Power management is history. Where’s the energy sector headed now?
ESG has been the talk of the town for some time. It doesn’t matter whether you are scrolling Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, or buying any product offline, you are eventually going to spot beautiful phrases articulating how the brand and its products are more energy efficient, sustainable, and help society.
This trend is also observed in the energy sector. The entire energy sector is witnessing a lot of activity to make it more sustainable and environmentally friendly.
A lot of minds would shout “what’s new?”
That’s what has been happening since ’90s. Companies and governments have been crying about the environment and coming up with new ways to take money from our pockets.
Hold on, this time the tides are strong and we can expect to witness a lot of changes in the energy sector. What’s fascinating is “most of these changes are not in the energy generation segment but in the way energy distribution & consumption takes place”
Energy generation has already witnessed solar, nuclear, hydraulic, and wind energy. The use of control fission and fusion for power generation is also on the plate and is currently being experimented upon. But what after that?
The game of sustainability relies a lot on how energy is consumed and controlling the wastage that happens while distribution and storage. To control distribution and energy storage, our favorite artificial intelligence has come to help.
There are multiple themes that are being experimented on in the current times. Some prominent themes are:
- Predicting energy demand,
- Managing energy generation (in relation to the predicted energy demand)
- Energy storage (non-conventional way of energy storage such as raw materials generation)
- Energy Trading
- Equipment anomaly detection & management
- Preventing energy theft & loss
- Optimizing consumption
These are only the exemplary parameters and the actual list is quite long. A close examination indicates all these themes are linked with automation and next-generation hardware/ software. These themes rely on data collected from various equipment and users and require tons of computation. I am sharing a brief summary of what’s happening in each of these themes to stimulate your imagination on “what’s going to arrive in the future?”
Predicting & Managing Energy Demand
There are multiple ways of generating energy but we don’t have a lot of technology to assist us in saving that energy. Moreover, the existing ways are inefficient and take a lot of time/ volume. (meh, batteries)
How about we predict the energy demand and model the capabilities of our existing power generation infrastructure to find out the energy that we would be able to generate in the future time period? It would help us mitigate any energy wastage and also help us understand the energy deficit. The energy distribution can also be planned based on urgency and need
Though the brief definition looks easy, the activity in the domain is not that easy to understand. The data that is used to model and simulate is taken from cities, individuals, power distribution companies, and power-generating infrastructures. It involves planning energy production, predicting energy demands, simulating failure probabilities, identifying grid capabilities, understanding weather and geological data, etc., In short, a lot of data and powerful data processing skills. Moreover, the business would be highly dependent on artificial intelligence and next-generational software capabilities.
Energy Storage & Distribution
Ask someone of “how can we store energy?” and they will shout battery. Yes, battery is a way but it is not the only way. Nature understands it and that’s why you see “coal, petrol, diesel”. Why not look at the fat deposits in your body? That’s one way of storing extra energy.
Thankfully, a lot of researchers have noticed it and they are coming up with ways in which the energy can be stored. These include using the energy to generate something that can be used at a later stage. E.g., Use solar energy to bake food that is needed in the evening. It would reduce your dependency on the power grid.
That’s one example, there are many. I read some research papers that disclose using energy to reduce iron ores. Some use energy (excess energy, renewable energy) to produce hydrogen. These reduced iron ores or the produced hydrogen are then stored for times when there would be low energy. These are some things that are needed by other industries and are required in the day-to-day life of other businesses. These can be stored and used at later stages and offer high energy efficiency. You have basically stored energy in form of material.
Equipment Monitoring & Consumption Management
That’s the other two themes that go hand-in-hand. A number of equipment are not efficient and consume a lot of energy. It would be wise to simply replace them with new equipment which would save the cost of energy consumption. But new equipment would demand upfront capital and would not be desired by the consumers. That’s where monitoring software and systems come into the picture. They monitor energy needs to identify which equipment can be replaced and how many of these would yield profit in the short/ long term. The consumers can see the benefit and make wise decisions. Since the data is also available for equipment manufacturing companies, they can come up with new financing options to make the deals sweet and desirable for consumers.
In recent times, we have also seen initiatives backed by governments and organizations to switch existing consumers to energy-efficient products. These new generations of equipment also come with energy monitoring capabilities and are aware of load demands and their efficiencies. They generate data that help organizations organize energy use. There are multiple pieces of research backing this. The HVAC systems in new vehicles use engine thermal energy to optimize the energy efficiency of the battery. Multiple organizations are using controlled heating (directly depending on the per unit charge) for adding energy flexibility.
The businesses helping these themes rely on software and smart equipment (smart energy meters, sensors, etc.,). The data that is handled is usually limited to individuals and organizations and the software that assists in managing energy consumption is customized as per the need of consumers. This opens up new opportunities for multiple small players who are active in the domain. The beneficiaries of these systems are small and mid-size firms of local geographies.
Energy trading
Energy is being stored like any other commodity. It should also be traded like one. Yes, it is already being traded like other commodities. In fact, there are firms and organizations that help in trading energy. Some of them create trading platforms, others save energy and participate in trading, and some help in consulting and providing liquidity to other companies. There are a number of businesses that are making this possible. Financing companies, energy producers, energy consumers, software developers, data storing companies, consulting companies, advisory firms, equipment monitoring firms, cybersecurity companies, etc., are directly involved in making energy trading possible. They all play different roles and make the trading business successful. Like all the previous businesses, they too rely on the data of energy demands and energy prediction.
As someone who researches the energy sector. I am quite bullish on what’s going to come in the domain. And yes, it is AI in energy
