I really value these reflective periods. They allow you to simply “recalibrate” so you can at least start the new year off on a more purposeful set of objectives, those strategic stakes in the ground. Of course, you can argue these can simply end up as new year resolutions, often broken in the first few weeks, but hopefully, these objectives stay anchored into the ground as a firm intent, they become the foundation to build out from. Well, that’s my intent.

When I reflect back on the 2020 year, I have recognised the needs to make a significant energy change. As I posted my critical top six energy developments in 2020 in this recent post “Energy Progress- the best of 2020 leads to a great 2021″ it triggered a deeper evaluation to lead out to 2021.

The key to 2021, in my opinion, will be a real breakthrough year of innovation, based on technology invention.

“2020 advanced the commitment to the shift from fossil fuel to renewables that has real momentum in the coming years. 2021 will be the breakthrough year where the energy transition has the unstoppable forces happening.”

We are all wanting to look forward, to a different, a more engaged world in 2021.

Reviewing my recent activities around Energy Transition.

Reflecting back, moving forward. In the past two-plus years, the whole Energy Transition has been my platform to apply my innovation learning and ecosystem thinking. The Energy story has really changed my focus on where I offer support.

Firstly in December 2019, I launched the site www.innovating4energy.com and have posted over 50 articles in this twelve-month period across the whole energy spectrum. This dedicated site enables me to consolidate my thinking previously spread out over different posting sites and gave me the dedicated focus point to build my view of the energy transition, described below.

In this year, 2020, I was singled out to be in the top ten energy transition influencers by Onalytica in their Who’s in IIoT in there recent September report.

In November 2020, I was delighted to be included within the top ten hydrogen influencers that included @mariofornarelli @h2gazette @hydrogenenergy @reuters @climate @hydrogencouncil @h2europe @siemens_energy @ft and finally myself@paul4innovating. That seems great company to me!

The link to this hydrogen evaluation is via Node Graph Gallery. It provides a detailed graph representing a network of 4 588 Twitter users whose recent tweets contained “hydrogen energy” or replied to or mentioned in those tweets. It is an interesting visualization to help sort out social media and thought leaders. The evaluation was undertaken in November 2020.

Ecosystems are now becoming essential for managing the Energy Transition. My ecosystem focus is relatively narrow on Industrial IoT & the Energy Transition but it has a significant business impact when applied. I was delighted to be recognized in the Ecosystem top thought leaders on Thinkers 360, a premier thought leader and influencer marketplace for recognition across different social media channels 

Moving forward in 2021

I think the business model will radically change. Ecosystems where collaborations will become increasingly prevalent and platforms where digitalization will advance our awareness, efficiencies and effectiveness will be central to lasting change. Innovation will simply advance due to the exchanges through digital enablement between collaborators and having more diversity of opinion and seeking out that network effect. Innovation in new technology will enable the energy transition even more in the coming years.

The Energy Industry has to “embrace” both the ability to collaborate with each other to search and explore radical, innovative solutions, and that is where Ecosystem design has its real power. Also, by deploying more a platform thinking Energy solution providers and sellers will value data as the increased currency that a more diverse energy system requires to be effective and efficient.

Ecosystems and platforms are becoming vital for the Energy Transition, especially where collaborations and digitalization form an increasing transformation part.

Advancing my degrees  of separation

When you are facing complexity you need to break it down into its component parts to evaluate it, to make greater sense of those parts and attempt to bring it back into a new sense of order.

This site of www.innovating4energy.com was part of that deliberate design as the energy transition has become a central focus of mine. Yet to deliver understanding you have to apply your thinking to the other contributing parts, my degrees of separation.

Ecosystems are the way for business to evolve and have been critical to my decision to, again, separate my thinking, and provide a dedicated posting site ecosystems4innovators.  This allows that separation, identification and focal need and provide a better understanding of the value of ecosystem design.

For the platform understanding, I have again separated my thinking onto another dedicated posting site for building thinking out on a new integrated IIoT innovation engagement platform “Connecting digital, innovation and industrial” providing insights and thinking on platforms as my focal point of offering.

A final step of separation for my increased “energy purpose” has been this increased recognition building the internet of energy to provide a more focused view of digitalization within the energy system.  This will be the real enabler in constructing and layering a new energy infrastructure, where the digital and physical run in parallel, and need a high dependence on each other to design and deliver affordable, sustaining power across the entire energy system.

Innovation is always to the fore.

Lastly, in dedicated focus areas, the Energy Transition acceleration will come from increasing innovation and the constant search for improving technology or discovering breakthroughs. Innovation needs a dedicated investment appreciation.

For me, innovation has been a core area for the past twenty years. Evaluating, stimulating, encouraging, and organizing innovation by building the capacities, capabilities and competencies innovation management requires. Innovation is the catalyst of change within the Energy Transition and my critical value-adding point.

I have been providing insights, advice and concepts for innovation and many of these can be found on my dedicated posting site paul4innovating

Turning all my research towards commercial reality is ready to be applied

The last part of my 2020 year has been the sheer determination to follow up on research within the energy transition.

I have been building an extensive library of topics, articles and reports, hundreds of GIFs, partly built into an extensive Microsoft OneNote energy system and also within an expanding filing system. This work has become a real battle to index and build, but it is getting extensive and highly valuable.

For me, 2021 needs to be realization time.

