In this third post of a mini-series of three, I want to explain this further through a value proposition of how community energy can work and the realism that proposes a radical rethinking of how we are thinking about the present-day Energy Transition and shifting this from a centralized approach into this transition of a decentralized community that generates, consumes, perceives and owns its energy destiny.

This radical concept envisions the energy transition as a living, evolving entity that bridges technology and nature, sparking profound shifts in how communities generate, consume, and perceive energy. It challenges established norms and prompts a complete reimagining of our relationship with energy and the environment.

My underlying thinking is through ecosystem thinking and design, triggering innovation engagement and activation strategies to promote innovation and change the energy transition dynamics within a community setting, offering decentralized community energy.

Empower Your Community’s Energy Future with Decentralized Energy Cooperatives

By introducing the concept of the “Energy Transition Nexus: A Living Energy Organism” and how it challenges the conventional approach to the energy transition:

The suggested aspirational but practical Value Proposition:

What if we can construct a groundbreaking opportunity to reshape the energy landscape to empower your community, stimulate local innovation, and drive sustainable growth? It puts your energy future in your hands.

The Decentralized Energy Cooperative represent a transformative shift, harnessing collaboration, investment, and market dynamics to catalyze radical change within the energy industry.

1. Empowerment Through Collaborative Action: Jointly combining in a vibrant community of individuals, businesses, and organizations committed to controlling their energy destiny. By pooling resources and expertise, this becomes a driving force behind a unified vision for sustainable energy and forms a community that propels change through collective action.

2. Fueling Innovation for a Resilient Future: Unlock a platform that encourages innovation. Imagine the possibilities where local innovators are given the tools and support to experiment and establish practices around cutting-edge energy solutions for their community. Creating the spaces for experimentation, idea-sharing, knowledge exchanges and collaboration. By embracing cutting-edge technologies and solutions, you contribute to building a more resilient and adaptive energy ecosystem.

3. Invest in Impactful Projects that offer a Brighter Tomorrow: Participate in co-investment opportunities that fund projects aligned with your community’s energy goals and projects that align with your values. Your contributions translate directly into tangible results—innovative energy infrastructure, local job creation, and a greener footprint for pioneering a sustainable future and growth.

4. Seize the Advantage of a Decentralized Marketplace: Engage in our dynamic digital marketplace, where you can trade energy surplus, technologies, and solutions with fellow cooperative members. This ecosystem incentivizes innovation and transforms your innovative ideas into valuable assets.

5. Transparent Ownership with Leveraging Blockchain Technology: Enjoy transparent and secure ownership facilitated by blockchain technology. The token-based system grants you a voice in decision-making, access to energy resources, and fair representation from your engagement and contributions, securing exclusive benefits within the cooperative to influence its future evolution.

6. Energize Local Economies and Communities: As a cooperative member, you contribute to the economic vitality of your community. By actively shaping the energy transition, you pioneer sustainable growth, stimulate local job creation that creates future job opportunities, and enhance the quality of life for all by demonstrating benefits that set examples of sustainable prosperity

7. Comprehensive Education and Skill Empowerment: Access tailored educational programs designed to deepen your energy literacy and entrepreneurial skills. Engage in hands-on experiences that empower you to lead with confidence in the evolving energy landscape.

8. Showcase Your Transformative Impact: Through regular impact reports and cooperative-driven events, demonstrate the multiple pivotal roles required in achieving energy independence, reducing emissions, job creation and driving positive environmental change. Your social and business impact becomes a source of pride and inspiration.

Elevate your community’s energy potential with Decentralized Energy Cooperatives. Together, you are redefining the energy transition within the engaged community, ensuring that collaboration, investment, and market dynamics create lasting, transformative effects for future generations. Take the first step towards a brighter, cleaner, and more sustainable future today.

How Decentralized Energy Cooperatives could realistically work.

This is a conceptual leap; it is a radical departure from the way we are presently undertaking parts of the energy transition. It does shift ownership of the energy transition. by forming these community energy ecosystems that promote local entrepreneurship, collaboration, and business-building opportunities through innovation and learning from others. It encourages radical change simply because we do need this radical shift.

Innovation often emerges from pushing boundaries, considering diverse perspectives, and embracing a broader lens of potential connecting solutions to give a positive impetus to changing the energy transition into something more tangible to ourselves and our communities.

Realism must always creep in, but we face a real crisis within energy management. How can we put more control into the final user community?

Why community projects could be very effective, and some potential challenges to consider:

How it Could Realistically Work:

1. Community Engagement: The success of energy cooperatives hinges on community engagement. Members are vested in their energy future and actively participate in decision-making, technology adoption, and collaborative projects.
2. Local Ownership: Cooperatives ensure the community owns and benefits from its energy resources. This localized approach increases accountability and fosters a sense of responsibility.
3. Collaboration and Innovation: By connecting diverse stakeholders, cooperatives create a platform for innovation. Startups, local businesses, and residents collaborate to develop and implement cutting-edge energy solutions.
4. Decentralized Marketplace: The digital marketplace facilitates the exchange of surplus energy, technologies, and ideas. This encourages entrepreneurial initiatives and facilitates the rapid diffusion of innovative solutions.
5. Blockchain for Transparency: Blockchain technology ensures transparent ownership and decision-making. Members can trust the system’s integrity and actively participate in shaping the cooperative’s direction.
6. Economic Impact: Energy cooperatives can stimulate local economies by creating jobs related to energy production, installation, maintenance, and associated services.

Why it Could Be Effective:

1. Empowerment: Cooperative members take an active role in their energy future, fostering a sense of ownership, engagement, and responsibility.
2. Localized Solutions: Cooperatives tailor solutions to the community’s unique needs and resources, increasing the relevance and impact of energy initiatives.
3. Rapid Innovation: The collaborative nature of cooperatives accelerates the pace of innovation and technology adoption as members work together to develop and test new ideas.
4. Resilience: Localized energy systems are more resilient against disruptions in the larger grid, enhancing community energy security.
5. Economic Growth: Energy cooperatives create jobs, drive economic activity, and contribute to a thriving local economy.

