Any search for advantage or validation of making a change must consider the art of leapfrogging, especially in the Energy Transition we are all undergoing.

Leapfrogging can accelerate the rapid and transformative progress toward a more sustainable and efficient energy ecosystem that provides advantage and customer identification.

Leapfrogging done correctly offers the benefits of evaluating existing solution options, considering the added value of environmental considerations and enhancing access and resilience in a rapidly changing world needing faster adoption of cleaner energy solutions to accelerate your solutions.

Where leapfrogging really ‘scores’ is offering the ability of a developing or less developed country to essentially “skip” less efficient and higher carbon-intensive technologies during their energy development.

Leapfrogging provides a significant opportunity to develop and cut carbon emissions simultaneously, it is vastly underrated and considered. We love reinventing the wheel when there is often no need.

Leapfrogging is when developing countries industrialize with renewable energy instead of non-renewables.

Equally, companies can learn and adopt from others to reduce their own research and development costs and long lead times, across a wide range of technical improvements in renewable and storage technologies, grid balancing, use of software management, saving running costs by searching for leading or emerging best practices.

Also it can be by taking certain component parts of a solution you can accelerate and adapt to upgrade parts or finding blending solutions that fit your circumstances.

The search for leapfrogging opportunities becomes essential in the context of energy transformation for several reasons. It can provide:

1. Accelerated Progress: Leapfrogging allows for rapid progress by skipping over outdated or less efficient technologies and practices. It enables you within your part of the energy sector to catch up or surpass competitors, providing advantages in leading with sustainability and greater efficiency.
2. Environmental Benefits: Leapfrogging often involves adopting cleaner and more sustainable technologies, reducing your current energy ecosystem’s carbon footprint and environmental impact, enabling you to promote this and gain potentially greater customer acceptance and adoption.
3. Economic Advantages: By embracing innovative and advanced technologies, your organization can position itself as a leader in the sectors you compete in, search for broader global energy market reach, and build upon the growth and competitiveness aspects these innovative solutions can offer.
4. Energy Access: Leapfrogging can bring energy opportunities by scale and price attraction to explore further access into underserved or remote areas by considering more novel, flexible and adaptable solutions that potentially offer advantages over traditional energy infrastructure developments available.

To enable leapfrogging to be a significant part of the proposed energy change, you need to evaluate different ways leapfrogging can be found.

Several ways and structures can be applied as viable leapfrogging potential. Here are a few to consider to build out a systematic “leapfrogging” capability and capacity evaluation:

1. Technology Transfer: Facilitate the transfer of advanced and proven technologies from developed regions to those undergoing transformation. This can be achieved through partnerships, international collaboration, and technology-sharing agreements.
2. Policy Incentives: Governments can create policy frameworks that incentivize adopting leapfrog technologies. This might include tax breaks, subsidies, or regulatory support for innovative energy solutions.
3. Research and Development (R&D) Investments: Allocate resources to research and development efforts focused on leapfrog technologies in the energy sector. Encourage public and private sector partnerships to drive innovation.
4. Public-Private Partnerships: To fund and implement leapfrogging projects and foster collaborations between governments, private companies, and non-governmental organizations. These partnerships can help bridge the funding and expertise gaps.
5. Capacity Building: Invest in training and education programs to develop a skilled workforce capable of operating and maintaining leapfrog technologies. This ensures that the workforce is prepared to harness the full potential of innovative solutions.
6. Regulatory Adaptability: Create regulatory frameworks that are adaptable and responsive to emerging technologies. Avoid rigid regulations that might hinder the deployment of new and unconventional energy solutions.
7. Knowledge Sharing: Establish platforms for exchanging knowledge and best practices in leapfrogging. Encourage collaboration and information sharing among stakeholders to accelerate adoption.
8. Market Development: Support the development of markets for leapfrog technologies by connecting suppliers with potential customers, promoting awareness, and ensuring accessibility.
9. Financial Mechanisms: Develop financial mechanisms such as green bonds, venture capital, and impact investing to attract investment in leapfrogging projects and startups.
10. Pilot Programs: Implement pilot projects to demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of leapfrog technologies in real-world settings. Successful pilots can pave the way for larger-scale adoption.
11. International Cooperation: Encourage international cooperation and knowledge exchange to learn from successful leapfrogging experiences in other regions.

