Energy

Trends and innovations

    By looking closely at the energy sector today, we observe various signs that suggest rapid transformation for future developments in the industry. Governments around the world pass legislation in order to incorporate sustainable energy sources and technologies to enable efficient use of energy systems. Broadly, energy industry trends can be categorized into three recurring concepts:
    Decarbonisation indicates a transition towards a clean and carbon-free economy by integrating and increasing the share of renewable energy sources. A significant rise in the share of electric mobility and higher taxes on the use of fossil fuels are ways to decarbonise.
    Decentralisation refers to geographically distributed electricity with a large number of multi-level producers and consumers. Some regions today generate electricity independently, even though they are not yet connected to the distribution networks. Besides, decentralisation enables lower energy intensity and provides opportunities for utilizing renewable sources of energy.  Digitisation implies the widespread use of digital machines and devices at all levels of the power system, from production and infrastructure to end-user devices. Energy 4.0, as it is known, enables the industry to implement intelligent energy and power management solutions based on machine to machine and machine-human interactions.

Impact Of Energy Industry Trends
    Renewable energy infrastructure development, power generation, storage, and efficiency drives innovations in the sector with numerous emerging companies developing low-cost renewable energy technology. This, incombination with artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of energy, and blockchain account for nearly three-fourths of the energy industry trends. Advancements in electric vehicles (EVs) and charging solutions focus on enabling the transition to zero emissions transportation by solving for infrastructure-related challenges.

Renewables
    Using renewable energy helps preserve the environment as it produces minimal to zero harmful emissions. The basic principle of using renewables is to extract it from a constant source in the environment, like the sun, the wind, or through geothermal sources. The next important factor is to convert the source into productive electricity or fuels.
  The range of technologies that cater to the different aspects of generating power or heat from renewables forms one of the biggest energy industry trends. This includes reducing costs for the manufacturing of renewables infrastructure and generating power with higher rates of efficiency.
    Odqa CSP technology that utilizes an ultra-high temperature solar receiver that enables high-temperature industrial heating processes. The solution unlocks high-temperature power cycles, increases production, and expands the capacity of photovoltaic (PV) power plants. They also offer a novel system layout for CSP plants that reduces the costs of PV plants and improves overall system efficiency.

Internet of Energy
    Traditionally, electric power systems use a central architecture during construction that brings a new set of challenges to the industry. IoE addresses several of these challenges and offers greater efficiency and optimal design for building energy systems. The Internet of Energy implements intelligent distributed control through energy transactions between its users.   This new energy generation paradigm develops a smart grid and improves coordination and optimization in the macro-energy system.
    Energeia solutions for monitoring, identifying, financing, and implementing energy efficiency within a shared-savings business model. Energeia’s smart meters collect energy data using gateway devices and later send it to an online platform that analyzes this data, ultimately resulting in energy savings. The analytical engine generates consumption trends and predicts potential energy management improvements that it unlocks by changes in the grid process.

Energy Storage
    Today’s technologies provide a sufficient level of generation, however, they lack cost-effective energy storage solutions. Energy storage enables stable pricing by proactively managing demand from consumers. By having the opportunity to purchase energy for future use, consumers potentially stock it up during ideal conditions. This accumulated energy later helps in reducing the grid loads during peak times, while prosumers earn more as buying energy becomes expensive.
    Developing energy storage technology that delivers around-the-clock baseload power from intermittent renewable energy sources, like solar and wind. Energy Vault’s ready-to-deploy solution is inspired by pumped-storage plants that rely on gravity and the movement of water to generate power. The elevation storage system is ideally suited for long-duration storage, and also provides faster response time.

Blockchain
    Blockchain technology intends to unite all energy stakeholders under a single decentralized network. Electricity producers, distribution network operators, metering operators, providers of financial services, and traders potentially benefit from utilizing smart contracts. These contracts ensure that all energy-related transactions pass through a secure and immutable network, thus eliminating potential losses. Blockchain also holds the potential for achieving some degree of equality between energy producers and consumers by making electricity affordable for more people.
    Accelerating direct access to renewable energy services using its blockchain platform. The Enosi Protocol helps bypass bureaucratic processes that inhibit the natural expansion of distributed generation. Enosi’s solution empowers community energy trading without requiring microgrids or incumbent grid partners.

