voice for the industry in engaging with international policymakers. By working together, organizations can contribute to developing global energy policies that support sustainable practices and facilitate the transition on a broader scale.
   • Well-established Ecosystems with a solid leading voice can shape and influence others; recognizing the emerging (best) practices and broader adoption of these approaches will provide growing insights and leading ways to operate in the future.

6. Optimizing Investment in Transition Infrastructure:
   • Shared resources and insights within the ecosystem can help optimize investments in critical infrastructure for the Energy Transition, such as developing shared renewable energy facilities, storage infrastructure, and intelligent grid systems. This collaboration reduces costs and accelerates the deployment of necessary infrastructure.
   • The need is to shape standards for emerging technologies and infrastructure approaches not just on a national but international level for a global scale in emerging proven solutions that meet the multiple agendas of cost, reliability, security, scaling up potential and low carbon.

7. Regulatory Influence, Shared Insights for Regulatory Alignment:
   • Collaborative ecosystems have a stronger collective voice when engaging with policymakers and regulators. This can influence the creation of supportive policies and regulations that foster innovation and sustainable practices.
   • Unified efforts are more likely to shape a favourable regulatory environment for the energy transition, overcoming barriers that individual organizations might face.
   • The regulatory landscape plays a pivotal role in shaping the Energy Transition. Collaborative ecosystems enable industry players to share insights, lobby collectively for supportive policies, and navigate regulatory challenges more effectively, fostering an environment conducive to sustainable energy practices and building stronger Business & Government partnerships.

8. Market Expansion:
   • Ecosystems provide a platform for companies to access new markets and diversify their offerings. Organizations can tap into each other’s customer bases and distribution channels by collaborating.
   • This can lead to increased market penetration for sustainable energy solutions, as well as creating new business models that cater to emerging needs.
   • A focused business ecosystem approach can be leveraged to expand markets specifically for sustainable energy solutions that can leapfrog past stages of necessary investments.
   • Collaboration allows for joint marketing efforts, shared customer bases, and the creation of new business models that cater specifically to the evolving needs of the Energy Transition and the diverse customer and technology needs (on-demand, EV charging, evolving solutions, two-way flows).

9. Stakeholder and Community Trust and Reputation:
   • Open collaboration fosters transparency and builds trust among stakeholders, including customers, investors, and the public. This can enhance the reputation of the entire ecosystem and its diverse participants.
   • A positive reputation is increasingly crucial in attracting investments, partnerships, and customers, especially in industries undergoing significant transitions.
   • Social licence is vital for community engagement and civil voice to have higher inclusion levels in policy framing, implementation, mutual obligation, and association.

10. Building a Long-Term Resilient Energy Ecosystem:
    • The Energy Transition introduces new challenges, including intermittency in renewable energy sources, building resilience and response differently and, for example, the need for advanced energy storage solutions.
    • A collaborative ecosystem builds resilience by fostering joint efforts against external shocks and unforeseen challenges by creating a support network. Entities within the ecosystem can adapt more effectively to emerging challenges, ensuring the sustainability of the energy transition over the long term.

By emphasizing the specific challenges and opportunities inherent in the Energy Transition, any Ecosystem initiative becomes more tailored and compelling by the time invested by the stakeholders, the commitment to being open and ready to exchange knowledge. We need to think about the business case the barriers and issues to overcome, and the broader points of any blueprint of how this evolves, influences and shapes

As one of its objectives, it must showcase how a collaborative ecosystem approach is beneficial and essential for overcoming the unique hurdles posed by the transition to a sustainable energy future and how it “learns”, that collective learning, so as to enable it to work.

In summary, a business ecosystem approach is about sharing resources and creating a collective intelligence that propels the entire Energy industry or sub-sector forward. The energy transition is a shared challenge, and by adopting a collaborative mindset, organizations can amplify their impact, increase resilience, and drive meaningful change.

The post Considering the design of the Energy Ecosystem first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

One of the largest News Agencies recently asked me about the Energy Transition. These were some really tough open-ended questions: “What are the industry challenges and solutions,” “the key trends and developments“, What are the Challenges I face,” then “What critical solutions are there to the challenges” and finally “What value and guidance would you offer.”

The energy transition is a vast, complex area to view. I took a deep breath and thought about how I would break this down over a discussion of only 45 minutes. I decided to break it down into bite-size chunks such as Key Challenges, Worries, Big Ticket issues, My working issues, and finally, How the energy industry needs to get organized.

On reflection, I realized how many more points I could have raised or explained. Still, the structure of my breaking this down allows for some further thinking and additions that help me build this out, as many struggles with absorbing this energy transition, and I can build on my initial reactions here. Well, that is in my plans going forward.

Key Challenges

I put these into different bullet points.

+We get far too much-mixed advice (it often freezes us)

+Energy is a very closed-up industry- it does not open up its thinking to others for easier transformation

+The need to evolve (global) standards as quickly as possible (for faster adoption)

+Absorption of knowledge and its pace often is overwhelming

+The clarity of different assessments (vested interests, independent views)

+The struggle of individual needs and solutions fitting “standard” offerings

+There is a heavy reliance on peering through the engineer’s lense or mindset, often shutting out broader thinking, especially the customer side on their needs.

+Lack of insight sharing on what works, what is happening, and what is progressing (no great “go too” resource) for broader knowledge understanding.

+Government or Regional Authority issues, different understanding or awareness and the roadblocks of the “lead/ lag” on. this

Worries

• The pace of change
• Level of technology pace, understanding, roadblocks, coming down the pipeline
• Global / EU/ US / Asia, Regional and Local political and economic conflicts
• Regulations are constantly catching up, causing uncertainties
• The Bureaucracy of all the different engaged agents and bodies
• Engagement and involvement of the ultimate consumer

Big Ticket Items

+The swirling, whirling Climate Issues- opinions, facts, fiction and growing realities

+The Green Deal views and Fossil to Green Renewables- the managing of this carefully

+Resilience is the need to achieve in any forward-thinking

+The issue of circular transformation to recycle, repurpose etc.

+The growing worries over Grids, their design, their ability to transmit and distribute for different energy sources and managing central and decentral demand of peaks, storage and troughs.

+The breaking down of the Global supply village and the old value chain dependencies

+Critical rare components, minerals and metals- location, quantity, environment impact and price volatility

+The Electricity needs, scope and coping in this lengthy transition (what is chasing and reconfiguring to what)

+Building constantly for sustainable energy, at what cost to the immediate and the in-between

+Accelerating the digitalization for Energy and building Data reliance

+Demand, Growth and Prosperity are optimistic in change but realistic in reality.