The energy change proposal can actively seek and leverage leapfrogging opportunities by implementing these strategies and structures, driving rapid and transformative progress toward a more sustainable and efficient energy ecosystem.

Leapfrogging can have the benefits for finding proven solutions to help the environment and saving additional investments, helping channel funds into other parts of the energy transition and economy and the potential for enhancing energy access and resilience in a rapidly changing world from the solutions applied.

The post The Art of Leapfrogging across the Energy Transition. 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.

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.

Visual by dreamstime.com

You do get the feeling that the world is beginning to wake up to the climate crisis.

Is it too little, too late or that we still have time left?

The energy transition will provide the pathway for transforming our energy sector from fossil-fuel-based energy to ones based on a range of zero-carbon solutions.

Although 2050 has been the target set to achieve this zero-carbon transition, the growing realization is this must be accelerated.

As President Macron suggested recently, the target of 2050 needs to be achieved now by 2030. That might be a political aspiration, but the reality and all the associated transitions have a huge cost and disruption and not really possible. He is not wrong in calling for greater ambition, but this needs to be grounded. This is not just in the science recognizing this climate imperative but in the physical transformation that needs to be undertaken on a scale and cost. Some estimate will be north of $100 trillion to achieve.

Making the energy transition unstoppable needs massive commitments of political, public, private, and societal determination.

Innovation will be at the core of all the changes, be they for 2030 or 2050, and here lies part of the problem. Much of the solutions have either not been invented, scaled, or even commercialized, so are we naive or realistic in 2030. The reality is we have a chance by 2050, but the momentum of unstoppable change has to be in place by 2030; otherwise, to coin a phrase, “we are cooked.”

Innovation is core

• We will need significant technology breakthroughs to resolve the present no cost-effective alternatives to move away from conventional energy technology. There are ideas, working prototypes or pilots, but converting the iron and steel, chemical or cement, let alone find alternative sources for ammonia, ethylene, or other essential feedstocks, are significant challenges.
• The same is to provide aviation and maritime fuel solutions that overcome existing barriers and provide a global alternative. Tailoring to local solutions might be doable, same as short flights or regional shipping, but the fuel needed to be dense and highly efficient where distance is required.
• Then we need to look beyond existing energy solutions in storage, batteries, and electrolyzers, for example, to be of higher capacity and able to replace the existing solutions commercially. Solutions that, as they scale, become lower in cost and offer solutions that stimulate deployment
• There is a recognition and a call for new business models, but what happens to the incumbent, the vested interest, and the provision of “risk capital” to make these changes?  Can new actors break into traditional areas of energy across the energy system? Can renewable technologies achieve not just profitable scale-up but replace whole energy supply systems?
• Today our financing is built on traditional risk/return models. Still, these need to be very differently modelled, those invested rewarded and reflecting the shareholder returns required, be these public or private.
• Then we have so many policy and regulatory guidances that are often caught in a real-time lag and a range of multiple stakeholder dilemmas issues to be addressed. These reviews for change go through sometimes very long due process. How can that be altered to provide greater market access and growth incentives based on exploring and establishing alternatives?

The need to maximize economic and social balancing.

The objective of wealth-creation and inclusion of all stakeholders is a difficult balancing act.

So, in conclusion, at this point.  The reality is we are only just starting on the energy transition journey. This is a runners race. The whole energy journey is a marathon, made up of short technology sprints, middle distance commitments, and cross-country involvement.

We need technology invention and acceleration; we need to deploy smarter solutions based on information technology, research, and development that considers science, the environment, and the cost of deployments. We need fresh policy frameworks and market instruments.

Do I feel we are addressing these complex issues or just still picking off the low hanging fruit? The answer is low hanging fruit, in my opinion.

Perhaps a slightly deeper dive here.

Let us go a deeper level by breaking down the main issues to be resolved if we want to build a sustainable, well-designed, and thought-through energy transition; we need to have plans and commitments to the following: open-ended questions here.

These are just a summary of areas to tackle.

Electricity

How are we going to modernize grids globally? We need to have possible parallel solutions as we navigate from grids based on fossil fuel to ones that need greater variability and adapting to alternative renewable energy sources.

We are building wind and solar solutions worldwide, but these need to combine with more imaginative energy sources to deliver “clean” energy. Hydro, hydrogen and nuclear all need to be in the supply mix.