Potential Challenges:

1. Community Engagement: Achieving broad participation and consensus can be challenging, and lack of engagement might hinder progress.
2. Initial Investment: Starting and scaling cooperative projects might require a significant upfront investment, which could deter potential participants.
3. Regulatory Hurdles: Navigating local, regional, and national energy regulations and policies can be complex and time-consuming.
4. Technological Integration: Coordinating diverse energy technologies within a cooperative framework requires seamless integration and management.
5. Governance: Ensuring fair representation and decision-making among cooperative members can be a governance challenge.
6. Market Dynamics: Fluctuations in energy prices and market conditions could impact the cooperative’s financial sustainability.

The feasibility of Decentralized Energy Cooperatives depends on factors such as community interest, local regulations, technological readiness, and effective leadership. Successful implementation requires a comprehensive understanding of local dynamics, a strong stakeholder commitment, and the ability to address challenges as they arise. While there are challenges, the potential benefits in terms of community empowerment, innovation, and sustainable growth make this concept worth exploring.

In Summary- the three posts deliver a radical concept of change within our energy-thinking

This radical concept envisions the energy transition as a living, evolving entity that bridges technology and nature, sparking profound shifts in how communities generate, consume, and perceive energy. It challenges established norms and prompts a complete reimagining of our relationship with energy and the environment.

We do need a radical rethink of our energy transition. It needs to revert to communities, the final arbitrator and the consumer. That builds their energy needs and connects their growth. We still have national grids and can augment energy supplies, but the community gains a degree of independence to shape their needs and destiny.

Post one of the Series.

Post two of the Series.

The original Series was published on Energy Central.

• Linked and validated through work with ChatGPT

The post Valuing and perceiving energy in the community. first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

In this second post of a mini-series of three, I want to explain this decentralized community energy concept further: “This radical concept envisions the energy transition as a living, evolving entity that bridges technology and nature, sparking profound shifts in how communities generate, consume, and perceive energy. It challenges established norms and prompts a complete reimagining of our relationship with energy and the environment”.

By introducing the concept of the “Energy Transition Nexus: A Living Energy Organism” and how it challenges the conventional approach to the energy transition:

While the concept described in my first and introductory post, “Envision Energy as a living, evolving community,” is indeed a radical departure from the existing way we see energy delivery and its transition, it takes an essential step in connecting much of the parts of the energy transition, its importance to our living.

I feel it is essential to bridge the gap between the natural world and the business world in a more closely aligned way, going beyond existing frameworks or thinking but still grounding this into business-orientated understanding to relate more.

Let’s explore a business-oriented, yet still disruptive, approach that brings a conceptual leap to the energy transition with this decentralized community proposal while maintaining some degree of continuity with business practices but set in an ecosystem way of thinking and design:

Disruptive Ecosystem-Centric Business Value Proposition for Energy Transition:

Holistic Energy Ecosystem: Integrated Business Network

Imagine transforming the energy transition into a holistic ecosystem of interconnected businesses, each contributing unique value to accelerate sustainable energy adoption. Much is not new, but it works to be more integrated and leveraging off each part:

Key Elements that form a common thread:

1. Ecosystem Synergy: Create a collaborative ecosystem of businesses, including energy producers, tech startups, finance firms, and community organizations. Businesses leverage each other’s strengths to streamline the energy transition process.
2. Integrated Energy Marketplace: Develop a dynamic digital marketplace where businesses trade energy, technologies, and services. This platform fosters innovation, enabling startups to showcase breakthrough solutions and established players to diversify offerings.
3. Impact Investment Funds: Establish impact investment funds that pool resources from corporations, investors, and philanthropists. These funds provide startups with financial support and access to the ecosystem’s resources and mentorship.
4. Ecosystem-Inspired Innovation Hubs: Set up innovation hubs that mimic natural ecosystems. These hubs house labs, co-working spaces, and prototyping facilities, encouraging cross-sector collaboration and creativity for disruptive energy solutions.
5. Collaborative Energy R&D: Facilitate joint research and development efforts between startups and established corporations. This approach speeds up innovation cycles, enabling rapid prototyping and scaling of breakthrough technologies.
6. Ecosystem Tokens for Collaborators: Introduce blockchain-based ecosystem tokens that represent contributions to the ecosystem. Businesses earn tokens for sharing resources, knowledge, and technologies, fostering a culture of collaboration.
7. Ecosystem Impact Dashboards: Provide real-time dashboards that track the ecosystem’s collective impact on emissions reduction, energy efficiency, and community engagement. Transparency enhances accountability and motivates continuous improvement.
8. Eco-Entrepreneurship Fellowships: Launch fellowships for aspiring entrepreneurs to work within the ecosystem. These fellows collaborate with diverse businesses, gaining insights and building ventures that align with sustainable energy goals.
9. Ecosystem-Centred Policy Advocacy: Form a coalition of businesses advocating for favorable energy policies at the community level, the ones that manage and consume the energy. Businesses are established with diverse expertise to support and amplify the community’s collective voice, influencing more central regulations supporting sustainable energy technologies’ growth.
10. Sustainability-Powered Branding: Businesses within the ecosystem emphasize their contributions to sustainability in branding. This appeals to environmentally conscious consumers and strengthens the ecosystem’s overall influence.
11. Ecosystem-Driven Supply Chains: Encourage businesses to prioritize partnerships with ecosystem members throughout their supply chains. This strategy maximizes synergies and drives the adoption of sustainable practices across industries.
12. Ecosystem Experiential Events: Organize experiential events where ecosystem members and the public engage with sustainable energy technologies and solutions. These events foster awareness and excitement, spurring widespread adoption.

The ecosystem-centric model accelerates the transition while aligning with existing business paradigms by creating an integrated business network that shares resources, knowledge, and expertise. It’s a transformation that leverages collaboration, investment, and market dynamics to drive radical change within the energy industry and supports the primary community needs as central.