+Securing the Energy Transition- the rhetoric, hype and realities, individual or national- who chooses

My issues

• Energy is a “laggard” in innovation creation, transfer and adoption- it needs a structured process.
• Risks and the barriers of a) Regulatory, b) Financing, c) Enabling infrastructure, d) Social, and e) Cultural constantly do not get evaluated as robustly as they should
• The New Technology Understanding is often piecemeal and driven by the strongest internal voice.
• The ability to listen broadly, the time to read and learn, the time to discuss specifics (outside events)
• Knowing the capabilities, competencies and capabilities in resource, knowledge, and capital internally is often lacking in clarifying context or scoping (and more on briefing external advisors)
• I don’t have time; I need resources and a better platform for helping, advising etc.

The need to get the Energy Industry organized

+The fantastic work of many from IEA, IRENA, UN etc., down through all the think tanks, market intelligence and analytics offered is utterly overwhelming to absorb and translate- global source Energy Wikipedia?

+Central sourcing of Independent funding, criteria, broader acceptance of returns of value

+Instruments, Institutions and the variability of (success) measurement stops promising concepts.

+The need for better roadmaps for key industry transitions, constantly updated, not once a year if you are lucky, and it is of interest to more than a few

+The opening up of public procurements, differences, complexities, resolutions

+Early stage accreditation, experimenting and prototyping methodologies and universal guidelines

+Super transparency of Research and Development, not one-liners placed in an annual report

+The pursuit of standards at national, regional and global levels needs resourcing and directing as it is constantly developing at periodic steps (CoP work, perhaps)

+The CoP meetings need to be SPLIT- experts in one, influencers in another, then finding the assessed middle ground where local politics or lobbyists join the fray ( hope is certainly a fine thing here!)

Summary

If you notice, I avoided or did not even want to get into debates about fuels, generation options, storage, utilization, consumption or the mind-draining points covering distributed, dispatched and variables etc., in a fairer, equitable world, all needing energy.

A lot of knowing where to start is to partly do with anyone’s embarking points and their energy journey, as I have outlined; that is why I invest so much of my time in research and translating this Energy Transforming narrative into a real understanding of its multiple parts.

So how many of these was I able to get across- don’t ask! Hence why I’ve written this post. Therapeutic, perhaps or just simply how hugely challenging and complex the Energy Transition is to grasp and translate as my posting site states; “Innovating the Energy Transition, a transition in all of our lives in knowledge, application and discovery.“

The post Thinking about the Energy Transition first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

There is a growing, possibly intense focus and awareness that our Energy Grids worldwide are in serious trouble.

The significant changing consumption needs and generation patterns are causing significant concerns that existing ageing infrastructure is becoming a major source of risk to power grid safety, reliability and financial exposure and in failing to deliver power on the expected 24 x 7, we need.

If you look at ten of the top issues that are causing a growing crisis

1. Ageing or outdated infrastructure
2. Supply chain failures are delaying infrastructure equipment changes.
3. A continued public opposition delaying infrastructure options and bureaucratic barriers
4. There is a continued lack of sizable funding to make major changes
5. System redundancies and stranded assets and the issues of legacy write-offs
6. The increased complexity of the grid is still unclear in its final generation mix design
7. Cyber Attacks are continuing and exposing significant weakness
8. Extreme weather events are growing and exposing grid vulnerabilities.
9. Previously poor project management, inconsistencies in capital spending
10. Changing demand needs, the acceleration of electrification and the lack of new infrastructure

The need is to find effective responses and considerations of the options, managing change simultaneously while maintaining increasing power demand.

The energy system is being disrupted, and where there are levels of high disruption, there is always uncertainty, debate and learning to take risker views of the future, creating a lot of unease and hesitation. As quoted by one senior person, “we have an inadequate view of what – positively, and in detail – we’re building towards.

As the sector transforms at such an accelerating rate, the move towards ambitious decarbonization targets has required that clean energy is explored in all those options and required to be pushed to the forefront of future solutions. Integrating that variable green energy onto the grid and hardening infrastructure assets against extreme weather are proving some industry’s most pressing challenges.

Changing the ageing grid infrastructure system needs to be gradual and systematic and cause the least disruption to the power supply. This evolving into a new grid design is no easy task when you are dealing with thousands of transmission points, lines and final consumer points, all that needs to be considered and often replaced with different technology solutions to bring them up to date. The level of existing asset investment in dispatchable energy, the generation mix will require fewer traditional base load units and more utility-scale renewable sources.

This major shift from conventional central generation, heavily reliant on coal, gas and oil, to a more decentralised system and variable sources that bring solar, wind, hydro, hydrogen and nuclear into the mix where a greater reliance on storage of energy is closer to the point of consumption is radical in all this means to have the right grid infrastructure design.

In a recent report from DNV, a thought leadership report, “Future-proofing our power grids“, their Energy Industry Insights 2022 Power Grids Research Report, DNV lays out the challenges but points towards many of the solutions.

In this report Chapter 2, entitled “Ingenuity and New Ideas” specifically caught my eye as innovation forms my core support in the Energy Sector. Let me pick out the five exciting ones in my mind.

“Congestion, complexity, uncertainty, policy, bureaucracy, supply chains —there are a daunting collection of challenges and barriers to successfully build future power grids. But there is good cause for positivity” is the starting point of the chapter.

Firstly resolving the flexibility challenge. I quote from the DNV report: “the future power system will need to balance demand and supply carefully to manage the variability of renewables. This is known as flex. Four leading solutions provide these flex needs, including generation management, demand-side management, grid coupling and energy storage. Each solution plays a role at different points and timescales, including energy storage. Energy storage has the potential to address many of the biggest challenges in building the electrical power system of the future.”- “Energy storage is a buffering system.” that solves much of the distributed power needs closer to the final consuming point.

Smarter transmission. I quote again from the DNV report, “Virtual transmission lines are examples of storage as a transmission asset (SATA) projects. In this case, the batteries can be treated as transmission assets for regulatory purposes, allowing utilities to access incentives and receive a guaranteed rate of return on their investment…..“It becomes like a piece of the transmission system”. When transmission lines become congested, power can be offloaded into storage, which can continue its journey later when congestion is lower. Virtual transmission is cheaper and quicker to deploy than new transmission lines. It has a smaller footprint and a far simpler path to planning and regulatory approval” Virtual transmission lines are examples of storage as a transmission asset (SATA) projects.