The nuclear plant issues for a clean electricity resource are still regarded as the elephant in the room we need to address. Is this going to be designed around small modular nuclear reactors (SMR’s)?

How can we harness the power of our oceans for providing greater hydropower solutions?

Transport

The delivery of highly efficient, electric, or hydrogen cars at scale and affordable prices and complete networks to enable this alternative transport to be viable is still in the early stages of exploring. Are we going to make some leaps into the future finally?

My impression of the current car industry is this continued reluctance to make real commitments is palpable; we can feel it, but it is not in real touching distance to make the transition.

The one area of real promise is high-speed trains, but we do not have the track infrastructure and operating conditions to provide lasting security. For example, the investments made by Japan and China are pioneering, but are they the future or the interim to the future?

Finally, here, what do we need in Urban infrastructure? Again we have some significant investments in (light) rail and smart connected road systems for improving flow and density but will these scales and evolve to cope with the future population sizes we will have in our cities?

Buildings

The whole need to open up the debate to retrofitting on a global, city by city, building by building to provide a more efficient existing building. Heat pumps or water cooling solutions are available, but the investment commitment is not.

How will we tackle the appliance efficiency within existing homes or ensure all new appliances are up to the level and design to contribute. We buy appliances still very much on cost, but the investment model should shift perhaps to consumption. Can it change to this?

Then clean cooking and heating for som any needs resolving. Wood burning for heating and cooking is still a major source of carbon monoxide. We are still failing 750 million by not providing them viable alternatives or generated electricity solutions.

Solar, wind, and hydrogen are viable alternatives delivering clean electricity, but the financial investments in infrastructure or incentive still badly lag the solutions available.

Fuels

How will we make a concerted effort to reduce methane from oil and gas operations by legal and societal pressures? Yes, but when?

When are we going to bit the fossil fuel subsidies bullet? We still offer all levels of subsidies. Taking subsidies, imposing carbon emission taxes needs bold, decisive, and tough political and investment will. Will we move from talking about this and actually addressing this problem?

The value of Hydrogen is well presented today. It has a future but do we have the ability to scale solutions into the scale needed? That is a massive task in research and development. If this stays within the hands of individual companies, its commercialization and funding will be constrained by vested interests or will it?

Then finally, the talk of BioFuels, can this be scaled and factored into a creative renewable energy mix. Biofuels emit many of the gases we are trying to eradicate. Waste or residue holds a real promise but capturing of these emissions needs to be always part of the future if they are to be accelerated within the energy mix.

Industry

How are we to tackle those hard-to-abate sectors we are so highly dependent on for iron, steel, glass, chemicals, pesticides etc.?

The efficiency of production is making a transition. The application of technology is providing glimpses or showcases of the factory of the future. The combination of technology and physical assets is increasing combined; this is where the digital twin will extend and define the future of much of industry.

The future of material efficiency will increasingly go hand in hand with Green building and energy conservation, and any other ways of incorporating Renewable resource’s in the building process from start to finish.

The future business opportunities of how raw materials are consumed, incorporated, or wasted, compared to previous construction projects or physical processes, will need a “step change” in manufacturing approaches. Sustainability will become central to this change in design and production/consumption thinking.

Innovation is at the core of the Energy Transition

Image only Credit: Miguel Bruna
@mbrunacr

Today we look at solutions to resolve hydrogen, batteries, storage, and CCUS as required solutions that can be scaled and deployed to radically alter the energy design equation.

Yet, my elephant in the room, nuclear, needs to be present within the energy transition discussion. The SMR route needs to be championed.

How it is managed in France will be a place to watch as they have a rapidly ageing nuclear dependency that will need actively addressing. Will this be the catalyst to bringing the nuclear debate to the energy table?

The energy transition is only at the beginning.

To achieve an energy zero-carbon world, we have an awfully long way to go. Realistic by 2030, no, but the political sound bite of President Macron provides the wake-up call; we do need to roll up our sleeves and move beyond political rhetoric and make clean energy happen sooner rather than later.

The post Our focus is finding a Sustainable Energy Transition first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

image credit alamy.com via IEEE Innovation at Work

Within the energy transition, we must not lose sight of the final consumer. We have to focus on the broader aspects of “energy transition” by re-engineering much of the existing infrastructure to create smart grids, provide storage, solar for individual homes, and the ability to introduce e-mobility across the transport sector.

