Innovation is critical in this energy transition.
We need to move from research and development, through engineering validation but into pilot and scaling actual solutions at speed. We do not have the luxury of evaluating these over standard lifetime returns or observing others over the years, there is the need to raise validation and take higher risks, than in more stable times.
We need to be more pioneering. Without a coordinated effort, risk is always cautious without some form of guarantee or point of crisis. To date, we have not generated co-ordination in policies, collaborations, and commitments to shared risks. We have yet to fully place in the minds of everyone what the crisis is and where it is heading if we do not respond with a real sense of purpose.
My innovating purpose in the Energy Transition
So for me, the energy transition is at the forefront of “cutting edge” innovation to deliver and why I have given this my 100% attention in the ways I can support the energy transition to offer ways to understand, investigate, research and become even more fully immersed in it.
My focus is to really become even more conversant in the Energy Transition, to build out what I know and can provide as “accelerating input” into its complexity in resolving both its issues and barriers, but also in “formulating outputs” in scope, opportunities and magnitude of scale for contributing where possible to supporting each organizations journey.
My focus on understanding the innovation needs of the energy transition and its urgency
Why did I chose to exclusively focus on different aspects of innovation within the energy transition is simple for me. We have such a real threat of climate change and any pathway to meet the Paris Agreements, where all countries pledged to keep the rise of the global temperature below 2 degrees C by 2050 and ideally try to work towards the position of 1.5-degree C above pre-industrial levels. These target goals mean bringing our temperatures down dramatically.
We are presently at a very critical decision time; there is the level of investment needed to achieve this, the current estimate to create a safe climate system is a need to invest USD 110 trillion of new investments in the energy sector by 2050.
Much of the investments need to be directed away from fossil fuels (the primary carbon emitters) into clean technologies. It is renewables, including most power generation and end-use applications that need to invest mostly through generation sources of wind, solar, hydrogen, and biofuels.
The opportunities for change are simply opening up everywhere.
This level of investment commitment will radically alter the job landscape, where energy is generated, by what means, and how it is going to be distributed, stored and consumed by us all.
Presently we are not making the essential investments we need to make. The period 2020 to 2030 is absolutely critical for investments not just to be pledged but effectively deployed on the ground in the physical solutions and effective operation needed to make this energy transition required on track to reach the climate goals.