The aim is to provide a disruptive and business-oriented solution for the energy transition:

Let’s take unconventional thinking to the extreme and propose a radically disruptive concept that challenges the very foundation of the energy transition:

We begin to talk about a different energy game, a new language that reflects a living ecosystem for energy

Energy Transition Nexus: A Living Energy Organism

Radically Disruptive Ecosystem-Centric Energy Transition Concept:

Imagine an energy transition paradigm where communities create a living, self-organizing energy organism called the “Energy Transition Nexus.” This radical concept merges cutting-edge technology, biology, and community engagement to revolutionize the energy transition process:

Key Elements of getting this local engaged and participating across communities that give engagement, employment and drive skill and learning in community ways:

1. Living Energy Grid: Design an interconnected network of biologically inspired energy nodes that generate, store, and distribute energy. These nodes mimic ecosystems, with energy generation fueled by natural processes like photosynthesis and microbial activity. Build an understanding of what this requires to be realized through different disciplines and knowledge.
2. Biodiversity Energy Modules: Develop modular energy systems that mimic diverse ecosystems, using bioengineered organisms to harness solar, wind, and thermal energy. Each module thrives in specific environmental conditions, ensuring year-round energy production.
3. Adaptive Evolution AI: Deploy AI systems that monitor energy production, consumption, and environmental factors. Over time, these AI systems evolve the energy organisms for greater efficiency, resilience, and adaptation to changing conditions.
4. Community-Bio Interaction: Engage community members as “energy stewards.” Each individual’s actions, from recycling to energy conservation, affect the health and performance of the Energy Transition Nexus. Stewards receive tokens that grant them access to community resources.
5. Ecosystem Health Dashboards: Provide real-time visualizations of the Energy Transition Nexus’s health, performance, and environmental impact. These dashboards make energy consumption tangible and foster a sense of responsibility among community members.
6. Energy Biomimicry Art: Collaborate with artists to create living energy art installations that showcase the beauty and potential of the Energy Transition Nexus. These installations inspire and raise awareness about the transformative power of biologically inspired energy. The community, from those in the schoolroom to those in business, society service or entering retirement, all see their energy ecosystem and express this through their contributions and creativity.
7. Decentralized Energy Markets: Enable autonomous energy trading between neighbouring communities through the Energy Transition Nexus. Smart contracts and blockchain technology facilitate secure, peer-to-peer energy transactions. Also, having the interaction with the centralized grid to support a regional and national designed approach
8. Ecosystem-Driven Policy Labs: Form policy labs where community members engage with energy scientists and policymakers to collaborate and exchange to develop adaptive regulations that encourage the growth and evolution of the Energy Transition Nexus that is shared on a broader level in emerging and good practice.
9. Energy Transition Biohackathons: Host biohackathons that invite bioengineers, ecologists, and innovators to co-create novel energy organisms. These organisms continuously push the boundaries of energy generation and storage capabilities in wider communities of communities, set up in a network forming and exchanging way.
10. Ecosystem Impact Tokens: Introduce a token economy that rewards individuals for contributing to the thriving of the Energy Transition Nexus. Tokens can be exchanged for shared energy credits, cultural experiences, or investments in further bioenergy research.
11. Biofeedback Learning Experiences: Offer educational programs where community members can interact with and learn from the energy organisms directly. These experiences cultivate a deeper understanding of ecological principles and sustainable practices.
12. Nature-Inspired Urban Planning: Integrate the Energy Transition Nexus into urban planning, creating green spaces that double as energy hubs. Urban design blends seamlessly with nature, promoting a holistic approach to sustainable living.

This radical concept envisions the energy transition as a living, evolving entity that bridges technology and nature, sparking profound shifts in how communities generate, consume, and perceive energy. It challenges established norms and prompts a complete reimagining of our relationship with energy and the environment.

This disruptive business model empowers local communities to take ownership of the energy transition by forming cooperative ecosystems that promote entrepreneurship, collaboration, and innovation.

This business model shifts the focus from centralized energy production to distributed, community-driven solutions that align with existing business frameworks while encouraging radical change.

Part one, the foundation post, is here

The final part, part three of this mini-series, entitled “Valuing and Perceiving Energy in the Community,” tackles the value proposition and its realism is next.

• Linked and validated through work with ChatGPT

The post A new Energy Transition for a profound community shift first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

In this first post of a mini-series of three, I want to introduce a radical concept that envisions the energy transition as a living, evolving entity that bridges technology and nature, sparking profound shifts in how communities generate, consume, and perceive energy.

It challenges established norms and prompts a complete reimagining of our relationship with energy and the environment. It focuses on the community in a decentralized way for its energy.

My underlying thinking is through ecosystem thinking and design, triggering innovation engagement and activation strategies to promote innovation and change the energy transition dynamics within a community setting, offering decentralized community energy.

It comprises the following parts to consider shifting our thinking away from the presently accepted, more highly centralised thinking on energy provision into community enablement. It is conceptualized upon the following thoughts:

Part one

Introducing the Energy Transition Nexus: A Living Energy Organism” that challenges the Conventional Approach to the Energy Transition:

1. Living Energy Organism: The core idea is to create a system that mirrors the complexity of natural ecosystems. Just as a forest or a coral reef is a living, interdependent network, the Energy Transition Nexus comprises interconnected energy nodes that mimic ecosystem relationships within a community of interdependence..

2. Bridging Technology and Nature: This concept breaks down the barriers between technology and nature. It doesn’t just harness renewable energy sources like solar or wind; it looks to bioengineer organisms directly converting energy using biological processes inspired by plants and microorganisms. It’s a fusion of advanced technology and natural systems. It is future orientated for those sources of energy.

3. Shifting Perceptions: Traditionally, energy sources are considered mechanical systems or commodities. The Energy Transition Nexus shifts this perception by presenting energy as a dynamic, evolving organism. This change challenges people to think of energy as a living entity that responds to its environment.

4. New Relationship with Energy: Instead of passive energy consumption, individuals become active stewards of the Energy Transition Nexus. People’s everyday choices impact the health and growth of the system. This changes how we interact with energy – from a distant utility to a shared responsibility. One that values the shared community and mutual dependence.

5. Challenge to Norms: The concept challenges the norms of centralized energy production and consumption. It introduces decentralized, self-organizing energy nodes that adapt to local conditions. This approach challenges the idea of energy grids dominated by large power plants. It formulates and anchors more firmly the notion of community microgrids.

6. Reimagining Energy Infrastructure: The Energy Transition Nexus envisions modular, bioengineered energy nodes integrated into urban spaces rather than traditional power plants and transmission lines. This reimagining of infrastructure changes the visual and functional landscape of communities.

7. Integration with Communities: The concept goes beyond technology; it integrates with communities through education, art, and economics. It encourages a sense of ownership, collaboration, and interaction with the living energy system. It engages and activates all the different voices within a community.

8. Societal Shifts: The Energy Transition Nexus challenges communities to adapt to a new energy paradigm. It requires shifts in thinking, education, policies, and even art to accommodate the convergence of technology, biology, and community engagement. It raises the understanding and importance of energy in the community’s lives and the interdependence on each other.