These are the connecting points to the end-user. They “feel” the value of the energy transition in benefit; in energy security, increased choices and greater involvement in handling their own energy costs and local energy design choices, they see the “effect of change”.

A very critical piece of the energy transition puzzle is the necessary focus on the end-user sectors of how we work, live, and be connected to the need for energy change. It is the transport, industry, and buildings that are for the vast majority of us as the places where we “interact” with that make energy transitions real.

We want to see what different energy alternatives can really provide, otherwise “energy transitions” seem to be simply occurring elsewhere.

Any transition is a “hard sell” Here, for energy, it is the combination of new system designs and ways to operate, combined with technological innovation. 

We need to achieve the most pressing need to undertake greater energy efficiency and effectiveness at the consumption end of energy. It is not just replacing energy sources; it is all about solution renewal end-to-end

The nature of the energy landscape will require the transformation of businesses, the push to find and develop new market dynamics and embrace government policy and regulations in an orderly and planned way.

This “transformational mix” gives rise to different innovation dimensions to explore, be these enabling technologies, new business models, different market designs, and changes in the methods of system operation that make up a broader innovation ecosystem of solutions.

The increased electrification of these end-user sectors of transport, buildings, and industry are providing new designs for energy systems to operate can give increased reliability, lower costs, and greater efficiency.

The solutions offered are placing increased emphasis on digitalization so that the system design is managed on a  more decentralized and democratized participation and that enables better control and management of our costs, choices, and uses.

These energy choices are beginning to break up previous monopolistic providers in power generation. Passing the choices of energy design closer to the end-user has the exciting prospect that allows us as energy users, to potentially participate in the energy market, in choice of energy supply and a growing opportunity to sell off excess energy if we are self-generating our energy.

The changes are transforming energy management as the end-user is potentially becoming very engaged in the whole transformation of their energy.

The end-user market of transport, buildings, and the industry is predicted to be making a shift of their primary energy supply from the present 15% of renewable energy to 65% by 2050. The share of Renewable power is expected to rise to 85% by 2050 (source: Irena 2018 “Global energy transformation report”) and that adds the recognition that our energy is being sourced by sustainable and clean energy means.

The design of energy systems needs to bring closer to the end-user the utilization of mini-grids to enable greater flexibility and participation in energy co-operation between transmission and distribution system operators.

These designs are building the two-way flow where excess energy can be delivered back to the grid. You as a provider of energy, start seeing the benefits of reduced bills and even earning some cash from your energy contributions.

Innovation can accelerate progress, especially at the user-end point.

The role of innovation to translate the end-user need into reality within these sectors of transport, buildings, and industry will involve changes in system designs to digitalize grid services, build more local and grid-scale energy storage, deploy significant charging solutions for electric vehicles.

Access to clean energy needs to be as transparent and energy availability on-demand, reliable, and abundant to our needs as we can design and build it.

These innovations needed are galvanizing change, they are the catalysts of any change. Energy becomes one of increasingly managing the lifecycle design and transition, innovating end-to-end so energy is constant, affordable, and always available.

We need a robust design, connecting us as individuals as well as seeing ourselves within a community of being part of the end-user market for the energy transition In my opinion;  that comes partly from telling the emerging innovating story for energy solutions in exciting and effective ways based on offering clear roadmaps of energy design.

The post Connecting the Energy Story to the Final User first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

source of image: https://www.thegpsc.org/knowledge-sector/integrated-urban-planning

I strongly relate to Smart Cities or Smart Infrastructure as the grouping area within businesses, focusing on the Edge, delivering energy transmission to the final delivery point for residential, mobility or commercial needs.

There is so much potential in technology currently being invested in our cities and their infrastructures. There are many estimates of this investment, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, they estimated that cities around the world would need to double current infrastructure investments from $10 to $20 trillion annually, to build the necessary physical infrastructure to support growing populations and needs[1].

So often, the focus tends to be on physical or urban infrastructure, but the importance of social support needs equal attention.

To deliver the promise of digitally “smart” infrastructure does need the combination of physical and social infrastructure combining, to leverage all that can be made possible in innovative urban development, as this achieves the outcome of building a city open, inclusive, and delivering solutions to realize societal benefits.