My current work is working through how and where I can offer a return for my investments and provide clients’ propositions that offer value, impact and knowledge.

In these recent weeks, I am trying to work out the type of Energy Transition Service I can offer, that has a value that provides market-driven insights and can piece together in-depth reports, outlined roadmaps, and understanding of the options that the energy changes are creating for us all to understand.

I finish on my 2020 Energy Progress stating my energy journey, and what it means to me as we enter 2021.

Energy Transition needs to be generated in different ways, my positioning:

• Emphasis the value/impact of innovation within the Energy Transition (as my core). It builds out the potential to change.
• A consistent focus on being seen as a Business Builder and offer perspectives, opinions, and outlooks
• My belief that there are different aspects of activism to bring focus to this transformation and it is engaging across all of these avenues
• The scope, pace, and directions of change need a sense of urgency, and my role is to help accelerate that journey.
• The broader perspective, putting content into context, giving knowledge and insight leads to making more informed decisions, that’s my positioning.
• I see myself as the Outsider looking into the Energy World.

This focus translates into value positioning:

• The (absolute) needs within the Energy Systems require solutions and change does lie in creating impact, understanding and viable alternatives.
• The significant potential for new market design, different business models and system operation solutions offers a real business opportunity.
• The fascination with identifying new enabling technologies and exploring and exploiting these
• The Energy Transition is one of today’s big challenges in energy, climate, and our planet and needs clarity for potential clients on how it can be leveraged.
• There is so much societal need for this energy transition, it needs framing and building differently, so it attracts stakeholders to join in. The value of building that communicating positioning with the additional external perspective strengthens the narrative and broader identification.
• The desire to add more impact, understanding, and awareness to the Energy Transition, to give greater momentum to internal teams provides additional momentum and resolution.

My 2021 purpose is providing different points of insightful and impactful design in Energy transition.

I cover the Energy Transition through innovation, ecosystem and platform thinking by (deliberate) design. Interested to learn more, no time like now.

My best of Energy Wishes to you in 2021. Let’s search for synergies and making connections that are mutual and rewarding.

The post Restating my energy purpose for delivering in 2021 first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Being restricted, not able to travel has its benefits, you gain more time to climb into your own reading, research or passions. For me, this has been my “Energy Transition” year.

The sheer amount of articles, reports or webinars around all aspects of energy have been partly overwhelming but significant in their reference and knowledge gaining. This intensity of purpose towards the energy transition has given me an enormous boost in its understanding.

When I reflect back on this 2020 year, recognising the needs to make a significant energy change has really gained a very high awareness.

2020 advanced the commitment to the shift from fossil fuel to renewables that has real momentum in the coming years. 2021 will be the breakthrough year where the energy transition has the unstoppable forces happening.

Let me summarize my top six energy developments that built-in 2020 that have given a potentially lasting momentum to the energy transition that will, in my opinion, have a real impact in 2021. Plus my seventh one, a personal one, boosted my energy understanding and confirmed a growing recognition by others’ of my contributions.

Firstly, let’s look at my top six energy enablers to significantly impact the energy transition that is being undertaken. Each will have a massive impact on 2021.

ONE – We are entering the autumn of fossil-fuel generation

Coal, Oil and Gas are really on the ropes, fighting to stay relevant against the onslaught of renewables. Coal is on its way out that is for sure, the early retirements of dozens of coal plants in 2020.

Global coal consumption was such way down due to Covid-19 and renewables’ pace. Growing positioning has become far more competitive and offers real confirmation that renewables can bridge much of the energy demand.

Gas is not so far behind. The scrapping of plans to replace coal with gas and opt for clear energy portfolios and cancelled previously planned pipelines are among the issues that are putting huge pressure on the Gas Turbine business.

Power generation will be the major battlefield in 2021 to see if the “interim” argument, the bridge, takes hold or the longer-term one, of going straight for renewables wins.

The issue of a legacy for investing in Gas Turbines that have a life of thirty years or more of normally useful lifetime returns is at risk. They could quickly become stranded assets or wrongly positions in the new energy designed a system where renewables are more central.

I feel early retirement debates and required decisions to not invest in fossil fuel generation will dominate 2021. Fossil fuel-fired generation is heading for a very tough year in 2021.

TWO – The commitment to Carbon Neutrality

The commitments of both China and now the incoming US administrations recommitting to the Paris Agreement is highly significant. The whole raft of more vigorous policies, support programs and regulatory measures to tackle the CO2 emissions and the increased “drumbeat” to decarbonization will become much louder in 2021. Governments really need to “drive” change.

The continued push to carbon-free electricity is happening at an increasing rate, with the application and acceleration of clean energy technologies, and the power grids to manage and run increasingly on zero-carbon power. The energy system is being argumented with increased sector coupling management, and increase storage alternatives will be one of the top investment focus in 2021. Decarbonizing is central to all we do.

THREE.- The Race towards Hydrogen at Scale requires lower cost points.

For me, hydrogen became the big talking point of 2020. We have been deluged with Hydrogen opinions, suggested options and so much advice on how and when this “hydrogen economy” emerges into one that gives real commercial scale. Hydrogen is moving towards the alternative energy source to solve the harder-to-abate areas, bridge the wind and solar variability, and provide transport fuel alternatives in power-to-x solutions.