Solutions for new market dynamics. Again I quote from DNV, “As with all the changes that are taking place on our power grids, significant shifts are required at the physical, operational, digital, market, and regulatory layers of the system. “You can invest huge amounts into any particular technology, such as energy storage, but fail to realize its full societal value because you have not addressed some critical systemic issues, both physical and regulatory,” says Mark Paterson from Strategen. “These hidden structural issues, which were not apparent in a highly centralized, fossil-fuel-based system, now prevent the ‘value-stack’ of energy storage from being fully unlocked across all power system segments.”

International super-grids. Again quoting, “An advantage of HVDC super-grids is they side-step one of the key challenges involved in cross-border energy trade. “Because super-grids will use HVDC, there is no need to worry about grid synchronisation between countries,” says John Irving from the World Bank. “You’ve got a highly controllable inverter at each end that provides a security buffer. For example, in the Pan-Arab region, the Saudi Arabian system is 60Hz, whereas all the other contiguous countries operate at 50Hz. There’s no way they can ever align with each other, but they can still interconnect with HVDC. Super grids will be like an HVDC backbone that will sit on top of the HVAC systems below.”

Visibility and smarter use of data– Again, quoting from DNV’s report, “People need a view of the network to design flexible solutions and innovations for the grid,” says Florence Silver, “They need to know which assets are connected to which, and in what way. They need to design and test their own use cases. They need to make informed decisions. This relies on a common information model to ensure that operators share standardized data that are interoperable.” Sabine Erlinghagen also emphasizes the importance of interoperability and standardizing data exchange protocols. “Interoperability is crucial to the success of data-driven innovations, but we also need to be open so that operators are not stuck with one vendor; they can add modules from many vendors and create their own customizations and interface via APIs.

Building a modern Grid infrastructure

The task is a daunting one. To unwind the existing system and keep the power on, and progressively integrate all the new variables of renewable energy options (solar, wind, hydrogen, possibly nuclear), build out distributed storage and build microgrids and receiving of energy from multiple points and constant electrification expansion. Couple this with the infrastructure work of new cables, substations, intelligent smart switches, load and meter monitoring and growing data evaluations; the greater reliance on software all need installing, integrating and achieving this greater reliability, resilience and risk management.

The grid becomes a more visible energy-intensive process that has to be more reactive and dynamic to activate responses quickly and far more locally situated to limit extreme weather conditions to offer availability 24 x 7.

Six top-of-mind concerns

So knowing where to begin is partly dependent on individual parties, available funding and needs. There are six big concerns: 1 -Generational mix, managing fewer traditional base loads and building / acquiring more utility-scale renewable sources, 2 -Recognize and attempt to resolve the regulatory lag in meeting the needs of the system changes along the Grid system, 3 -Overcome the lack of qualified workers to engineer, maintain, and operate the more complex system occurring; 4—the ability to attract new capital to invest in and maintain a more resilient grid, 5 -Resolve the sufficient transmission facilities and system control assets needed, 6—the significant increases in DER.

We are right in the middle of an electrical power revolution.

The days of the highly centralized, one-directional model are being dismantled and reinvented. The pressure of “saving our planet” from fossil fuel and the need to decarbonize our energy systems are presenting further complexity at a formidable scale.

We still have an inadequate view of what we’re building towards in power generation solutions based on green energy, storage use, and the impact at the final consumers’ end. Grids will become two-way but highly unpredictable. The dynamics within the Grid System will rely on software, smart meters, applications and sensors to feed data into a highly flexible system to manage, direct and control the need for power in a more decentralized, heavily dependent world increasingly reliant on electrification.

The multiple challenges of redesigning our Power Grids is a mammoth task and needs greater recognition of all that is involved.

Main source: DNV, a thought leadership report, “Future-proofing our power grids“, their Energy Industry Insights 2022 Power Grids Research Report.

The post Our Power Grids require Reliability, Resilience and Risk management. first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Building out the new Energy Ecosystem

I firmly believe the Energy System needs a very systematic and consistent evaluation as we undertake the changes from a fossil-reliant ecosystem into a clean, renewable one, with the overriding obligation to address climate change.

As you consider a change of this magnitude, you recognize how complicated this becomes, and the deeper your thinking becomes, hence why I like thinking through this with the use of mind maps.

I would argue we need a consistent framework to keep working through all the changes that will be undertaken in the next twenty to thirty years to achieve that eventual 2050 net-zero target of decarbonizing the energy system fully;  resulting in a clean, climate-resilient energy transformation.

Within my first post, “Changing the Energy Ecosystem“, I began to lay out the need to change the energy dynamics by redirecting them away from the existing systems and structures.

This is my second post, which continues to build out the new Energy Ecosystem.

This post focuses on the two points of Reforming Business models and the needed Resolutions to take this different thinking forward, then I will take out in the third post, Innovation & Ingenuity, Experimentation & Rapid Pilots,  and Leapfrog Opportunities.

Reforming Business Models and Needed Resolutions required.

So this post focuses on reforming the Business Models within any energy system change and then looking at the necessary resolutions in the impact or implications any new business model will have.

Putting the scale of this Energy Transition into context.

Again, these are my first attempts to systematically redirect or reorder the Energy System. I have viewed the Energy System as an Ecosystem one as it needs to account for a whole system approach. I find so much of today is made up of piecemeal evaluations or activities, lacking that comprehensive view or systematic evaluation before the change is undertaken.

Any evaluation of Energy System change requires an initial view of the six dimensions that will impact or trigger any seismic change. These are 1. Environmental. 2. Economic, 3. Technical, 4. Institutional, 5. Political and 6. Social.  I have left this analysis out in these posts, but these drive the macro case for making the Energy Transition change.

The sheer size of estimated investment in changing the energy system is presently suggested as between $110 trillion to $140 trillion by 2050. For all those involved, their investments in transforming what they have as assets today, how to transition or retire them, and what and where they need to invest in the future in renewable energy sources is a daunting task, full of risk and uncertainties.

A consistent and sustaining evaluation pathway for the Energy System

Changing the energy system must have a systematic redirection, built on an evaluation format that stays sustaining and constant for a pathway that will be lasting twenty-eight years to achieve that eventual 2050 net-zero target of decarbonizing the energy system fully, resulting in a clean, climate-resilient energy transformation.

Building the new from within the existing, we have no other choice.

As we dismantle the existing energy ecosystem, we are building the new one inside; that is the really hard part; it is full of variability and novelty. We only have one planet; we need energy constantly and always on. We are transforming one built out from our reliance on fossil fuel being progressively dismantled to one built on renewables in such a short time span is monumental.

We are replacing proven solutions with nascent ones, perhaps individually demonstrated but not fully connected up in an integrated, designed energy system showing validation and long-term return or resilience.

