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.
The need is to allow time for new technologies to commercialize.
To undertake something like a global energy transition, you need time to figure it out, validate the options and pathways and then provide the necessary time to pilot, learn and then commercialize the (multiple) solutions to be scaled and applied. The cost of this transformation will eventually run into trillions of dollars.
The innovation aspect needs to gather momentum. Technologies are emerging based on several solution needs:
- Ones that are grid edge in design, meaning more customer-facing and power-flow controls
- Radically different storage technologies that can handle the variances in renewable of holding the supply of solar and wind generating energy as well as converting energy through electrolysis, hydrogen and synthetic fuels that serve the needs of mobility, heating, agriculture
- The present gas and steam turbines need to be upgraded, optimized, and converted and have applied hybrid solutions that combine different energy sources and various technologies that combine to provide mixed energy source power plants.
- The advancement of carbon capture techniques and carbon removal
- Exploring next-generation nuclear fission and fusion
- Finding different solutions that allow high-temperature superconductor transmission and solid-state transformers to be introduced increasingly into the energy system
- We need to increase efficiency and effectiveness by increasing transparency, reliability, and resilience by using sensors, monitoring equipment, data analytics, and self-learning systems.
- Finally, putting to use digitalization for machine and device connectivity, managing growing complexity in overall systems.
Each of these initiatives “demands” new technology design.
Each initiative does demand new technology designs and validation. They must be economically viable and scalable, drive a clean energy transition agenda, and provide increasing system flexibility.
These new technologies need to break into the existing lifecycle of energy design to substitute incumbent solutions. The speed of development and deployment will be unprecedented for us to meet the climate goals, decarbonize the system, and change the fuel source.
Innovation is at the heart of the energy transition.
Innovation will be at the forefront of the energy transition; it will be both radical and full of breakthroughs to achieve the goals set to decarbonize our world.
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 services, enhancing the system’s flexibility, and incentivising further integration models can play their part in new business model design.
2). Then we have the consequence of any innovation change in energy source and delivery in exploring market design innovation. Regulations, policies, and 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, the opportunities to support and gain from the new introduction of solutions.
3). Lastly, the innovative models for operating in the electricity system can give a different way to share the value 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.
Innovation is enabling technologies, offering new business models, market design, and system integration options in focusing on flexible solutions to overcome solar and wind variability, providing increased system flexibility and allowing for reduced total system cost.
During the next ten to twenty years, we are in a race to transform our energy systems, one that moves from fossil fuel reliant to clean fuels based on renewable energy. Innovation is the catalyst for this.