9. Holistic Approach: By connecting ecological principles, technological innovation, and human behaviour, the concept embraces a holistic approach to sustainability. It addresses energy production, community engagement, education, art, and policy. It brings a more coordinated future.

10. Inspiration for Innovation: This concept sparks innovation in diverse fields – from biology and AI to art and policy-making. It creates a fertile ground for collaboration and encourages people to think beyond their usual disciplines. It “sparks” imagination, creativity and exploration.

11. Emotional Connection: The living energy system elicits emotional connections. Just as people care for their gardens, they’ll care for the Energy Transition Nexus. This emotional bond can drive behaviour changes and long-term commitment.

12. Paradigm Shift: Ultimately, this concept isn’t just a new approach; it’s a paradigm shift in how we perceive and interact with energy. It catalyzes a fundamental transformation in our relationship with energy and the natural world.

In summary, the Energy Transition Nexus challenges us to see energy as a living, interconnected entity that blurs the lines between technology and nature. It disrupts established norms, spurs innovation, and transforms communities’ relationship with energy. It’s a conceptual leap that invites us to reimagine energy in an entirely new light.

We are aiming for a disruptive and business-oriented solution for the energy transition:

Disruptive Ecosystem-Centric Business Model for Energy Transition:

Decentralized Energy Cooperatives: Empowering Local Innovation

Imagine a network of decentralized energy cooperatives that empower local communities to drive the energy transition while fostering entrepreneurship:

Key Elements:

1. Local Energy Cooperatives: Establish community-led energy cooperatives where residents, businesses, and local organizations collectively own, produce, and manage renewable energy resources.
2. Decentralized Energy Marketplaces: Create localized digital platforms that allow cooperatives to trade surplus energy, equipment, and innovative solutions. These marketplaces drive innovation by incentivizing members to contribute to the ecosystem.
3. Microgrid Innovation Zones: Design microgrid innovation zones within communities where cooperative members experiment with diverse energy sources, storage solutions, and demand response mechanisms.
4. Cooperative Incubator Spaces: Develop physical spaces where cooperative members can collaborate, innovate, and prototype new energy technologies. These spaces nurture entrepreneurship and provide access to shared resources.
5. Local Energy Tokens: Introduce blockchain-based tokens representing ownership and cooperatives’ participation. These tokens grant voting power, access to energy resources, and benefits within the local ecosystem.
6. Energy Co-Investment Pools: Establish investment pools that allow cooperative members to fund energy infrastructure projects collectively. Members co-invest in innovative initiatives that align with the community’s energy goals.
7. Community-Powered Education: Organize educational programs within the cooperatives that promote energy literacy, entrepreneurial skills, and hands-on experience with energy technologies.
8. Decentralized Energy Challenges: Host competitive challenges encouraging cooperative members to propose and implement energy-related projects. Prizes and recognition drive creativity and participation.
9. Cooperative Cross-Sector Partnerships: Forge partnerships between energy cooperatives and local businesses, educational institutions, and research organizations. Collaboration expands resources and amplifies innovation efforts.
10. Community Impact Reports: Provide regular reports showcasing how the cooperative’s efforts contribute to local job creation, energy independence, and emissions reduction.
11. Cooperative-Driven Research Grants: Allocate funds to support research projects proposed by cooperative members. This fosters innovation, encourages participation, and aligns with the community’s energy needs.
12. Cooperative Energy Festivals: Organize annual energy festivals where cooperative members showcase their innovations, share experiences, and engage with the broader community to build awareness and support.

This disruptive business model empowers local communities to take ownership of the energy transition by forming cooperative ecosystems that promote entrepreneurship, collaboration, and innovation. It shifts the focus from centralized energy production to distributed, community-driven solutions that align with existing business frameworks while encouraging radical change.

Decentralized Energy Cooperatives empower local communities to spearhead the energy transition while driving economic growth within their community and the wider one at large. This comes through a dynamic business model that harnesses the power of collaboration, investment and market dynamics and dramatically changes how we can reconfigure our future energy networks.

Part two follows “A New Energy Transition for a profound community shift.“

First posted on https://energycentral.com/

• Linked and validated through work with ChatGPT

The post Envision Energy as a living, evolving community 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.

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.

As digital twins become critically important, entities are beginning to adopt this “twinning” concept dramatically, and within the Energy Transition we are undertaking, it will be no different.

A digital twin enables a Utility, for example, to visualize its assets, track the constant changes occurring consistently, and make better decisions on performance optimization.

Wikipedia offers a useful clarification of the Digital Twin.

“A digital twin is a digital replica of a living or non-living physical entity. By bridging the physical and the virtual world, data is transmitted seamlessly, allowing the virtual entity to exist simultaneously with the physical entity.

Digital twin refers to a digital replica of potential and actual physical assets (physical twin), processes, people, places, systems, and devices that can be used for various purposes.

The digital representation provides both the elements and the dynamics of how an Internet of things device operates and lives throughout its life cycle. Digital twins integrate the internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and software analytics with spatial network graphs to create living digital simulation models that update and change as their physical counterparts change.”

As the energy transition is presently undergoing such radical changes, the managing of energy and especially grid management is getting highly complex and the digitalization of this is becoming vital to manage differently. Why?

There are major shifts required from the Utilities.

These are from central one source energy systems to ones being based more on distributed energy. There is the influx of different energy sources for how electricity will be generated, mixing renewables (wind, solar) that have higher variance in supply, coupled with traditional energy resources (oil, gas, coal).

These energy alternatives are adding to the complexity of sourcing supply, pricing, and managing this mix as it enters and flows through the grid. The diversity of grid models, the ability to offer more attractive business models to enable the consumer to participate in managing their own energy, is also adding increased complexity.

Most utilities do not have one single data source domain.

Planning, operations, tracking and evaluating asset management performance, and knowing outage management, all increasingly in real-time, needs a significant re-think over any digitalization and data management as anything less than one source of data is going to be increasingly difficult to manage effectively, to operate in a changing energy market place.

Today, many utilities have real problems synchronizing data as the multiple systems that have evolved often have different data formats, are designed for specific needs, and have often separate teams to maintain the data. These are increasingly creating data silo’s and limited visibility within the total system and can have significant risks of inconsistencies within them. So many have legacy lag.