We do need to get our heads around this to manage what is orderly chaos, thinking through the “known-unknown-unknowable” in our present and future projected world and dealing with all the constraints.

This is why I refer to The Cynefin framework from Dave Snowden through Cognitive Edge. The positioning of Cognitive Edge is “making sense of complexity in order to act.” That trying to make sense of all the constraints involved in changing the Energy systems.

Building upon my opening post

So building from my opening post of “Changing the Energy Ecosystem” where I looked at the triggering points of this: 1. Changing the Energy System, followed by considering new 2. Value Propositions (scenario, synthesise, combinations, synopsis, sketches) and then evaluating the 3. Dealing with the different disruption and dislocation points, and 4. the need for rapid learning and knowledge sharing. We now need to go one step deeper.

I have taken a mind mapping approach to reduce content and allow an individual understanding of each idea and what it triggers. This offers the individual a suggested prescriptive framework and course of possible activation, but “the devil is in your details and circumstances“.

Going one stage further- Reforming Business Models and the Resolutions needed

Reforming the Business Models- opening thoughts

Reforming Business Models is absolutely essential in any Energy Transition.

Resolutions needed- initial areas of focus.

Resolution Needs to address in the Energy Transition.

Rebuilding our Energy Ecosystems

How can we unplug from a fossil-dependent energy system into a clean, reliable and renewable one that is sustaining and net-zero for greenhouse gas emissions?

It is the emerging scope of Business Models and Resolutions needed to be found that “informs” the application explored in the next post of 1. Innovation & Ingenuity, 2. Experimentation & pilots, and 3. those Leapfrog opportunities

What needs to be explored, exploited, built out, and deployed based on the business models and the resolutions considered to existing and future needs as outlined briefly in this post and the first post to shape the future of energy in predictable and systematic ways?

The post Building out the new Energy Ecosystem first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Pinned to my door, my way of approaching the Energy Transition

I have on the door of my office the approach I am taking to build out my understanding and pace myself in what I can absorb, translate and offer views upon on the Energy Transition.

My site www.innovating4energy.website is where I outline and see my value contribution in applying the “multiplier effect” to any discovery and validation of the Energy Transition. The value proposition is in accelerating the clients/readers’ understanding of where the potential growth and impact points with the objective of triggering a new business opportunity for it to occur.

What we offer is exploring the Energy Landscape in understanding, so this can then be translated into fresh, exciting Energy Value Positioning Offerings.

We extract points of value to drive innovative change to your business offering.

The services provided https://innovating4energy.website

I draw it up heavily influenced by the work I am undertaking in the Energy Transition. It adapts some of the energy jargon as a fun way to look at this

On my door, I have this:

• • • I increasingly go off the GRID (less time on the Internet)
    • I keep investing and building the STORAGE (my research work is my value proposition base)
    • I look constantly for Renewable Energy SOURCES (forming new contacts, networks, and relationships)
    • I keep motivated and keep transitioning with ENERGY (nothing stays still, knowledge is always evolving)
    • I look to constantly seek out sources of DEMAND (looking for work-to-be-done)
    • I have a core to focus on my PRIMARY demand (innovation, energy, and ecosystem advisory work)
    • I look toward being close to the EDGE (in research, topics, and discussions)

The vital “infusion” of innovation in thinking, approaching and building this into the front end of energy provides a greater discovery structure and process that can greatly facilitate the changes, with more informed knowledge, insights and validation of a path to travel.

We offer a mix of understanding, forecasting and access to comprehensive knowledge and research resources.

• Offering the intelligence to accelerate your energy journey and solutions

The innovation energy transition journey roadmap outlined

Providing a given value in the proposition

• The aim is to support the individual, teams, and organisations in their innovation and transition activity around the energy transition they intend or are already undertaking in relevant insights and knowledge.
• The outcome is to advance further the client’s comprehension, based on a different external perspective, that has a valuable place in any assessment of the Energy Transition and future pathway.
• The value for the client, so often time and resource-starved, is that they can rapidly understand the latest thinking relevant to their focus areas, in thoughts, and insights around innovation, ecosystem building, or how the energy transition impacts them, to identify new growth options or impact points of new value, or consider radically different stances in business positioning in the future.
• Adding new insights and knowledge contributes to building significantly new innovation and transformation understanding and competencies, resulting in clients achieving deeper appreciation, further positive momentum and sustaining results, from these energy transformation activities.

Two focal points and one reality!

1. We are constantly building our library of energy knowledge to support your requirements.

2. Our position is to operate at the front end of the Energy System- where the true energy is generated and we make it renewable and sustainable!

• Partnering in any energy journey needs extensive network and collaboration thinking

How often do you stare at the wall or door?

The post Pinned to my door, my way of approaching the Energy Transition first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

The post We are falling badly behind on our invention in technology for the Energy Transition first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Thomas Kiessling, the CTO of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, provided in a keynote at the Enlit Europe event, held in Milan between 30th November to 2nd December 2021 his thoughts on how to prepare as an Energy Company for significant disruption  He outlined in twenty-odd minutes keynote his transformation list to enable this with “All of us will go through disruption and opportunity.”

When anyone argues from the start of their keynote: “that no one would dispute that the energy sector is ripe for disruption, we have to go through profound change.” Then further adding, “there is a need to transform the systems radically“, you indeed start paying attention.

Kiessling said the industry “has entered a much greater degree of uncertainty. And uncertainty needs entrepreneurs; it needs trial and error, and it needs system-scale innovation.”

Emerging from the recent CoP26 held in Glasgow between 31st October to 12th November 2021, the push towards a net-zero future is the reality ahead. “After COP26, no one would dispute that the energy sector is ripe for disruption. We have to go through profound change.”

The CoP26 outcome calls for a fundamental, profound system change within the energy system and the global need for the whole energy community to cope with this net-zero need.

Kiessling cited a recent report from Boston Consulting and the German Federation of Industry, recognizes that no sector today is set up correctly for the change that needs to happen and argues this German perspective reflects across the Globe. He cited a doubling of electricity demand in the next 20 to 25 years, with a requirement of a tripling of the supply of PV and Wind firstly. “Each makes up part of a massive “collective” challenge.”

Kiessling suggests we are entering “a period of uncertainty.” and his view is uncertainty calls for Entrepreneurs as much ahead within the energy system changes ahead will have high levels of “trial and error.”

He calls for a regulatory framework to encourage flexibility and innovation and, at the same time, to ensure that production (of Electricity) needs to be secure, resilient and the supply significantly increased.

Various “asides” are provided throughout this review.