Green hydrogen is the place to get to, as quickly as possible. What needs to be announced in 2021 is significant breakthroughs in electrolyzer technology that can significantly upscale volume and show the promise of rapid cost reduction. The scaling trajectory will have a similar pathway that solar and wind took to get to the point where they are today where costs are required to fall dramatically to gain acceptance and adoption.

The disruptive technology breakthroughs for green hydrogen need to be delivered in 2021 to kick-start the Hydrogen revolution.

In 2021 the Hydrogen Council has to make some hard decisions. Does it continue to back all Hydrogen shades (grey, blue, green) or shape its memberships focus to one and only one Hydrogen choice, that of Green hydrogen?  Green Hydrogen is generated by the different renewables and technology solutions available; mostly solar, hydro, and wind feeding into electrolyzers.

Investment decisions and technology clarity need to be fully determined on Hydrogen Those decision and clear pathways for Hydrogen need to be nailed down in 2021. 

FOUR – The focus will shift further to reducing Greenhouse Gases in 2021

The transport industry, aviation, and shipping need to make definite inroads to find their fuel alternatives in 2021. There are options, but a winner or two needs to emergy and the industries consolidate behind these.

Methane Gas has to be given much sharper attention too, and that continues to push the oil and gas industries into getting their emissions in real shape. All greenhouse emissions in building, in industry, in transport need to be “forced” to act by Government edict and have clear time commitments to make the necessary changes to clean energy.

Bans on Gas Vehicles needs even more legislation incentive, the two or so decades needs shortening, so the laggards in the car industry finally get the incentive to commit.

2021 will see Gas Emissions becoming central to policy and which technological breakthroughs being determined as the ones to put the investment capital behind.

The one really grey area for me is translating all the talk of carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) into real compelling and globally commercial solutions. If they can’t see the shift to decarbonization through renewables and green hydrogen, all the political, technological, and industry solution providers combined weight behind them to provide commercially viable CCUS solutions with blue hydrogen takes increasing hold on future energy designs. CCUS needs to have clear, scalable and proven solutions.

FIVE – Getting our Storage, Battery and Grids capable of delivering Electricity Stability

As we recognize the largescale deployment of energy storage, this has the real potential of overturning any business as usual for any electricity market needs. If it is to satisfy instantaneous demand, smooth out discrepancies between generation and loads, provide flexibility in load shifting and position both batteries and storage as the ancillary service for managing all the present and future options in power generation and consumption self-consumption.

As batteries and storage costs continue to fall and the amount of energy these can store will shift the economics of power across the grid,  displacing and disrupting plants and grids in their design, flexibility, and capabilities. Storage will upend many industry structures.

Storage system design will take a more central role, where lithium-ion, ölead-acid, flow-cells and other emerging technologies will optimise value to the needs on hand. Storage is recognized as giving two critical aspects of any energy transition, resilience and insurance to manage stability and fluctuations.

Energy storage and battery hold a critical part of the future, and 2021 will see these energy-storage systems become broader solution sets, not one-off positioning. They will become an integrated design feature, and this will emerge in 2021.

SIX– The Financial Energy Commitment Year of 2021 needs to be substantial

Financial institutions and Banks are finally making their move. Banks always want risk certainty, and they have really struggled over the investments at scale in emerging technology or alternative fuel solutions. The pretence (no other word for this, in my opinion) of their deep commitment to the energy transition has been lacking.

Banks and Financial Institutions should be “called out” and recognize their pivotal role in ‘forcing’ reducing carbon intensity as primary investors. They need to move with greater intent and purpose away from fossil fuel-related investments to renewable ones and resolve to back pioneering technologies in greater ways.

The boom of investment return needs to be seen, where Government Economic policy sends that powerful signal to the markets to commit in deeper, sustaining ways. We need to get past piecemeal or pilot projects to assess risk over a protracted time, we need bolder investment visions in investments in clean energy solutions.

Banks need to reorganize their portfolio of energy investments in radically different ways. Taking carbon intensity reduction as the core investment focus does begin to regroup individual segments in a new way of evaluation. 2021

Banks and Financial Institutions in 2021 need to finally come off the fence of backing both fossil fuel and renewables and make this reduced carbon intensity central to their investment decisions going forward.

SEVEN – My seventh one is my own deliverables in 2020 that I believe will build-out and lead to a significant “return” in 2021 for all who want to engage.

This reflection of my 2020 will be in my opening post of 2021, entitled “restating my energy purpose”.

My best of Energy Wishes to you in 2021. Let’s search for synergies and making connections that are mutual and rewarding.

The post Energy Progress- the best of 2020 leads to a great 2021. 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.

Adapted Image: IRENA

We are at the point where “the rubber hits the road” or in Green Hydrogen’s case “the water needs to turn into H2 at scale and real value” and for that to happen it needs a massive commitment across so much that is work-in-progress today.

So much of where we are in Hydrogen is more of a promise theory or intent, than a reality. We need to moderate our rhetoric and provide realism before we completely overhype the green hydrogen. Impatience and growing frustration might kill off the hydrogen solution (again).

We need to massively be able to scale out solutions like the electrolyzer. We need to radically bring down existing production costs through different technology applications and design. We have to build a dedicated infrastructure and create real sustaining market demand. Today producing hydrogen means possible energy losses on the alternative.