Often these (sub-optima)l systems cannot accommodate data exchanges, and a growing consequence is declining efficiency and effectiveness to manage the complete grid and potential data losses, vulnerability over data, and asset attack can build without some resolve to radically adopt a different approach.

The increasing need is to change the operating environment,

The electrical digital twin can be the solution to prove a migration of systems and move towards one single data source. Synchronizing data exchanges, being able to have scalable data collection and storage (most probably in the cloud) becomes the new base point of necessity.

Building a comprehensive exchange network data model, within and beyond one company, allows for growing intelligence and understanding.

The incentive to move towards one transmission network model management system offers integration cost reductions; it can eliminate duplicated modelling efforts and can open up the ability to plan for alternative scenarios for predictive maintenance, anticipated grid balancing, anticipating different demand options, etc.

Electricity Digital Twins to build are “no walk in the park.”

They have deployment challenges, addressing existing system complexity and require a very different level of skilled talent and workforce to manage any integration and harmonization of the current systems and manage these in the future in totally different ways.

If you can imagine bringing all assets into the digital twin of power plants, transmission and distribution lines, substations, and a growing end-use energy device network are incredibly complicated to transition.

So why do utilities need to undertake this radical overhaul of their existing systems?

When power systems are undergoing a transition from a centralized generation system to a new one that embraces new and emerging distributed ones, the data systems need equally revising. The significant shift in our energy system designs is placing demands on continually shifting between past-traditional energy sources into new decarbonized energy technologies.

The result is, of so much change occurring in the energy system there is a need for increased visibility in tracking, sourcing, adapting, and scaling, a constant ongoing ‘blending and adapting’ to keep pace with such dramatic changes being undertaken.

The digital twin, over time, will transform how and where energy is drawn down from; in options, availability, and requirements to optimize pricing. A digital twin can help determine how electricity is delivered in optimized ways and then offer variance on different business models and pricing packages to how energy can be consumed.

The aim is to increasingly provide reliable, affordable, and sustainable electric power to factories, businesses, communities. Equally to ensure the environment has clear visibility of where this energy derives from, how it is delivered in considering options and always dynamic in its attractiveness, to extract ‘best’ value for the Utility and the end-user.

These new market dynamics require a fully integrated system of physical and data operating in real-time to optimize this.

Different audiences, different needs

The Electrical Digital Twin needs to cater to the Engineer tasked with asset management, the Operations management to plan, schedule, and direct energy loads and to offer increased data understanding to all the suppliers and end-users for them to manage their part of the Network configuration.

A digital twin needs to offer increasingly immersive visualization, offer a three or four-D timeline of change occurring, account for building its history and tracking undertaking, contracts, and decision-making process for regulatory and performance evaluation.

A new digital system needs to offer analytics that enables different ‘what if’ views to be undertaken to anticipate and optimize decisions. Any digital system has to work towards constructing an end to end (E2E) of planning, simulation and engineering needs, the operations and control, and the understanding of consumption and usage.

Coming to grips with the workflows is essential

Any digital modelling system needs to accommodate a considerable design of workflows. Not just in asset performance, in providing risk-based reliability testing strategies, planning maintenance and shutdowns, as well as verify in simulations before actual execution to assess the impact and offer alternative options to consider. The ability to capture real-time data can test reality capture, site assessment needs, and grid resilience.

A robust digitalization structure can enable protection, understand power flows, provide predictive analysis as well as simulate logistics, progress, status checks, and offer stakeholder engagements in collaborations or inspection.

Suppliers of Digital Twin Solutions

Today, a number of the significant suppliers of energy solutions all working towards offering comprehensive electrical digital systems.

These included are GE, Siemens, ABB, Emerson, AVEVA, Bentley, and increasingly Autodesk, SAP, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, and Schneider Electric, among others. Each is offering specific parts of a solution or full solutions with the future aim of these being aligned and integrated into other systems that might be legacy or through preferred suppliers.

The future digital system needs to be technology ready.

Having a system that can analyze, predict, optimize current and future demands on the networks is essential. Having one system-wide view of your assets and data will have a significant impact on the ability to gain from machine learning and AI in the future. The pressures are building on all utilities in deploying a fully integrated, connected-up network to offer reliable, low-cost, and sustainable energy in a rapidly transforming energy world.

The Electrical Digital Twin market will grow substantially in the next few years as Utilities recognize the absolute need to change their existing operating and system models. The shift is as dramatic as the one undertaken in transitioning in energy sourcing and in the implications of implementing the asset changes that this brings into the energy system.

Both the physical and digital system changes need to be undertaken without delay. Otherwise, the complexity within the energy transitions being initiated will overwhelm those that stay locked into the present of not managing their digital environment in leading ways to take on the complexities within the Energy Transition.

** Originally published on my site https://ecosystems4innovating.com/

The post Energy Complexity needs the Digital Twin to help first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Today, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a timely report on Cities and how critically important they are to achieve a net-zero world.

The report “Empowering Cities for a Net Zero Future” covers all aspects of the issues and challenges that Cities are facing on climate action.

The IEA states that “Cities are key to a net-zero emissions future where affordable and sustainable energy is accessible to all. The global population living in cities is expected to surge from 50% in 2021 to 70% in 2050. Cities today account for 70% of global CO₂ emissions and 75% of global energy use. But with size comes opportunity.”

The report covers a wide range of opportunities, challenges and policy solutions that can help city-level governments capture the significant value of efficient and smart digital energy systems, no matter their unique context by illustration, through more than 100 examples and case studies,

The report also provides actionable guidance on ways national governments can help cities overcome barriers to progress and accelerate clean energy transitions using digitalisation.

Let me summarize some of the main findings here:

Recognizing the importance of having Smart Cities
Smart cities represent an important opportunity to reduce energy consumption while meeting service demand, improving grid stability and improving the quality of life for all. It is the solutions being provided that can accelerate this need.

Next-generation energy systems are leveraging big data and applying digital technologies to collect and analyse data in real-time. Through this data management understanding, can manage city services more efficiently.

These solutions that are applying intelligence are transforming the energy landscape by creating new synergies to reduce emissions, improve energy efficiency and enhance resilience.

The need for digitalization in Cities is essential to any climate goals.