* I have provided some “asides” to clarify or explain as well to help put a further context for a broader reading community, as the keynote was given to an audience of energy experts. Some additional examples were sought from Thomas Kiessling following this keynote to illustrate his points, it makes this review longer, but it brings added value.

There are parallels with other significant industrial disruptions

Kiessling drew parallels with other industrial areas that have gone through similar and significant disruptions, such as telecommunications, factory automation and even data centres, stating there is a lot to learn from these examples.

• My aside here is that those industries did go through massive disruption. Perhaps the power grid can be considered the most complex system humanity ever built, as all our energy consumption is directly linked to power consumption. Equally, the electrical power grid has only added increased complexity over time.
• Second aside here: A major part of the energy transition is it is moving from a traditional vertically integrated hierarchy into a new form of operating within a more open “smart, intelligent grid” to enable an instantaneous, on all-the-time, safe, two-way passage, of information and energy needs will become a real game-changer. We can learn from other significant disruptions, but the energy transition is, for many, the most complex, operationally and technically demanding.

As Thomas Kiessling rightly points out in this keynote, combining operational technology, managing (differently) the physical assets and underlying technology is the set of things we need to manage together.

Preparing the Energy Company- a transformation approach

The primary point of his keynote was “how to prepare as an Energy Company” for the challenges ahead where a seven-fold increase in renewables with still the number one objective of having the security of supply and resilience within the system being paramount.

The structure of the keynote for Energy System Change

The keynote provided seven needs for transitional change.

Today as we transform our power generation into renewables, we face ageing powerlines, struggling to add capacity, a lack of (real-time) awareness, difficulties in controlling the voltage, especially at the grid edge.

Kiessling used specific examples of the needs in Electricity and the Grid Edge to underline the changes needed to be undertaken.

Firstly today, the need is to apply cutting edge technology.

Transition need one: The security of supply, resilience, and automation

Point One: Kiessling points out we will see less inertia and less short circuit power in the networks. There will need to be more sophisticated fault detection algorithms. Kiessling points out the likely need is to change the network protection architecture of the network itself. For example, the overcurrent and distance protection might need to be substituted by differential protections. AI technology will help to do this.

The good news here suggested by Thomas Kiessling is that AI and Analytics are well on their way to help in this transformation to control and operate the network in a “real-time” fashion. This shift in managing the system’s demands becomes a major transiting challenge.

• As an aside here: Historically, for example, in the U.S. power grid, inertia from conventional fossil, nuclear, and hydropower generators was abundant—and thus taken for granted in the planning and operations of the system. But as the grid evolves with increasing penetrations of inverter-based resources—e.g., wind, solar photovoltaics, and battery storage—that do not inherently provide inertia, questions have emerged about the need for inertia and its role in the future grid. Understanding the role of inertia requires understanding the interplay of inertia and these other services, particularly primary frequency response, which is derived mainly from relatively slow-responding mechanical systems.

Point two made here was shifting from static monitoring to a more dynamic setup. The present static load flow calculation to operate the network needs different thinking. As rotating masses are progressively removed, it will require different approaches with renewables towards a more dynamic data-driven environment.

• Aside here– examples provided later by Thomas Kiessling on issues that support this point two:
  • Static load flow calculation will not detect wide-area power swings, which might cause tripping of circuit breakers.
  • Such power swings might increase when rotating masses are decommissioned from the network.
  • Dynamic Stability Supervision is needed, typically using Phasor measure units.
  • There are promising technologies to detect upcoming dangerous situations early in a world of volatility.

Kiessling liked this, in an interesting comparison, to “resembling a patient-monitoring system during heart surgery” – one that was dynamic, self-healing and would evolve into a “system of systems”. This monitoring system needs to understand the system’s metrics in a real-time fashion to understand if dangerous situations are coming over the network to respond to these.

Point three– the need for self-healing networks. Closed-loop switching to help isolate and restore network segments in fast fashions and apply a very different total fault metric to this.

The need comes to the point of a system of systems for semi-autonomous parts of the network, driven by renewables can then manage themselves and contribute to the overhaul resilience of the network, so it becomes a “resilient, decentralized and autonomous system”.

• Aside here: This is taking the smart grid as a System of Systems (SOS) which moves towards operation independence of the elements, the ability to manage within a network the autonomy of these elements, as well as have an evolutionary development to retire at any time without causing an impact to other parts of the system, provide for emergent behaviour to meet the demands for a clean, economical and efficient way by all in the system design and finally allow for geographic distribution to be highly dispersed and linked through information exchange channels.

These transitions will need industry cooperation to mature these technologies and set all the energy systems up for the planned and expected growth.

As pointed out in the keynote- we all need to learn how to deal with data, and this is a cultural change where the need for data scientists, data lakes and IT/OT need to come together in new, radically different ways.

Transition need 2: Digitalization and Data

The challenge is validating and enriching the data to make it useable.

One example provided here is how Smart Meters are now going beyond just billing, but a deeper verification for providing data that increases the awareness of the network of power consumption, specifically on the grid edge. This shift enables improved metrics, planning and operational management for capacity planning, better aggregation insights, forecasting potential, ultimately improving the industry’s capital efficiencies and allowing the prosumer to participate.

Aside: Siemens re-launched their meter data management software EnergyIP at the Enlit Europe event, where its focus has a higher level of user-centricity and supporting customers to get ready for future changes to the energy system.  Links to the PRESS RELEASE and MORE information, taken from the Siemens website

Transition need 3: Innovation and proactivity

The use of power electronics, inverter-based resources will inform and stabilize the grid and protect the infrastructure.

• Aside here: Invertor-based resources including wind, solar and storage can quickly detect frequency deviations and respond to system imbalances. These “fast-frequency responses” can provide response rates faster than traditional mechanical responses from conventional generators, thereby reducing the need for inertia.

One example offered within the keynote was operating, simulating and monitoring islands (actual physical islands) as rotation free, here Siemens has several larger-scale projects around the world.

The massive opportunities here is to system scale innovation and reinvention, yet there are three fundamental issues to tackle

1. Inverters from different manufacturers require generic inverter models enabling standardization across the industry to achieve a rotator free network.
2. Challenge two: In larger transmission scenarios the inverters are located at a larger distance and this increases the risk of more weakly damped oscillations. Therefore, we need accurate simulation models and algorithms and present challenge
3. The issue of time-varying eigen modes is a challenge to be addressed. As the generation changes between conventional and inverter-based (or renewable) generation from hour to hour, the oscillatory behaviour of your power system will change, this requires an operator support system that continuously analyses the dynamics and if needed, the power system needs to adjust on the fly to secure N-1 failure security

In conclusion, to get to a rotation, free network in most countries calls for a system scale innovation for the energy community to work together to resolve and scale these specific challenges.