We need to build the business case of Hydrogens value as the alternative to fossil fuel is a task-driven by the necessary policy change, customers willing to buy and replace their existing energy systems and suppliers able to offer the guarantees that any hydrogen replacement can work in demanding, more flexible conditions and offer affordability, sustainability, is effective and efficient beyond the existing solutions.

Oh, yes, to cap this all off it has to be at competitive prices to today’s energy sources. Or alternative solutions will need to be found, such as Nuclear perhaps.  I mean not much of a challenge to switch away from fossil fuels is it?Lets state the intent: the energy transformation requires a major shift in electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewable sources like solar and wind, greater energy efficiency and the widespread electrification of energy uses from cars to heating and cooling in buildings.

Not all sectors or industries can easily make the switch from fossil fuels to electricity. Hard-to-electrify (and therefore hard-to-abate) sectors include steel, cement, chemicals, long-haul road transport, maritime shipping and aviation all need imaginative and cost-effective alternatives to the existing solutions.

In a recent report “Green Hydrogen, a guide to policymaking” released by IRENA this month you are hit by a real dose of present reality.

Green hydrogen can provide that vital link between extending and sustaining renewable electricity generation (VRE) and provide solutions to those hard-to-electrify sectors.

We know Hydrogen is, without doubt, a suitable energy carrier and also for applications remote from electricity grid dependency. Also, Hydrogen can provide a high energy density, it can serve as a feedstock for chemical reactions and is well-positioned to produce a range of synthetic fuels and feedstocks to complete much of the energy transition.

Yet the barriers we face today are formidable to realize Hydrogen’s promise, picking up on the part of this report from IRENA.

Green hydrogen is regarded as the ultimate goal, but it needs to overcome the following barriers.

1. Green hydrogen has high production costs, and adopting green hydrogen technologies is presently expensive. To offer hydrogen vehicles with fuel cells and hydrogen tanks costs at least 1.5 to 2 times more than the fossil fuel counterparts at least. Synthetic fuels for aviation are presently eight times more expensive. Transport costs are equally at an economic disadvantage.
2. There is a lack of dedicated infrastructure. We only have 5,000 KM of hydrogen transmission pipelines compared to 3 million km for natural gas. There are presently only about 470 refuelling stations. We still are debating how and where to position our hydrogen sources and can it economically and safely can be transported.
3.  The energy losses are significant. About 30-35% of the energy used to produce hydrogen through electrolysis is lost (IRENA). To convert hydrogen to other carriers such as ammonia can result in 13-25% energy loss and transporting hydrogen requires additional energy inputs, estimated at 10-12% of the hydrogen itself. Using hydrogen in fuel cells can lead to additional 40-50% energy losses. Then you have the higher the energy losses, the more renewable electricity capacity will be needed. Can wind and solar satisfy both the global supply chain of electrification and simultaneously build a green hydrogen economy to solve the harder-to-abate challenges, for example?
4. Today Hydrogen has a lack of Value Recognition. We have no green hydrogen market, no green steel industry, no green shipping fuels and still according to IRENA, basically no valuation of the lower GHG emissions that green hydrogen can deliver. Hydrogen today is not counted in official energy statistics of total final energy consumption. There are no internationally recognized ways of differentiating grey, blue or green hydrogen. We lack clear targets or incentives to promote the use of green hydrogen. We are totally inhibiting many downstream uses of green hydrogen.
5. The critical need to ensure sustainability. Knowing an electric grid is only connected to renewables gives us the chance of green hydrogen. If fossil fuels are within the mix, any associated CO2 will need to be factored in when considering what hydrogen is being produced. The reality is fossil fuels will be in the hydrogen mix for some time to come and does this become a barrier, a taxing question and national emission debates. How can we ensure that grid-connected electrolyzer does deliver hydrogen with, at least, minimum emissions? Is this the case for the pursuit of green and blue hydrogen solutions setting out to capture all of the majority of the CO2

Realizing the true potential of green hydrogen is a long, dedicated journey, it needs to have a plan that is coordinated. Delivering green hydrogen needs international collaboration, it needs aligning standards, and it needs clear financing infrastructure to be staged along its “greening” journey.

Expectations for Hydrogen to significantly contribute to the Energy Transition are 5 to 10 years away. It is how we put the time between now and then will make or break Hydrogen as the viable, perhaps only sensible solution. Yet we must be realistic, grounded and highly focused on the significant challenges to be overcome.

We do need to face reality, dampen down the present hype around hydrogen and roll up our collective sleeves to tackle a highly complex set of challenges, we do need this dose of reality.

The post A Massive Dose of Hydrogen Reality first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Taking a higher-level of decarbonization, I have summarized the critical aspects we need to consider when we discuss this area. I have put them in blocks of bullet points here in this opening decarbonization post. I am planning to delve into each of these in later posts.