The critical issue is achieving community engagement.

If we do not recognize the equal importance of social infrastructure, then we can face a potentially divided and polarised environment in which no amount of technology on its own can resolve. To make it inclusive, we need awareness and understanding.

This engagement needs to embrace all those that live in our smart cities of the future; the old, disabled, disenfranchised, homeless, vulnerable, marginalized, those rich or poor, all need to be broken down of the many “enclaves” we see today.

For a city’s citizens to value technology, they must relate to it, to appreciate it is contributing to their lives. Often this is referred to as a “quality of life” need.

The solutions for any contemporary urban city need to be engaging for all.

They need to unite communities; they need to provide a sense of identity where “advantage and benefit” are widely shared and seen but still value diversities that often make cities vibrant and attractive places to be living in.

The end solutions in cities should not only be “smart” but be intelligently applied

Citizen engagement is not just an end solution; it is an inclusive one from the very first moment any planning for change takes place. Cities will not engage communities if citizens feel you are disrupting, even destroying, long-standing relationships, and community spaces. Citizens need to relate and will ask: “what are the cost and disruptions, and will these be outweighed by the (eventual) benefits?”

City planners cannot make the mistake of offering binary choices of “accept or refuse,” they need to continually engage and communicate the value to the city, the cost to the citizen in “concrete” ways.

It is the partnership from inception that can bring citizen engagement and growing recognition that the changes, disruptive as they are initially, will bring economic and social benefits to their lives. It is articulating the case and giving it meaning and value.

Today we are providing outcomes of smart city investment.

The emphasis may be on City Smart solutions for infrastructure and systems, but increasingly citizen-centric smart solutions are as important; these give a greater connection and engagement. The provision of apps covering civic-engagement, digitalization of citizen services, bike and car sharing, smart parking, digital payments on public transport, private e-hailing, the arrival time of public transportation, and many others show tangible outcomes.

These solutions outlined above directly benefit the citizen; they can begin to appreciate the value of the investments made as ‘it’ relates to them. The more a citizen ‘sees,’ they will relate.

Smart city solutions are delivering real-time public transit info, road navigations apps, food ordering options, volunteering opportunities. Then as technology takes hold, we have the potential for the exceptional ability to share understanding, in health applications, water consumption, and electricity usage can be real-time in personal monitoring and control.

We can have greater control over home energy as the solutions connect into the utility providers and e-payment options. The end-user becomes a more active participant and influencer, getting more actively engaged in their consumption management.

The more significant benefits of the smart city are economical and social

For example, as cities improve their transport infrastructure, the critical aims are lowering congestion and pollution through more optimal use of technology. It is the ability to co-ordinate faster actions at times of emergency or in public safety threats through real-time analysis of sensor and surveillance cameras, better diagnostics, using artificial intelligence, and databases have high societal value for feeling safe and secure.

The ability to embed sensors and devices into the very fabric of commercial buildings, transport, homes, and factories, allows for putting a “smartness” through the data collected, monitored, and then analyzed to optimize those assets in there efficiency and effectiveness to more significant benefit.

Another level of engagement for citizens comes from a smart connected environment where they can search and find more dynamic groups of likeminded citizens to work together on collective interests. Citizens that they can help shape and form through a growing co-creation of decision making, digital democracy, and increase exchanges in a more participatory form of city governance.

As knowledge understanding forms the backbone of these engagements, the real potential of relating to data and information comes from the focused interventions that allow citizens to be more participatory in measuring the evidence of effectiveness, that openness will give all a growing sense of shared identity.

To deliver on this transformation to a “Smart City,” the promises need to provide tangible benefits or differences. Technology alone can make things better, but it is the combination with people that delivers the Smart payback. It is the marrying of both physical and social infrastructure into Smart Infrastructure as the central key, to engage communities, and connect citizens into any disruptive urban change.

Citizen engagement is essential to realize in our Smart Cities. A citizen who feels empowered determines so much of where their Smart City is going and what it means to them.

[1] Dobbs, Richard, et al., Urban World: Cities and the Rise of the Consuming Class, Report, McKinsey Global Institute, June

2012, https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/urbanization/urban-world-cities-and-the-rise-of-the-consuming-class

The post Innovative Urban Development needs public engagement first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.