Transition need 4: Dealing with Cooperation at all levels

For example, TSOs and DSOs must cooperate more to cope with volatile inputs from renewables

Offered following the keynote to explain this cooperation point Kiessling gave a concrete example of how such cooperation can help speed progress to carbon-free networks:

With less and less TSO control of conventional power plants and rotating masses, the TSO’s mission to secure grid balance will be harder to achieve. This is because the TSO has no direct control over RES at the distribution grid. That’s where DSO comes into play. The DSO can react to TSO control signals, effectively providing ancillary services by aggregating DER and DSR This allows operators to reduce TSO side issues like redispatch, which has increased dramatically in some countries in recent years

In one of Siemens research projects cooperating with multiple TSOs / DSOs, this work has verified this works using real network data of TSOs, and are now working on deploying this with a number of TSOs

• Aside: Having clear definitions of data to be exchanged, recognizing network development in demand and generation forecasts, establishing the ancillary services, load shedding, and capacity markets will all need greater collaboration. Exchanging planning information, coordinating technical studies to assess constraints on the system, dealing with congestion management, having common grid user understanding and free exchanges on available network capacity, all needs listening and collaborating more in the new system needs.

Transition need 5: Standardization and scalability

The keynote comes back to evolving into this vision of a system of systems. The system will resemble more of a system of systems, where energy nodes will take autonomous decisions that contribute to overall grid stability, only possible with standardization among nano, Micro, distribution and transport grids.

• Aside Standardization matters because larger power systems will have many grid-forming inverters from different vendors. There is a need to harmonize cyber security standards so as to ensure a common level of cyber security for the entire, interconnected energy system and Cooperation between TSO and DSO for ancillary services and transport grid balance requires interconnection standards.

Transition need 6: Regulations for flexible investment plans

As pointed out by Thomas Kiessling we need a regulatory environment that builds digitalization into incentive frameworks. To build on this

We need to simplify data collection across the industry already at the point of asset registration and there need to be energy data best practices that are embraced by operators

To speed innovation, regulators should give grid infrastructure stakeholders (including equipment manufacturers) access to past operational data so they can model solutions. At present, the network operators often have a hard time getting innovation investments approved by regulators, even as research projects with part of the issues coming from digitalization investment, by nature, will lead to a certain amount of innovative trial and error, as is the case of every innovation

Such an investment is in competition with simply adding hardware assets most of the time with a fixed rate of asset capital return. The regulator and the DSO understand this process much better. One way to evolve this logic is to start looking at business outcomes

What is the asset base needed to deliver a given amount of energy? Capital efficiency incentives need to be introduced into the discussion. The flexibility to deploy Opex or Capex needs to be increased.

Here lies a cultural and transformational problem, as regulators have been “engrained” to approve and measure in a certain way, to apply known metrics or handed down-regulation requirements to safeguard energy.

You have to start with “what do we dare in the industry?”, “what do we focus upon?” and how can all involved in the energy transition collaborate, learn and work together.

Aside: that would be unique but will be necessary for all stakeholders within the Energy system

Transition need 7: Consumer/prosumer focus

It is forecasted that Distributed Energy Resources will grow sevenfold by 2030. At a changing grid edge, data is (simply) not there, to prove that investment or change.

In a further follow-up, due to limits of time within the keynote, the points were offered by Kiessling in a set of challenges to be addressed.

Today’s reality: DSOs often don’t know if authorizing the next EV charging stations leads to voltage band violations. The DSO might also curtail solar production expecting overvoltage events

This is not based on data at the point of potential under or over voltage, since that data is rarely available today. There is then risk and leading to a perception in the industry that parts of the network could actually carry twice the load without a problem, but due to lack of data the generation & load balance is kept well below the actual capacity

How can this be changed and what help within the evolving grid edge provide a change that allows for the transformation to take shape?

So, what if you could estimate the status of LV lines based on a combination of real-time data available typically at the substation level, plus meter data, even if you get that meter only once a day or periodically

Siemens is working with DSOs on pilots to use neural networks to estimate if and where voltage issues arise both on load and on the DER supply side.  These methods achieve better transparency, enabling the DSO to curtail less, and authorize more new loads like EV chargers

This information, combined with peak shaving, load shifting, storage systems to smooth out supply and demand, will go a long way to accommodate new loads and prosumer systems.

Thomas Kiessling’s suggestion is in the application of Neural Networks- “Achieving more informed decisions”

The possible solution to make changes in the Grid Edge is to use substation data alongside offline smart meters. That data can be extrapolated to identify hotspots and load needs and becomes a Network Grid Edge.

This approach avoids having more sensors on every meter or connecting point to save time and expense. It can be pushed out over time and experience to connect into the final energy-consuming point.

• Aside here: A neural network is likely to be a series of algorithms that endeavours to recognize underlying relationships in a set of data through a process that mimics the way the human brain operates or, in this case, the energy system. In this sense, neural networks refer to systems of neurons, either organic or artificial in nature. An artificial neuron receives a signal, then processes it and can signal neurons connected to it. The “signal” at a connection is a real number, and the output of each neuron is computed by some non-linear function of the sum of its inputs. The connections are called edges. Neurons and edges typically have a weight that adjusts as learning proceeds. Source (partly Wikipedia)

Achieving more informed decisions

This proposal made by Thomas Kiessling can provide a more apparent determination of the grid edge’s state and provide the state of the LV network for more informed decisions and (more targeted) capital investment.

So here, innovation and creative thinking are being applied to solve a current problem holding back the needed Grid Edge shift to the intelligent use of consumption and demand data. Insights gained will improve the knowledge on the network without deployment at scale, of sensors to provide an assessment of data close to demand.

• Aside: For me, the idea of the concept suggested, Neural Networks offers the potential to bring about change, bring data, AI, technology into the equation to accelerate the Grid Edge was the most intriguing point.

So, in the conclusion of Thomas Kiessling’s Keynote.

We are in a disruptive phase; Kiessling provided in his keynote a transformation list of needs to follow, specifically working through issues and challenges both in the transmission, distribution and Grid Edge networks. He gave many rich examples that are already shifting Energy and Grid Edge design. These offered radically different ways to manage the demand and supply, reflecting the changing nature of power generation, distribution and grid edge supply.

Thomas Kiessling’s final comment was we do need to “wrap our minds around it” to undergo such a disruptive time of profound system change. It is how the energy community comes together and finds ways to imagine, collaborate to learn and share.

I found the keynote stimulating, thoughtful and informative.