The opportunities within our energy transition to achieve these

• Clean energy economic growth
• How we make, store, and use energy
• The potential of new services and design
• Unlocking a new age of electrification generation

How decarbonization will be achieved is with a mix of the following:

• Through breakthrough innovation and technologies, we will enable the changes
• Conventional and Renewable boundary-pushing must be a critical mutual ongoing focus
• Decarbonizing the way energy is generated, transmitted, stored, and consumed
• Progressive, evidence-based policies and regulatory ambitions

The progressive measures to show the energy transition is continuously moving to a decarbonizing system need to be based around:

• Consumer propositions, market design, business models and system definition and design
• Energy efficiency improvements, new market design potential
• Resolving the legacy energy system, retrofits, and redesigns, facing up to these quickly
• Innovation improves the performance and reduces the costs as the deliverable on each solution.
• Credible pathways, technology deployment, and adoption
• Deep understanding of how the different parts interact
• A focus on early demonstration and deployments
• The need is for carbon-neutral fuels that can scale (Hydrogen)
• Energy RD&D has current levels of blind spots that need urgent resolution
• Build an open collaborative and robust, diverse research bases that span the whole energy system

We need to work on adoption in multiple ways

• Net-zero means profound transitions and clear roadmaps these need explaining
• Social-wide adoption of low carbon solutions (buildings, transport, etc.)
• Open energy data and digital governance
• Reform of regulatory markets, how consumers will interact and react with energy
• The value in terms of research and innovation, novel technologies

Urgent resolution to the three difficult-to-eliminate emission areas

• Firm, dispatchable electricity overcoming variability
• Hard-to-electricity transport (volumetric density)
• Industrial-sector emissions (heat combustion, process redesigns, and feedstock)

These are the major obstacles, themes, or issues to resolve or understand

• Carbon pollution has yet to peak
• Reducing the cost, expanding the use and emphasis of alternatives- why
• Climate change is occurring already, harming society in numerous and different ways
• The concentration of heat-trapping greenhouse gases
• Frequency and intensity of extreme conditions
• Restoring the natural balance of carbon in the atmosphere
• Replace all unabated fossil fuel combustion
• Deep decarbonization for low-carbon or no-carbon energy systems globally
• Energy is mostly a fungible commodity (wind for coal)
• Finding the markets that value carbon-free attributes of clean energy cost and performance
• Cost and performance are the main drivers of clean energy adoption
• Decreasing carbon intensity of electric generation
• We are past the point of “low-hanging fruit.”
• The present significant limits to the amount of variable generation the grid can accommodate at reasonable cost
• We need a “firm” low carbon dispatchable generation that responds dynamically and can instantaneously match with demand.
• Energize the debate, a “Green New Deal” (GND)
• We are facing an emission cul-de-sac within present innovation, how do we break out of this?

We need a resolution that requires the acceleration of innovation solutions

We need to accelerate innovation, find solutions to atmospheric carbon removal, energy storage, determine the viable economic cases for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) as a matter of some urgency, develop a plan for the next-generation nuclear power designs, validate carbon-neutral fuels that can have real value and place a greater emphasis on basic energy sciences to exploit and explore viable options.

So, in summary, to move towards a deep decarbonizing future, we need to address all of the above with increasing urgency, commitment, and resolution.

The outcome is Fostering a comprehensive energy innovation system that focuses on decarbonization as the ultimate goal, so critical to the Energy Transition.

The post Themes for Decarbonizing, My Agenda Setting Post first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

There is a clear realization that there is significant complexity in all the energy transitions going on. Still, it is the researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs that can see the possibilities and ‘energize’ the innovative solutions are the ones that hold the future in their hands.

If innovation is given its appropriate place within the energy transition, the pace of innovation and energy transition will scale up and accelerate to meet the needs of a world rapidly wanting to decarbonize. The world is demanding a change in our energy supplies and rapid decarbonization.

It will be the organizations that have innovation central to their thinking and access to the financial and resource capital that will be in a very healthy position to capitalize on this demand for making change.

Innovation will be central to enabling technologies that advance the energy transition. Changes will come in offering new business models, significant differences in market design, and system integration options.

Innovation will continue to focus-in on flexible solutions to overcome solar and wind variability. Answers will provide increased system flexibility and allowing for reduced total system cost and continue to replace energy systems reliant on fossil-fuel as we push towards a lowering of our carbon emissions.

I have focused through some previous posts on the “families” of innovation that are needed in the energy transition.

For example, discussing the recent IEA release of a significant innovation-related report,” A sharp acceleration towards Clean Energy is required” was one of these.

Also, another look at where innovation can contribute was “Within the Energy Transition, the hunt is on for strong spillover potentials.”

Both posts explore the role that innovation is having in the energy transition in greater detail.

Innovation is playing a significant role in facilitating the integration of the emerging new renewable energy system providing new opportunities to explore and evolve:

1).  New business models, where new services, enhancing the system’s flexibility and providing the incentivizing of further integration models, can play there part.

2). Then we have the consequence of any innovation change, in energy source and deliver, and that is in market design innovation. Regulations, policies, new incentives for value-adding services are building new business opportunities that give a new breed of energy players, including a new set of infrastructure investors, opportunities to support and gain from.

3). Thirdly, the innovating models for operating in the electricity system can give a different way to share the value out of managing this VRE generation. It opens up the market to a whole new range of energy providers, including, you as a net contributor back to the energy grid with the right approach to usage, storage, and generation from your renewable technology stack of solutions.

4) As we move progressively away from fossil fuels to renewables, the need for a clean alternative, where carbon emissions are zero, is the essential innovative solution to deliver. The replacement “primary” source of energy seen today to do this job is hydrogen. Hydrogen is viable; it now needs to become scalable to offer solutions to decarbonize industry. It’s potential is now necessary to be realized as urgently as possible.