As pointed out by the IEA, today’s constantly evolving technology landscape creates new sources of rich data on air quality, energy consumption, geospatial information and traffic patterns, and new tools to manage that data. They can help cities make smarter, better-informed decisions, especially on sustainable urban planning and operations issues.

The concept of smart cities has expanded in recent years to include governance, access and inclusivity, economic and social innovation, and sustainability. Yet, to date, there is still no unified definition.

I like the OECD definition of smart cities as “cities that leverage digitalisation and engage stakeholders to improve people’s well-being and build more inclusive, sustainable and resilient societies”.

It is suggested in this OECD definition that digitalisation and digital innovation are not an end in itself, but rather aim to improve people’s lives to achieve greater inclusion, sustainability and resilience.

By synthesising these new information streams, they can help improve the operation and efficiency of energy systems and address challenges of equity and reliability, assuming that concerns over data access, providing privacy and security can be effectively managed.

Digital solutions and systems can be compelling in cities, where the high-density environment creates economies of scale, minimising the need for new infrastructure and creating new opportunities.

Digitalisation
can also help de-risk and encourage private investment in clean energy projects, creating new business opportunities and revenue streams, enabling innovative financing mechanisms and improving risk perception.

Increasing generation from distributed renewables, reducing the use of fossil fuel resources, and the electrification of transport and heating all require a broad portfolio of flexibility options, posing new challenges and creating new opportunities for the management of energy infrastructure.

Smart Controls
Digital solutions in buildings, such as smart sensors and controls for thermostats and lighting, can help consumers use energy more efficiently and unleash behavioural and lifestyle changes that lead to sustainable energy use.

Buildings equipped with new technologies can provide flexibility to support power system decarbonisation, security and resilience.

Managing Urban Transport more effectively.
Digital technologies transform the mobility landscape by improving energy efficiency, facilitating shifts to active and shared transport modes, improving public transport’s convenience and reliability, and more.

The electrification of transport and proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs) could enable greater integration of variable renewables via flexibility services such as smart charging and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services.

National, regional and local governments, as well as citizen-led initiatives, have an important role to play in incentivising and accelerating digitally enabled urban energy transitions.

Local governments are in a unique position to deliver on the net-zero agenda. The key is to strengthen the cooperation between local, regional and national governments to help meet shared objectives while advancing progress on equitable energy transitions.

The level of influence cities can have on energy systems

This report illustrates the wide range of opportunities, challenges and policy solutions that can help different levels of government capture the significant value of efficient, smart, digital energy systems, no matter their unique context.

As I mentioned, this report “Empowering Cities for a Net Zero Future” covers all aspects of the issues and challenges that Cities are facing on climate action.

All the different aspects in this report are well worth exploring in the of building out Smart Cities.

Well worth a read, in my opinion.

The post Empowering Cities for a Net Zero Future first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Credit Muhammad Muzamil, Unsplash

As we look across innovation for our energy transition solutions, let’s think a little more about social innovation. What is energy poverty? Why is this important to turn our innovative abilities towards resolving?

Energy poverty has no universal definition. Each country is at different levels of understanding. Here in Europe, I read a white paper by Schneider Electric, released in 2018, entitled “Overcoming poverty in Europe.”

There is no official definition of “energy poverty”, but to start somewhere, it can be described as the struggle to afford the ever-increasing cost of heating or lighting in homes or being able to cook food or heat water as a result of low income or bills that are too high. Energy poverty leads to suffering from the cold in winter and from the heat in summer.

This white paper suggests 40 plus million Europeans cannot adequately heat their homes and or in arrears on their energy bills. Over 16% of European households have abnormally high energy expenditure compared to income, and the overall numbers of Europeans there is 11% suffer from energy poverty.

It is estimated that between 50 to 125 million Europeans are affected, especially the elderly, single-parent families, unemployed or low-income households, and disabled people with chronic sickness.

These are shocking statistics just for Europe alone.

What are the same numbers in the USA or across the world in developing countries where so many do not have access to electricity and rely on wood or charcoal to cook or even heat their homes?

Thinking differently

Innovation is about change; it improves what we have or where we are, and what we face. It is always easy to think of energy improvements, technology acquisition, but what about those that fall out of the net?

Arguably you can raise the minimum wage level, lift income, and contain energy costs. But do these really get into the granularity of the solution needed to address energy poverty?

Where innovation can really kick in is resolving household energy efficiency. We all know of homes with leaking roofs, damp walls, floor or foundations or rot in window frames or infestation causing real deterioration of health, the environment, and conditions that so many people are facing.

What can be done in finding inventive solutions that can make a real difference? Not providing grants but linking improvement in homes with energy incentives. As so many of these homes are deemed “wasteful of energy, how can we change the low energy rating performance into a positive one in energy measurements?

Of course, energy cannot be solved by technology alone.

We need to think differently. Social innovation looks for appreciating and finding a deeper, shared and common understanding of how “others” live is realistically in this connected world, a problem we all need to address in imaginative new ways.

We need to think of society’s social fabric, apply social innovation, and find technology and business-related ideas that bring those suffering from energy poverty into our collective ecosystems. This can be through combining technology concepts addressing these specific energy poverty issues, supporting solutions in multiple ways, finding imaginative, innovative solutions, and bringing in philanthropy that is not just giving away but seeing “greater” return, lifting people out of this energy poverty,

The combination of health improvement by raising the conditions people find themselves makes for a more productive environment. The cost of mental disorders, poor health, stress, anxiety, and depression eventually cost society.

Social devaluation and low self-esteem ways down not just the person caught in this but the rising costs and burdens for the state, the local community, and public services. Imagine the cost of healthcare as a direct consequence of energy poverty.

What If?

What if we could find new innovative initiatives that create jobs, engage communities, and find new, exciting and pioneering business models that become thriving in micro-generating income, utilization and different payment models, based not just on money but a level of barter?

We can, of course, offer those “sweeping” regulation solutions that somehow lift some but seem not to get to the many that the funding was originally designed to help. We need to be pro-active, not reactive in what we do.

“After the event has occurred” is perhaps good to justify “payback”, but it is not what and where we should go, we need to find self-lifting solutions, self-organizing but within structures that reduce the cost of thousands of similar start-ups.

We need innovative solutions because they are universal and can be ramped up, applied, and offered improved solutions.

So, as we think about more innovation in the energy system, let’s not forget those in energy poverty and where communities, policies and energy providers can find imaginative solutions that stop the burden of debt recovery, (ever-rising) social costs and fragmented approaches.