The post How to prepare as an Energy Company for significant disruption – Thomas Kiesslings Enlit Keynote first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Image rights Siemens EnergyIP Mosaic®

I was looking at the changes made by Siemens on their meter data management software on their recent relaunched EnergyIP Mosaic®; their next generation of the leading EnergyIP® Meter Data Management.

“Siemens is taking its market-leading meter data management software to the next level, supporting customers to get ready for future changes to the energy system,” said Sabine Erlinghagen, CEO of Digital Grid at Siemens Smart Infrastructure.

Siemens has taken a design thinking and co-creation approach to understanding customer needs.  Siemens worked extensively with multiple customers globally to understand their exact needs when it comes to meter data management.

The relaunched MDM software focused on enhancing user-centricity

EnergyIP Mosaic® has not only changed its look and feel but opened up new efficient ways of performing tasks, providing better situational awareness for customers.  The solution has focused explicitly on workflow improvements, giving the new software a more efficient, intuitive, insightful, adaptable and ready to use sense and feel.

With the new relaunched software, users can see everything clearly on one screen through EnergyIP Mosaic’s new, modern interface that can swiftly bring together all the information you need on one screen.

This update differs significantly from the past EnergyIP Mosaic® offers a new, modern interface that swiftly brings together all the information on one screen, whereas in the past, there were requirements to open multiple tabs in the UI. Data, correlations, root causes, and other advanced functionalities are intuitive and easily understandable with interactive visualizations and shortcuts.

“EnergyIP Mosaic® lets you find what you need and understand what you see.”

Image rights Siemens EnergyIP Mosaic®

This next-generation solution offers far greater efficiency and flexibility to busy users. The modern interface is easy to learn and use, improving customer experience. Management can quickly review dashboards and data on the go using a tablet to help in any facilitation or deliver a quicker answer for actions and insights.

New capabilities of EnergyIP® MDM

A significantly increased focus on Event Data and Action Management (EDAM)

Do you want to save time by detecting anomalies automatically?
There is so much your data is telling you: the health of your hardware, safety issues, revenue loss, meter installation issues and operational issues. EDAM automatically analyses AMI data, events and interval read with multiple detection rules created by you for your business needs.

Achieving greater Business Monitoring

Do you know what is going on with your operations on a daily basis?

Remove the “black box” and increase the transparency of AMI data to make quick, confident decisions. Users can drill down to investigate data collection and quality issues, see trends and spot geographical clusters of potential service issues points. The users can quickly gain situational awareness and better visibility into data quality issues for effective resolution.

KPI’s significantly improve through this increased transparency. For instance, now it provides KPI potential for what percentage of service points have complete data from a business perspective, improving the data quality. Also built-in is the ability for KPI’s to be constructed for different ratepayer groups, customer classes, AMI systems etc.

The new software gives easier viewing, more informed data to make quicker, confident decisions from data collection and exception management to billing and data exporting, as well as monitoring of usage anomalies; you will have insight into the data and be equipped to act. The real value of providing actionable interactive dashboards for both ongoing and exception resolution handling has become a critical feature.

The availability of Software-as-a-Service is part of this relaunch

Are your critical IT personnel overloaded with maintaining an ever-changing IT landscape? The new EnergyIP Mosaic® offers three different EnergyIP Deployment Models.

So what are the different benefits and trade-offs?

The most traditional MDM model is EnergyIP MDM On-Premise. This MDM model offers the utilities a license model. As the customer, they are responsible for purchasing the licenses, storing the data and additional costs that will occur regarding maintenance updates and/or software upgrades. It is highly customizable and configurable but has its limits and cost considerations to evaluate, depending on the future business plans and the available capital.

The second option is the Hosted one; this is growing in its popularity with the increasing need for data to be stored in the Cloud. Hosted offers the customization and configuration of on-premise, but customers save space and reduce IT costs by storing data in the Cloud. Therefore, the data is NOT stored in a data centre at a customer’s physical location. It is stored in a private cloud environment that only the customer has access to.

The third option is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and is rapidly becoming the future for software and is now available for EnergyIP® MDM SaaS globally. EnergyIP MDM SaaS was launched in early 2021 in the United States. SaaS offers unique benefits because it is a subscription model, and data is stored on a secure but public hosted site. EnergyIP MDM SaaS uses AWS, Amazon Web Services. SaaS is lower cost and has a faster implementation time.

SaaS has all the great benefits of EnergyIP MDM.

Having available all the functionalities, SaaS provides the real option of reducing your risks, cost and complexity in a preconfigured service with Cloud-based security and regular upgrades to allow the MDM provider to focus on their core business and have a very limited IT infrastructure investment and workload pressures. This option is an all-in-one subscription. Implementation can be rapid, possibly within three months, depending on the connectivity and the existing designed communications network and its integration into any more comprehensive technology solutions planned or in use and dependencies on its interoperability and cybersecurity assessments.

Intelligence and building sustainable action capabilities

As Sabine Erlinghagen, CEO of Digital Grid at Siemens Smart Infrastructure, states: “We need intelligence – be it automation or artificial intelligence – to provide improved guidance to grid operators. Digitalization is the key enabler to make grids flexible enough to handle the rising complexity caused by an ever-increasing infeed of renewable energy and a growing share of EVs on the road while remaining resilient.

To master the new complexity, we have to turn data into knowledge and knowledge into sustainable action. With our digital technologies, we want to help utilities safeguard and even accelerate the energy transition.

We need to find better ways to use the already collected data for new purposes. For example, in the past, smart meter data was used for billing purposes only. But data collected by smart meters is extremely valuable for other processes as well.”

EnergyIP can be central to current or future add-on applications.

EnergyIP will be ready to support what customers change or try to accomplish in the future (e.g. changing rates, changing AMI infrastructure, new data privacy and cyber security regulations, exchanging IT landscape, new value add use cases.

EnergyIP Portfolio leads the market in MDM and related applications

Discover the full potential of your data beyond meter-to-cash with add on applications such as Analytics Foundation, Revenue Protection, Integration Adaptors, Low Voltage Outage Management, Advanced Device Management, Energy Engage, Prepay and Front End Processor.

Siemens sums up the result of this relaunch.

“We worked extensively with our User Advisory Board, the largest global user community dedicated exclusively to MDM, to understand their exact operational needs. EnergyIP Mosaic® has not only changed its look and feel but opened up new efficient ways of performing tasks, providing better situational awareness for customers. We’ve improved task efficiency by up to 85%, and situational assessment time has been reduced by 60%. By focusing on workflow improvements, the new software is more efficient, intuitive, insightful, and adaptable,” states Ming Ho, Senior Director of User Experience and Strategic Innovations.