Energy As A Service
    Some visions of the energy system in the future mainly revolves around distributed energy resources (DERs) that are monitored by a combination of AI and IoT. Together with blockchain and a growing number of energy prosumers, these components comprise energy as a service solutions.
    EaaS allows for the transition from selling electricity to selling services such as consumption management, optimization of production, and tracking consumption. The presence of local energy sources and storage options accelerate energy efficiency across the grid while providing access to more people.
    KPay EaaS platforms that integrate with any electric device to enable energy trading. Their platform employs a pay-as-you-go model for solar, household appliances, pumps, and farming equipment. Three payment models: pay-per-use, pay-per-time, and pay-per-amp, provide customers with the flexibility to adjust their energy usage by factoring in the various benefits of each model.

Distributed Energy Resources
    Distributed energy resources (DERs) enable the generation of electricity or heat at the place of its consumption. The absence of a network eliminates the loss and cost of energy transmission. This implies the presence of many consumers who produce energy for their own needs, directing their surplus to the common network. Within the framework of this concept, small and medium power generation units act as distributed energy generators. Further, it reduces energy production costs and makes optimum use of existing energy generation capacity. Urban Energy distributed generation by utilizing building rooftops or community solar gardens for residents in New York City. The company provides a no-cost survey of the property to identify potential DERs opportunities. Their customizable systems integrate multiple distributed technologies such as battery storage and EV charging to maximize the underutilized space.

Demand Side Management
    DSM refers to the rationalization of demand to ensure compliance with the current or predicted capabilities of a power system. Rationalization consists of two main components – demand management and energy efficiency. The management of demand for electricity usually refers to the shifting of consumption from peak to off-peak periods. Simultaneously, energy efficiency implies a continuous reduction in electricity consumption by introducing efficient consumption equipment or processes.
    Distributed Energy focuses on technologies that enable renewable energy adoption and efficiency. The develops DSM solutions to manage small and medium-size businesses’ power requirements. Their smart energy system provides easily accessible data on the energy usage of business assets and optimizes data collection across a range of machinery and assets.

Quantum Computing
    Quantum computing in the energy sector focuses on developing new energy solutions, improving energy efficiency, and reducing the use of greenhouse gases. The scale and complexity of challenges facing the energy sector go beyond modern technology and are well suited for testing on quantum ones. Recent scientific studies reveal the advantage of using quantum computing platforms to solve seemingly mundane problems. For example, allocating space for developing energy infrastructure or in committing quantity or units of electricity generation.
    JoS Quantum cloud-based software solutions for energy asset management. The quantum-enabled algorithms solve complex issues for the energy sector involving risk analysis, portfolio optimization, and machine learning (ML)-powered enhancements. They also provides research services to explore the potentials of quantum computing and quantum-inspired algorithms in the energy sector.

Vehicles-to-Grid
    V2G is a system in which EVs sell energy in response to demand either by returning electricity to the grid or by cutting their charge rate. If EV batteries later return energy to the grid through charging stations, it is possible to use it as an energy storage asset. Charging EVs for lower costs during weak demand supports the network during peak loads. These flexible and accessible buffers potentially reduce the hours of a power outage.
    Fuergy virtual energy networks of existing energy grids to achieve simultaneous energy balance using AI-powered energy sharing systems. The creates superchargers suitable for supporting the existing grid infrastructure. They provide electric vehicle charging and V2G functionalities to reduce energy costs and prolong battery life. The solution uses the battery capacity of electric vehicles, connected to the grid, to improve energy variability and costs for building and vehicle owners alike.

Power-to-X (PtX)
    Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by improving energy efficiency and using renewable energy sources are playing an increasingly important role worldwide. Power-to-X technologies for electricity conversion, energy storage, and reconversion pathways see increasing interest from the industry. PtX technologies convert energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) into new products and materials that are used for several other purposes.
    Ineratec customisable applications of gas-to-liquid, power-to-gas, and power-to-liquid technologies. The gas-to-liquid process converts fossil fuel emissions and renewable methane-containing gases into synthetic hy-drocarbons and fuels. Th power-to-gas system produces synthetic natural gas from regenerative hydrogen, carbon dioxide, as well as carbon monoxide.   Additionally, the power-to-liquid solution converts renewable electricity and carbon dioxide into liquid fuels and other chemicals.