Digitalisation has already had a huge impact on the energy sector, yet we are only at the start of a revolution that will rip apart any business that is too slow to embrace it, writes Gerard Reid, founding partner of Alexa Capital, financial analyst and co-founder of the Energy and Carbon blog. According to Reid it is the combination of five S’s – software, semiconductors, sensors, solar and storage – that will define the new energy order. And it is coming faster than most people think.
Energy executives across the world are all using buzzwords such as Big Data, the Cloud, Digital Wind Farms, Digital Oil Fields and the Internet of Energy as they talk about their future strategies. Yet all of them seem to me to trivialise the changes going on in global energy.
Already digital technologies have had a massive impact on the energy sector. The low oil and gas prices across the world are the result of new digital technologies which have created the shale gas and oil revolution in the United States. The shale revolution would not have been possible without sensors and massive computing power which have enabled the game changing drilling technologies such as seismic imaging, horizontal drilling, digital oil fields and measurement while drilling.
Add to the equation low-cost sensors for measuring heat, movement and a whole range of other variables and suddenly we have the possibilities around the internet of things
It is the same story for renewables. Massive technological improvements have caused the costs of solar and wind to plummet and as they have installations have soared. In addition, we have energy efficiency technologies working in the background to control our use of energy. As a result, hundreds of billions of dollars have been wiped off the value of many of our major energy incumbents.
Billions of dollars
But we are only at the start of this digital energy revolution which will rip apart any business that is too slow to embrace the new digital energy order. At the same time it will create billions of dollars for those embracing it. This new digital energy order is based around five key technologies – software, semiconductors, sensors, solar and storage – and the new business models they enable.
Software and semiconductors go hand in hand. Software are the brains used to control and operate different types of semiconductor such as microchips, power controllers and LEDs. These ever faster and cheaper semiconductors are the reason why any smart phone today is more powerful than the best personal computer from ten years ago. In the energy world, low cost computing power has enabled energy companies to extract, produce and transport energy more cost effectively while at the consumer level it has allowed much more efficient use of energy.
Add to the equation low-cost sensors for measuring heat, movement and a whole range of other variables and suddenly we have the possibilities around the internet of things, millions of devices all connected together measuring, controlling, communicating and working with each other. The combination of sensors, semiconductors and software will enable in the future the Smart Home and the Smart City as well as autonomous motor vehicles.
But we don’t have to wait for EVs to come. Already a combination of PV&S (solar PV and storage) makes economic sense in places as far abreast as Italy and Tanzania
The next key technology is solar PV which is the most flexible power generation source available. Solar can be used to power calculators, solar panels can be mounted onto our roofs or facades, or they can be configured for use in large-scale power production plants. Plus, installation is simple and quick. And solar is already cheap and getting cheaper.
In 2004, a typical 200 watt solar module sold for about €1,000. That same module now sells for around €80 today! And there are further cost reductions to come as technology improvements push conversion efficiencies above the 18% level found in today’s standard solar modules towards the rates of a modern satellite (40%). And the good news is that the core material used for manufacturing solar panels, silicon is cheap to produce and there is lots of it due to the abundance of sand it is produced from.
Solar’s steep cost curve has fuelled its viral expansion. In 2000, the global market for solar was a mere 277 MW. In 2015 the market was over 57 GW. However, solar has one big disadvantage and that is that it is intermittent. What should one do at night or when the sun is behind the clouds?
The answer is storage but until recently this was just too expensive. But this is changing fast thanks to costs and technology improvements around lithium-ion batteries which are being driven by the automobile industry which has decided to use lithium-ion as the core technology to power electric vehicles.
Truly enormous
The numbers and the repercussions of an EV rollout are truly enormous. 1 million Tesla S 100D’s could deliver 100GWh of backup power which would be enough to power the whole of Germany for over two hours. But there are 40 million cars in Germany so if they all were to go electric there would be theoretically enough backup capacity for the whole of Europe!