Innovation solutions are both supply-sided and demand-sided

Innovation is working on both the supply-side in finding the new flexible solution but equally on the demand-side as well. A couple of pivotal examples are in designing the grid in innovative ways and building storage into the entire energy system.

The Grid is offering a growing range of flexible solutions to reduce the dependencies on large centralized grids to achieve the optimum delivery closer to final demand. A grid that is matching closer power generation and the variabilities in demands, through new grid approaches in operations and designs, ones that can provide solutions that become more flexible than the existing ones we have today.

Energy storage offers flexibility by taking out the concerns of variability where systems are totally dependant on current wind and solar. Storage is advancing through battery and fuel cell technology, and provides an entirely different range of options for demand-side management, optimizing energy distribution closer to the markets.

Innovation-driven solutions are seeking to achieve cost-effective global transformations that contribute to the results in low-carbon, sustainable, reliable, and inclusive energy systems with the emphasis on emerging flexible solutions that change today’s energy equation.

Innovation has the power to unlock the Energy Transition.

The mix of many technology innovative solutions needs not just further discovery, it needs translating into scalable solutions. The IEA mentions the “stark disconnect” of the “walk and the talk” around net-zero that this needs significant resolution. This disconnect can be resolved by giving innovation to have the central focal role in our need to deliver clean energy technologies.

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Today the International Energy Agency (IRA) released a long-awaited update on where innovation needs to be in the energy transition we are undergoing.

At their own admission, it has been three years since they (IEA) released its last Energy Technology Perspective (ETP) report. Although they argue they have been reflecting on the critical technology challenges, it is way overdue.

In this new report, “Energy Technology perspective: Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation” released today, 2^nd July 2020, they have developed some improved modeling tools to bring a higher capacity to answer key technology questions in greater detail. This is good news.

IEA will further follow up later this year with a flagship ETP 2020 publication later in the year to keep a tighter and more consistent focus on the role and need of innovation to accelerate clean energy transitions.

They, the IEA are planning an IEA Clean Energy Transitions Summit really soon to convene ministers and CEO’s to the aim of driving economic development by this more robust focus on clean, resilient, and inclusive energy systems.

The IEA is suggesting they are is in the midst of a modernization agenda to keep them at the forefront of sustainable and clean energy transitions globally. They need to become a more significant focal point for reliable and leading-edge advice.

They put it starkly, the realization is simply that the energy sector will only reach net-zero emissions if there is a significant and concerted global push to accelerate the need for the innovation part of the energy transition.

The IEA sees (a growing) disconnect between climate goals of Government and Companies that they have set for themselves and all the concerted efforts needed in the innovative efforts underway to develop better and cheaper technologies to realize their goals.

We have recently been hearing that we have “all the technologies now we need to get on with it.” This, in my view, is partly right, we know where to put the efforts, but the abrupt step change we need to scale, re-engineer and develop these technologies and the delivery mechanisms (infrastructure, policy changes) are massive. We are losing sight of this.

The “drag and resistance to change” is significant. This needs resolving quickly to deliver a decarbonized world.

If we take the example of Hydrogen. When solutions and policies that have recently been emerging around Hydrogen from a European perspective,e they have been proposing a clear focus on green hydrogen as the focal point.

Green hydrogen is based on renewables and the significant deployment and use of electrolysis that makes it the clean energy solution (vector) as the Government policy focal point, we then get significant vested parties pushing back hard.  There is the intense push back of the suppliers of blue solutions offering carbon capture and storage as equally necessary in any policy and funding from any change in EU and Germany energy policy decisions. The argument is we need bridging solutions to any transition. There is a lot of merit in this argument.

Then we get those industries established on grey hydrogen, which is a significant greenhouse emitter, pushing even further back, claiming the ability to switch hydrogen from fossil fuels to clean is many years away. We are entering the geopolitics of hydrogen, can we afford this?

The dizzy array of solutions on offer needs validating for the pathway to fast decarbonization.

What we do need is the fastest transition through all means possible the low carbon options, but the lock-in risks in investments and where we deflect our research and development take us further out into the future if we need to achieve these net-zero emissions.

The rapid evolution of the dizzy array of solutions is one that all economies, especially the emerging economies, have to be very aware of this “lock-in effect if they chose the wrong transformation pathway.

The technology mix to decarbonize each economy and industry reliant on secure and resilient energy sources is a tough one. It is organizations like the IEA that need to be turned too for the best advice, not specific solution providers pushing their solutions on a narrow pathway of their focus.

The IEA, by rethinking how they re-designate technology innovation, makes for a substantial shift.

The major shift outlined in this report, released on July 2^nd, 2020, regroups the policy measures by families of key technologies based on similar technology attributes.

To quote from the report: “Within each of these families, knowledge and application spillovers hold significant potential to accelerate innovation if linkages are exploited: against this background, the section provides some concrete suggestions for action for each family of technologies to help policymakers to integrate tailored approaches for priority technology areas into overall strategies.”

Technology families:

• Electrochemistry: modular cells for converting between electricity and chemicals.
• CO2 capture: processes to separate CO2 from industrial and power sector emissions or the air.
• Heating and cooling: efficient and flexible designs for electrification.
• Catalysis: more efficient industrial processes for converting biomass and CO2 to products.
• Lightweighting: lighter materials and their integration in wind energy and vehicles.
• Digital: integration of data and communication to make energy systems flexible and efficient.