The post Mobilizing Innovation around Energy Poverty first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

I recently viewed a Power Generation survey conducted a year or so back and found it valuable to motivate change. It was centred on the Middle East Power Generation sector and conducted by Siemens to help them understand future power generation’s underlying trends.

This Siemens survey had as the main question to the survey: “Which trends do you think are currently having the biggest impact on the power generation sector in your region“.

Now in reading this, we have to recognize this is the Middle East with an abundance of oil and gas, but are the trends similar for other regions of the world? The responses I would suggest are certainly reflecting a global movement; the ranking orders might vary. They bring out the opportunities and challenges all power generation is going through presently, I would think.

So in the Middle East, the top three trends that were having the biggest impact were felt to be:

1. The power /gas market liberalization
2. Changing customer expectations
3. Environmental regulation and New emission standards

Then the next three impactful trends

• Decentralization of power generation systems
• Demand growth and urbanization
• Privatization of generation and distribution assets

Followed by these shifts taking place

• The lower range of oil price
• Growth in renewable power generation
• Digitalization of process and operations
• Emerging technology disruption (i.e. battery storage)

Other observations from this report

One area is the increasing priority of digitalization, looking to overcome or bridge the trend impacts. This will come in the form of 1) improving customer data collection and analysis, 2) process automation, 3) virtual power plant (VPP) for management of distributed energy sources, 4) modelling digital asset performance management through greater connected IoT, digital twins etc.

As digitalization grows as part of the solutions, an increased focus on 1) Cybersecurity, 2) the increased use of Artificial intelligence, and 3) Blockchain are all prioritized.

I don’t see these challenges and trends as different for all those involved in power generation globally as they grapple with a changing generation mix but are nicely summarized.

What I draw from this ranking of trends let me offer the following views.

It is the external factors of liberalization, changing expectations and standards that drive the power generation’s underlying changes.

If changes were not “forced”, then we would have no or slow change. The shift in thinking about managing power generation is then triggered, of considering new business models or ways to undertake business, then recognising the impacts driving the actual changes (oil to renewables, digitalization and alternative technologies).

The report states that it seems to be one of optimism as privatization gathers. This gives opportunities to open up a more flexible business model as deregulation continues, and options to build a business become more driven by market and consumer trends.

There is a shift taking place from the combination of an increased pace of regulatory change, raising expectations and demands for flexibility in pricing and energy choices by the final consumer, energy security of supply, and growing competition are all raising the potential for different business models and generation options to explore.

The opening up of previously monopolistic positions does recognize competition will come in different forms. This incentivises the incumbent to focus more on cost and performance, driving down operating costs and finding new ways to manage changing market expectations.

Change can be very uncomfortable for the incumbent.

It is always interesting as “market forces” shift optimism—a feeling of a new lease of life changes to one where change takes on harder meaning.

Eventually, what emerges when you undertake to change is that it suddenly requires different perspectives at the different stages of any change based on how markets’ open up and eventually take hold.

I found it a good prompting report for reflecting on important trends in Power Generation.

The post Shaping the Power Generation sector first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Image source and rights: Siemens Energy

I have just finished the third and final day of panel events offered by #SiemensEnergyME in their #EnergyWeek. I took the time to attend all of the panels, the debates, the complexities, and the significant differences as starting points in the #energytransition we are all undertaking was well brought home.

The panels were full of highly knowledgeable people, the hands-on ones that are dealing with the energy issues of today each day, and thinking through the ones for tomorrow. Siemens drew in Ministers, CEO’s, Senior Management, CFO’s, CTO’s and Director-Generals to offer insights and create the atmosphere for what I would call “creative tension” that good knowledge brings to a debate.

The third day was positioned on Sustainability with digitalization as key to the future of solving grid complexity and the growing challenges of renewable integration.

So three themes over three days, transformation, innovation, and sustainability- each was embedded in each day and panel actually.

Also, the second panel on day three took on the role of Hydrogen but got so caught up in this it missed the other part of ‘driving sector coupling’. In many ways, the extra time devoted to the Hydrogen economy aspects needed all the time.

The final session was a fireside chat facilitated by John Defterios with Christian Bruch, the CEO of Siemens Energy.

Great insights yet again on day three

See day ONE “Transforming the Middle East and Africa for the Energy Transition” and day TWO “Agility and Adaptability in any Energy Transition” in my reflections and observations

In all three sessions on day three, you gained some terrific insights and impressions of the sheer size of the Energy Transition being undertaken. It is enormous and as the world has set thirty years to make a huge dent in carbon emissions, it is of the utmost imperative to get going now on the changes needed today to give any “fighting chance” to deliver on the commitments made by each of the 190b plus countries that signed the Paris Agreement

Climate change is the driving force, the energy transformation is a principle mechanism to achieve this and clean energy needs to replace fossil fuel as the global solution.

Panel One- digitalization, grid complexity and integrating renewables

The 1st panel on Digitalization, Grid Complexity, and integrating Renewables highlighted the sheer differences. From the grasp of the challenges and issues by both HE Hala Zawati, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources of Jordan to the planning and development of solutions from Beatrix Natter, the Executive Vice President, Transmissions at Siemens. The counterbalancing that went on here gave the other panelists the platform to demonstrate, illustrate, or clarify their practical issues and needs to drive their business needs.

Where to start and how to summarize the expertise within this panel is hard. I learned a lot, I gained a lot and appreciated all the dep experiences gained from the ‘hands-on’ grappling with the complexities and challenges each grid and infrastructure entity is currently grappling with.

The capacity of grids, the stability, how to integrate solutions, and the increasing new dynamics of the final consumer adding energy they are generating back into the grid. As the Minister of Jordan stated Jordan has 20, 000 consumer/producers, and they are presently not seeing them on their grid and this variable influx of energy input throws the balancing of the grid in knowing their demands or supply.

The integrating of all the viable energy of renewables and where the energy is coming from is becoming increasingly a problem to manage.

The appeal and growing recognition was that we need as managing these assets to bring digital solutions for all the grid or infrastructure to dynamically manage it and understand its volatility in real-time

The energy infrastructure in many countries is aging (badly) and with all the renewable or alternative energy sources available, the ‘toggling’ of keeping energy supply consistent and reliable but to begin to upgrade, even layer on new capacity is a huge problem. This is a worldwide one, well-articulated by the Jordan and Saudi Arabian examples.

