Tag Archives: Energy Transition

Raising the Energy levels for the Energy Transition

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https://www.weforum.org/events/world-economic-forum-annual-meeting-2023

In the past week the Davos World Economic Forum has been on, where thousands gather to listen, explore, make contact and generally gather the mood of the Worlds economic climate over the coming year. The sessions are highly valuable to be selective over but listen into.

Over this weekend, I spent a fair amount of reading time working through the World Economic Forum to remind me of this incredible source of knowledge across many world issues and challenges. I think this is not an event to miss when you cut through all the negatives surrounding Davos and the “elite” and lucky ones are able to rub shoulders and get a better understanding of thinking and give some degrees of new clarity to individual thinking and their strategic direction from grasping the risks, potentials and value opportunities offered when so many leaders can find time to come together and exchange.

These reports (Whitepapers) are a storehouse of knowledge, facts and suggested actions that need to be taken. The Whitepapers found here cover Climate issues, Green Deal views, Resilience, Circular Transformation, Global Value Chains, Electricity views , Securing the Energy Transition and plenty more.

For me, the weekend focus was on the Energy Transition following on from their recent Davos event and the series of reports co-sponsored with different organizations built up over many years.

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Our Power Grids require Reliability, Resilience and Risk management.

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The pressure on our Power Grids needs urgent attention

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 Ageing or outdated infrastructure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.

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The power to unlock energy is through innovation

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The energy shifts we are undertaking within all the energy transitions today do allow real innovation opportunities when you survey the innovation landscape.

There is complexity in all the energy transitions going on. Still, the ones that can see the possibilities and ‘energize’ through new innovative solutions hold the future in our hands to capitalize upon as fast as we can.

All we can predict is that the pace of innovation and energy transition will speed and then scale up to meet the needs of a world rapidly wanting to decarbonize. The companies that are investors in innovation will be the best placed to capitalize on this.

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My twelve energy Christmas words or triggers that will drive my 2023 thinking

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So as we wind down towards Christmas and begin to look out into 2023, I thought, what are my triggering points on the Energy Transition?

So I thought I’d turn these into a simple list of my twelve energy Christmas words or phrases that will drive my Energy Transition thinking in 2023

  1. The energy challenge
  2. Inclusive energy futures
  3. Innovation technology
  4. Complexity unravelling
  5. Unchecked consumption
  6. Stranded Assets
  7. Emerging Energy Platforms
  8. Energy backbone
  9. Climate change essential actions
  10. Clean energy innovator
  11. Pathways, landscapes and roadmaps
  12. Transition management

I made an Energy wish list for 2022, and all I can say is it was wildly optimistic, so this year, I’ll stick with my simple Christmas triggers.

So what trigger words or energy phases will drive your Energy work or thinking in 2023?

Add them below

Wrapping up the Energy Crisis Year of 2022

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(ABC News: Michael Barnett)

This has undoubtedly been a year where the Energy Transition has felt, more often than not, thrown into reverse.

In Germany, coal mines have been reopened, and nuclear power stations scheduled to be decommissioned been given an extended lease of life. Nearly all EU countries, very dependent on Russian oil and gas, have been scrabbling like crazy to find alternative sources, all at rising prices and growing difficulties in finding supplies. The cost of energy to the consumer has risen significantly, and many Governments have been forced to offset winter bills with different incentives, payments or credits that will be highly expensive, so where does that cost come from, and what gets sacrificed?

France struggles with a rapidly ageing fleet of Nuclear power plants and the issue of how many of these can be up and running and functioning at levels to maintain power to their network and be able to support neighbours at times of their need.

The UK Government announced this week it’s the first opening of a new open coal mine in Cumbria a year after the UK lobbied to ‘consign coal to history. The developer, West Cumbria Mining, said it was “delighted” it could now deliver what it called “the world’s first net zero mine”. It plans to offset the emissions from the construction, mining and domestic transport phases. I hate the word “offset”. West Cumbria Mining says the coking coal it produces will be used for steelmaking in the UK and Europe. The local council had granted permission to dig for coking coal until 2049, with the mine expected to create about 500 jobs.. Yet the two prominent companies that still make steel using coal in the UK – British Steel and Tata – say they plan to move to lower carbon production methods. According to the UK Telegraph, this Cumbrian coal mine is economical and diplomatic idiocy.

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Not in this Text; disappointment at CoP 27

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CoP 27- “Not in the text” is most telling

The UK’s lead climate negotiator, the minister Alok Sharma, delivered a very telling speech at Cop27 revealing what some countries had tried to push through to an agreement.

Sharma was the president of the Glasgow Cop in 2021, and he was clearly frustrated with the events of the last two weeks in Egypt. and especially the final text outcome adopted at the Cop 27 meeting.

I personally was disappointed by the Cop26 held in Glasgow and chaired by Alok Sharma and the stunning last-minute intervention by India (along with China) where the phasing out changed to phasing down of coal.

Twelve months on and we seem to be making extremely slow or no progress on fossil fuels in any Global agreement of phasing down or out.

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Accelerating the new Energy Ecosystem

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Accelerating the Energy Transition
https://innovating4energy.com

Over the next twenty to thirty years, the Energy System will undergo a massive transition to achieve that eventual 2050 net-zero target of decarbonizing the energy system fully, resulting in a clean, climate-resilient energy transformation.

I have been looking in a short mini-series at the need to structure the Energy System in a very systematic and consistent evaluation as we undertake the changes from a fossil-reliant ecosystem into a clean, renewable one, with the overriding obligation to address climate change.

In this third and final post of this series, I focus on 1. Innovation & Ingenuity, 2. Experimentation & Rapid Pilots, and 3. Leapfrog Opportunities and discuss a value proposal.

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Building out the new Energy Ecosystem

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Building out the new Energy Ecosystem

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Changing the Energy Ecosystem

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We have a very unhealthy world.

When I set up this posting site https://innovating4energy.com in December 2019, I stated within the site identity the tagline “a transition in all of our lives.” Little did I know how our lives would change at that time and continually do so in a very unhealthy geopolitical environment where collaboration is rapidly deteriorating to solve our rapidly warming planet.

I have found working in this energy transition space to be extremely hard, if not at times overwhelming. It is so complex, challenging and caught between the extremes of needed change and no change. You wonder what will happen, not just in the year 2050 as that year we need to have achieved bringing our world to a net-zero in carbon.

Just how we will be capable of transitioning to a net zero energy system by 2050, ensuring stable and affordable energy supplies, providing universal energy access, and enabling robust economic growth is seemingly getting harder to grasp than it was a year ago or even when I started this posting site. Continue reading →

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

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

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

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

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