Find out more on the relaunched EnergyIP Mosaic®, the next generation of the leading EnergyIP® Meter Data Management.

Image rights Siemens EnergyIP Mosaic®

So to unlock the full value of your smart metering investment, take a visit and learn more about EnergyIP®’s Metering Solutions on the Siemens site here, where you’ll find all the latest EnergyIP Metering materials, including brochures and datasheets as well as customer support information.

Siemens EnergyIP Mosaic® “lets you find what you need and understand what you see”

The post Exploring Siemens relaunch of their next generation of Meter Data Management first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Burning Woods
Alex van der Linde

We have just finished the most critical COP  meeting in Glasgow. It was the eleventh hour. For two weeks, nearly two hundred countries entered into discussions, finally agreeing on the “Glasgow Climate Pact” to keep the 1.5 degrees C target alive and finalize the outstanding elements of the Paris Agreement.

The President of the proceedings, COP26 President Alok Sharma, commented, “its pulse is weak, and it will only survive if we keep our promises and translate commitments into rapid action.”

“Keep 1.5 alive” has been a rallying cry for diplomats and activists alike at the COP26 negotiations. The phrase refers to the goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

1.5 degrees Celsius is seen as the threshold beyond which the effects of climate change become increasingly dangerous to people and ecosystems. But scientists warn that time is running out for humanity to take the transformative steps to achieve the 1.5 goals. And according to multiple estimates, the deal negotiated in Glasgow does not bend the curve enough to get there.

All countries agreed to revisit and strengthen their current emissions targets to 2030, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), in 2022. This will be combined with a yearly political roundtable to consider a global progress report and a Leaders summit in 2023.

Some 151 countries had responded by submitting new or updated “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) to the U.N. – including China, just days before COP26 started.

While the new pledges had increased ambition – shaving some 0.2C off warming if fully implemented – the UNEP “gap report” just before COP26 had once again exposed the gulf that remains if the world is to stay below 1.5C. (See: Do new climate pledges “keep 1.5C alive”?)

As we were coming into the talks, the UK COP26 presidency had set high expectations, calling for the summit to “keep 1.5C alive“, focusing on action.

Do new climate pledges ‘keep 1.5C alive’?

According to CarbonBrief.Org, COP26 saw a flurry of new assessments on what existing, and newly updated promises mean for limiting global warming to the Paris Agreement’s aspirational goal of 1.5C.

Carbon Brief took a deep dive into the latest numbers, looking at what they refer to, where different groups agree and disagree on likely outcomes and the potential impact of new long-term net-zero promises.

Current policies in place today will lead to the best estimate of around 2.4C to 2.7C warming by 2100 (with an uncertainty range of around 2C-3.6C).  If countries meet both conditional and unconditional nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for the near-term target of 2030, projected warming by 2100 falls to 2.4C (1.8C-3.3C).

So, if countries meet their long-term net-zero promises, global warming would be reduced to around 1.8C (1.4C-2.6C) by 2100. However, temperatures would likely peak around 1.9C in the middle of the century before declining.

One of the key achievements of this summit is speeding up the timeline for climate action. Countries are asked to come back in a year with more ambitious plans for cutting emissions. Under the Paris agreement, countries were generally supposed to submit new or updated plans every five years. Though a flurry of net-zero pledges was announced in the lead-up to COP26, in many of those cases, countries have not planned for significant emissions cuts in the next decade.

The worrying aspect of this COP26 meeting is that each country goes into these negotiations for its own position. It is ‘hoped’ that over the two weeks to form a growing consensus and recognition of positions to then be embodied in the final agreement.

So much time is lost in establishing and explaining conditions. Then the inevitable happens, positions become ‘dug in’ and somehow, somewhere at some time, these delegates lose the “greater plot for their own need to achieve and needs to achieve. Certainly understandable if they are to lose their way of life, even their very island, lost under rising water or forced by a rapidly drying land to migrate because they are incapable of making that basic living.

The issue of Mitigation

“Mitigation” is what countries need to do to reduce climate change, particularly by minimizing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Getting countries to curb emissions is a central aim of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — but even the United Nations acknowledges that current pledges are far too meagre.

The final Glasgow climate pact failed, in my opinion, on 2030

Recognizes that limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and net-zero around mid-century, as well as deep reductions in other greenhouse gases;

Recognizes that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5°C compared with 2°C and resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C;

The difference between 1.5°C and 2°C may seem small, but they represent vastly different levels of effort for countries seeking to limit their carbon footprints and strikingly divergent outcomes for the planet. This year’s landmark IPCC report concluded that “every additional 0.5°C of global warming causes discernible increases in the intensity and frequency” of heatwaves, heavy rain and droughts.

U.N. climate talks from COP26 are now planning in the rearview; it’s clear that net-zero commitments are rising, but the net-zero equation is not yet solved, and the URGENCY of what we do between now and 2030 is equally not addressed.

COP once again failed to provide vulnerable nations with the money to rebuild and respond to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

For me, the energy transition continues to unfold, but at a pace that is totally at odds with the crisis we are in.

The CoP 26 in Glasgow might have begun to build the scaffold to support the planet and its need, the problem was and is this crumbling facade.

We have underneath the rapidly deteriorating condition of the ecosystem hidden under this facade; one, our planet needs so much more in the urgency of time, money, support, and collaboration.

Yes, CoP 26 was an evident disappointment for me but let’s take the steps made and turn these into bigger, more urgent ones that bring the world’s nations together in recognizing this really is a climate emergency.

This did not cheer me up at all; I remained gloomy!

In an article by David Roberts in Canary Media, “Don’t buy into the gloomy COP26 rhetoric.”

“What people seem to forget is that the UNFCCChas no real power to enforce anything, and there isn’t the level of unity needed among participating countries to create a binding target with real consequences.

This was the origin of the Paris Agreement: the realization that the best the UNFCCC could do is structure and publicize voluntary national goals and commitments. The idea was to do with transparency and peer pressure what decades of adversarial negotiations couldn’t: steadily increase ambition.

A shorter way of saying this is that a COP agreement can’t make a country do anything.”

The most sobering remark in this article was, “But it is a mistake to invest any particular hopes for change in the UNFCCC process — it can’t really do anything. It can only illuminate what is being done.”

As David remarks, “If every country that has submitted a 2030 carbon target in the Paris process — an NDC, or nationally determined contribution — hits that target, average warming will be 2.4°C.” And these are all voluntary.

Does that cheer me up? Not at all!

The post Not seeing the wood for the burning trees at COP26. first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.