But we don’t have to wait for EVs to come. Already a combination of PV&S (solar PV and storage) makes economic sense in places as far abreast as Italy and Tanzania. Putting a solar panel on a domestic roof with a battery is the quickest, cheapest and sometimes only way to get power to people who don’t have it. This is the business model of Berlin based Mobisol which offers its clients a pay as you go model under which customers use their mobile phones to pay for their own PV&S systems on a monthly basis.
And then we have Munich-based company Sonnen which is offering its customers a “flat rate” electricity tariff based around domestically installed solar and batteries. The batteries enable the customer to avoid feeding solar into the grid at 10 cents and buying from the power retailer at 30 cents. Some clever software and power electronics allows Sonnen to manage everything seamlessly for the customer and to aggregate all the solar energy not needed by the community of homes so that it can be moved to those within the community that need it.
One of the results of this revolution is that people will move to the centre of the energy system, as this power consumption and generation, becomes digitalised, decentralised and data-driven
But this is only the start. It is the combination of the five S’s: software, semiconductors, sensors, solar and storage that really is creating an energy revolution. And one of the results of this revolution is that people will move to the centre of the energy system, as this power consumption and generation, becomes digitalised, decentralised and data-driven. Consumers will increasingly be able to monitor their power usage via a mobile application; they will save money by using energy apps and consoles which show how they can capture lower tariffs; and will exploit time-of-use-pricing to charge home batteries with the cheapest grid power, and integrate their solar panels. Increasingly, the customer experience will be one of exploiting software, sensors and semiconductors to analyse their energy use and save money.
This new digital energy order is coming faster than most people think and it will rip apart old world businesses that are unwilling to change. At the same time, it will also create exciting businesses like Sonnen and Mobisol but also new automobile companies such as Tesla and BYD, all of who are willing to not only embrace but to champion this change.
Editor’s Note
Gerard Reid is founding partner of Alexa Capital in London. Her has over two decades’ experience in equity research and fund management in the energy area. He is also a monthly columnist for the German energy industry publication BIZZ energy today and has been lecturer at the university in Berlin for the last decade.
This article was first published on Energy and Carbon, a blog hosted by Gerard Reid and energy journalist and advisor Gerard Wynn. It is republished here with permission.
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Mike Parr says
“At the same time it will create billions of dollars for those embracing it” – so it will make a pile of money for individuals? like the owner of facebook? If this is the case then I suggest tooth and nail resistance.
“while at the consumer level it has allowed much more efficient use of energy” only partly true. LED lamps have a big impact (typically reducing HH demand by around 9%). IT has had zero impact on this reduction. That said, home energy monitors could have a similar (9%) impact.
The writer moves into a damp field of dreams with “low-cost sensors for measuring heat, movement ……suddenly we have the possibilities…..internet of things, millions of devices all connected together measuring, controlling, communicating….”… begging the question …erm…why?
One example of why in some/many cases, interconnectivity is irrelevant. Fridges can & have provided frequency response services (mostly secondary). The only signal they need to do that is ….erm… the 50hz signal which comes free with all elec’ in Western Europe. The rate of change of freq is all that is needed coupled to some randomness to avoid the entirety of a given countries’ fridges switching themselves on & off in synch (not a happy thought). Some modest electronics is all that is needed plus an audit trail. RLTech did it in the late 2000s. Washing machines/dishwashers have an elec load profile, they could have some very simple electronics to switch them on to cycle via a signal over the power network from a local or not so local substation. Trivial – look ma! no Internet.
Yes, PV & storage are on the cusp – with the energy companies in league with the regulators and other bad people like ENTSO-E attempting holding actions through the delpoyment of grid codes (it won’t work you know – the holding action that is). I agree that the energy business will change, the big boys are trying to change with it, I’m not convinced they will do so quickly enough – that said they will probably do an IBM-PC trick or two and/or takeovers to keep their heads above water.
The article was Ok, but rather general & it might have been nice if the writer rather than doing rah-rah had looked at the subtleties.