Jordan has a remarkable 20% of renewables in its system, in some ways it is having to slow down to allow infrastructure and its management to catch up and understand the new energy dynamics.

The consumer expectancies in energy are on the rise. Energy bills are expected to reduce, electricity is the consumer’s right to be reliable, safe, and stable for all their needs.

To achieve this no one solution alone works, the complete (re)design of grids and the infrastructure needs to be undertaken. What enters in energy fuels, how it gets transmitted, and how and where it is received. For this, you need smarter grids.

There came a point of having very innovative design criteria and entered into the discussion was digitalization. The so-called emerging “Internet of Energy”. This evolution stands alongside the IoT and IIoT in impact, change, and value and it is at a very low point of understanding or delivering.

Beatrix Natter outlined very succinctly some of the opening steps before we can see any platform for the Internet of Energy.

Firstly we have to digitalize the product, enable them to produce real-time data, her physical to digital step only currently being undertaken this gives the first chance to understand the operating conditions of the machine or connecting point.

Then the second step is to build the same digital capability into substations to understand the edge of grids.

Thirdly to make connections beyond two points to begin to turn this into a dynamic data system. It is then the automation of energy flows and intelligence becomes the value of these (essential) investments from the digital investments required.

There was some push back, not on the realization of the time and cost this will take but on the sheer scale of all the needs to upgrade for the grids to become more flexible, adaptable, and resilient. This includes upgrading, layering on new grid solutions, building in storage,  designing for even greater variability and capacity in electricity supply  

The bottom line of the discussion was this is huge to undertake in such a transformation of the grid transmission and infrastructure. The sheer scale and investment cost while the need is to deliver lower energy bills and reliable supply to the consumer.

The conclusions of the panel were “are we jumping too short in our present views?” Are our expectations and needs, adjusting to the new world of renewables ambitious enough? Do we measure Capex or even Opex in the right way? What happens with the growing legacy of fossil fuels that seemingly can’t deliver energy into the system as cheaply. Also, the ways to move from highly centralized large energy management systems to decentralized digitally. Lastly the need to enhanced the system, gain efficiency, and greater control that will offer intelligence and smartness to manage energy in radically different ways.

I could go on and on from the value of this panel. Another time and posts to come!

The second panel was on Hydrogen as the future energy source.

The panel took some time to find its flow in exchanges. Having Saudi Aramco in such an effective advocate as Ahmad Al Khowalter, the CTO was counterbalanced by the German contingent of the Director-General in the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy alongside Prof. Armin Schnettler, the EVP New Energy Business for Siemens Energy.

The debate was partly centered on the present one of Blue vs Green hydrogen. What is economically feasible and at scale already, blue hydrogen versus the promise of green hydrogen yet to some at commercial scale.

The debate was partly “seeing is believing” and the commitments of Germany’s government in Green Hydrogen support have kick-started Siemens Energy to be more bullish on raising green hydrogen expectations. versus the abundance of cost-efficient oil from Saudi Aramco in particular.

Saudi Aramco has already in place significantly blue hydrogen facilities at some scale and already piloting a 4o tonne of high-grade blue ammonia shipment. This is a compound consisting of three parts hydrogen and one part nitrogen, marking a successful demonstration of the supply network from Saudi Arabia to Japan. The Saudi-Japan blue ammonia supply network demonstrated the conversion of hydrocarbons to hydrogen and then to ammonia, as well as the capture of the associated carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions

The camps of Green coming from the solution coming from PEM Electrolysers, being pushed hard as needed to be contracted to be realized and supported by the German Government in grants and investment subsidies, and Blue, based on fossil fuel and proposed by Saudi Aramco as the one already in place and potentially easier to ramp up today, as it is at scale and significantly can be quickly used in advancing Power-to-X.

For me, the need to prove Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) as a proven commercially solution, viable from broad adoption, is the test of validation of Blue Hydrogens’ right to be at the lasting clean energy table in years to come.

Saudi Aramco can lead the way from the perspective of cleaning up fossil fuels completely, to turn them green as harmful emissions are our global issue. Make fossil fuels truly green should be their big challenge. The reward for green hydrogen in systems and fuel delivery is the twin challenges of Electrolyzers and CCUS to deliver. Green energy is the fuel of the future in its many possible final forms and that needs to become the new fuel/ energy standard.

I think there were not two sides, just healthy knowledgeable exchanges on who represented what (green vs blue) but the recognition to ensure Hydrogen does actually happen and become the new energy fuel to replace fossil fuels both need to be in the equation. No one disagreed on this, the discussion was time for scaling and delivering clean hydrogen has to happen today.

There is a need for both blue and green but it is the positioning of which is the one to lead or lag?

A final aspect of this panel was the contributions of Badr Al-Olama, Executive Director Aerospace for Mubadla Investment Company. He delivered constantly the 30,000-foot perspectives among them with a reminder that the Millenials are impatient and that gave the combined voice of all panelists of their shared commitment of “let’s do it” He was striving to keep focusing on the bigger picture in his contributions, which I personally liked.

The final session was the fireside chat with the CEO of Siemens Energy.

We are in the throws of a decarbonizing world, the transformation agenda is specific by country or energy issue. The boundary conditions need changing to accelerate the environment to be climate aware and regulated.

Siemens positioning is presently more of the broad diverse provider of a wide range of energy solutions, they are committed to driving their part of the energy change needed. They are pitching themselves as the interim solution provider to allow the future to take further shape before their portfolio will be further calibrated

The need is for traded value immediately (I liked that) built on solid business use cases with the energy transition requiring market-driven mechanisms in policy and regulatory change. The view of the CEO also stressed the need for the (financial) market to drive change and deliver the funding for the decarbonized world we are all expecting and requiring.

My conclusions on the three days

Such a lot to process and synthesis, all gained in my the ability to be virtually connected. Having not to travel was a huge benefit for me.

Siemens put together a well thought through range of panelists around the three big topics of Transformation, Innovation, and Sustainability in manageable, bite-sized chunks of the Energy Transition.

From my side, just a big thank you to #SiemensEnergyME for hosting this. It is planned as a yearly feature, I can eagerly await from the quality of each of these sessions to knowing this is time well spent.

Thanks, Siemens Energy.

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