 The list above is not intended to be exhaustive. Still, it covers the types of solutions that hold the most promise for advancing value chains involving electrification, hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels, CCUS, and bioenergy.”

Visual taken from the new IEA report “Energy Technology perspective: Special Report on Clean Energy Innovation” released today, 2nd July 2020, page 167.

To further quote from the report: “Among the other technologies that all have important roles to play in achieving net-zero emissions are large, scientifically complex technologies such as nuclear, including small modular nuclear reactors, and small-scale, consumer-led technologies such as flexible or buildings-integrated solar PV or high-efficiency motors.

In between these extremes lie geological technologies to enhance geothermal energy, hydrogen storage, or CO2 storage, as well as such high-potential areas as ocean energy, prefabricated net-zero energy building envelopes, and thermal and mechanical energy storage.”

This report is a timely update as our new technology innovation focal point.

Without a major acceleration in clean energy innovation, the net-zero ambitions on emissions will simply not be achieved.

The mix of many technology innovative solutions needs not just further discovery, it needs translating into scalable solutions. The “stark disconnect” of the “walk and the talk” around net-zero needs significant resolution. The IEA, through updating and giving innovation the central focal point for our need to deliver clean energy technologies.

Do please find time to work through the report.  It is critical to grasp the role of innovation within the energy transition. What is certain is we have been not giving this the appropriate attention it needs in resourcing, exploring, and maturing present as well as future solutions, we will clearly need to get us to a decarbonized world.

We need to accelerate transitions towards clean, resilient, and inclusive energy systems, and that comes from putting integrated clean energy innovation into the heart of energy policies and solution needs.

**This post was first published on my paul4innovating.com site today.

The post A sharp acceleration towards Clean Energy is required. first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

There is a real urgency that we transform our energy systems.

Where can innovation help within the Energy Transition to rapidly advance it?

The opening answer is everywhere within the energy system. Technological and systemic innovation is critical to the end-user sectors of transport, industry, and buildings and replacing and upgrading much of the overall system design and operation to generate increased electrification.

We need to digitalize our grid services, provide new concepts for the grid and local storage, provide improved smart charging for electric vehicles, add different ways of building into the energy system the idea of mini-grids.

Each day there seems some level of innovation development, but my aim here is not to list these or where they need to go in future but to take a broader view of where and how innovation can help in general terms within the energy transition. We all need a sense of bearing or a compass that shows us the way. Our job is is “spark” and ignite innovation within the Energy Transition. To give innovation more resources and support.

Innovation has a central role to play in the energy system.

Our need is to keep pushing for discoveries, for experimentation, for demonstrating. We must nurture innovation, and we must continuously look for ways to facilitate its pathway. Innovation is made up of many enabling technologies; it needs to be built highly systematically. The need is to continually re-imagining new market designs and business models to stimulate the changes and solutions for our future energy transformation.

Energy is a vital part of any country’s ability to be competitive. Today half the world’s capital is invested in energy and its related infrastructure as it is the backbone of any industrial and urbanization strategy.

Our economic prosperity will be determined by transforming the energy sector, and it is through innovation we will achieve this.

Innovation is vital to the integration and operation design of the energy system, and we need to recognize its crucial role.

Innovation needs to be at the top of its game, to be accelerated.

The energy transition that the world is undertaking is one of the most critical areas where innovation needs to be at its very best, that top of the game to make the level of change necessary. We need to deploy every innovative tool to leverage ideas and discoveries and then accelerate the validation into a commercialization path, sooner than later.

Innovation needs to get out of the laboratories, moved from theory to application, and off the desk of those executives who fail to see the urgency of change we need to achieve the energy transition. Innovation has risk always associated with it but that imperative to push the boundaries does need always to be constantly in our minds; global warming is our “burning platform”, and we need to ramp up our need for solutions that can reduce greenhouse gases, redesign energy generation, transmission, and distribution.

Solutions that evolve them and allow them to manage their energy solutions in a rapidly decentralizing energy system. We need to keep pushing for more innovation from the existing solutions found in wind and solar solutions jockeying to replace oil, gas, and coal. We need to discover different methods of storing and distributing electricity. We also need to keep exploring new business models to radically alter the engagement with the final consumers.

Pushing our present understanding, looking beyond the knowns

Today the solutions are centred on decarbonization, applying digitalization, and switching to an energy system that is more decentralized than at present. It is finding imaginative, innovative solutions that become essential to achieve this climate change through the energy transition we are undertaking.

We must find innovative solutions to reduce local air pollution, strengthen energy security, and develop a more significant energy system that is resilient to minimize the shutdowns and power outs. We need to find solutions to reliable and sustainable energy solutions that deal with heating, lighting, cooking, and cooling. Any change needs to find a way to create local economic value and jobs, as others will be displaced in any change of this magnitude.

If we are to meet the mandated Paris Agreement of 2015, where member states agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees C versus pre-industrial levels by 2050, we have to look at every climate change mitigation we can find. We have to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80 to 95 per cent of the 1990 level by 2050.

We have an awful lot of innovation to do

We need to switch from fossil fuel to renewables. The whole shift of significant invested assets for power generation and distribution has to accommodate an energy mix that provides us electricity certainty 24 x 7.

As we switch from conventional power to renewables or we look to upgrade the distribution grids, we need to look towards innovative solutions.

Everything we are looking at in energy solutions faces a scalability challenge.  We must continue to de-carbonize challenging industry sectors like steel, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, or our transportation systems if we wish to achieve any positive outlook of curbing carbon emissions and moving onto a pathway towards a zero-carbon future.

It will be the ability to harness the existing with the new. This is the role of innovation, to deliver the changes by being the bridge and being the catalyst of change with new technology and innovative solutions.

Innovation must be at the forefront of the energy change; otherwise, we will fail to deliver on the 2050 commitments and goals, and that will have consequences for our very existence as we know it.

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Sources FT Guide: The Energy Transition https://www.ft.com/reports/energy-transition-guide

The post The Energy Transition we all need to undertake first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.

Image credit: Harvard Business Review

If there is one report you have to read in the absolute disruption we are undergoing in the Energy Transition, it is one just released by Carbon Tracker entitled “Decline and Fall: The Size & Vulnerability of the Fossil Fuel System.

It stops you in your track at the enormity of the changes that will occur in the Energy System in the coming years. What we are witnessing today is only the tip of the Energy Transition iceberg.

Firstly, we must recognize the assets involved are huge, and as the energy transition continues in its switch from fossil fuels to renewables, the entire energy system gets increasingly disrupted.

Secondly, the implications investors and policymakers can lead to a choice between financial instability or begin to have a very clear, orderly phasing down of assets than trying to prop up unstainable assets. How are we going to manage such a transition to keep it fulfilling the energy need expected, all of the time?

To get the total picture provided in this report I have taken Carbon Trackers Executive Summary and reproduced it here with full acknowledgment this is their work, and all my intention here is to present their story.

The Carbon tracker executive summary tells the story unfolding and the full report you can download here gives the validation and thinking behind it.

Please read this, it presents a massive transition.

Executive Summary of “Decline and Fall: The Size and Vulnerability of the Fossil Fuel Systems” by https://carbontracker.org

The entire energy system is being disrupted by the move to the cheaper renewables from existing fossil fuels

Just grasp the magnitude of disruption this switch away from fossil fuels to renewables and what assets are under threat from this report.

“The three main assets are the 900bn tonnes of coal, oil, and gas, valued by the World Bank at $39tn; supply infrastructure of $10tn and demand infrastructure (electricity, transport, and heavy industry) of $22tn; and financial markets with $18tn of equity (a quarter of the total), $8tn of traded bonds (half the total) and up to four times as much in unlisted debt.”

Of course, you can argue this is Carbon Trackers opinion as a team of financial specialists making climate risk real in today’s markets. Others will see it or argue it differently.

The existing Fossil Fuel lobby is a powerful one that has many supporters. It is like the climate debate there are so many “vested interests” but we are in need of facing some clear realities.

A short background to the existing energy system

The existing energy system is responsible for really high carbon emissions and releases of other harmful greenhouse gases. Our planet is getting warmer as a consequence. This need for as deep decarbonization is essential and an urgent move to low carbon or even net-zero energy system.

Carbon dioxide emissions represent three-quarters of greenhouse gas emissions, two-thirds of the remainder is methane, with energy-related Co2 (combustion of fossil fuels) and industrial process emissions making up over 80% of Co2 emissions and the remainder coming from land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).

Our challenge is can we change from fossil fuels as the main sources of energy in hard-to-abate sectors?

Almost 45 percent of industry’s CO2 emissions result from the manufacturing of cement (3 GtonCO2), steel (2.9 Gton CO2), ammonia (0.5 Gton CO2), and ethylene (0.2 Gton CO2). In these four production processes, about 45 percent of CO2 emissions come from feedstocks, which are the raw materials that companies process into industrial products (for example, limestone in cement production and natural gas in ammonia production).

Feedstocks are really hard-to-abate by a change in fuels, they will require a more innovative approach to changes in the process. Fossil fuels generate high-temperature heat where some processes need to achieve 700 degree C to even over 1,600 degree C. The design of the system and the industrial processes are highly integrated and due to considerable investments have long lifetimes, perhaps up to 50 years. All of these hard-to-abate sectors are also commodity products and traded globally. The willingness to pay more or to change is a difficult one, it is not external financial considerations alone.

Another 35 percent of CO2 emissions come from burning fuel to generate high-temperature heat. The remaining 20 percent of CO2 emissions are the result of other energy requirements: either the onsite burning of fossil fuels to produce medium- or low-temperature heat and other uses on the industrial site (about 13 percent) or to drive machine  (about 7 percent) (Source McKinsey)

Will external pressure bring about the required changes?

This research and report from Carbon Tracker will open up the debate further on how to align the financial system in the transition to a low carbon economy as the catalyst to bringing about change. To make this orderly change or face a series of disruptions unplanned or faced at points of crisis.

“Today we are witnessing the degradation of this one vital ecosystem we are all utterly dependent upon, our planet“

This energy transition is genuinely an ecosystem of epic proportions.

For me, the energy transition is the largest transformation we must undertake in decarbonizing the planet for achieving our reduced climate warming.

*updated on Monday 8th June

The post The Size and Vulnerability of the Fossil Fuel System Disruption first appeared on Innovating the Energy Transition.