Digitization of energy systems

 In GSS News – EN

The Whitepaper “Digitalization of energy systems” by Bloomberg New Energy Finance is focusing on how digitalization is shaping the energy industry. The paper examines the new challenge for energy systems, the current impact of digital assets in the power infrastructure and gives an outlook on future drivers and opportunities in this business field.

The whole power industry is in transition with significant changes and new challenges for energy systems. This transformation is being driven by the trends of decarbonization, decentralization and digitalization. The generation landscape is shifting to a balanced energy mix with renewable sources such as wind and solar gaining more and more importance.

According to the new Whitepaper “Digitalization of energy systems” by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), the parameters in the energy market will change with large scale renewables feeding cheap and plenty power into the grid. “The new challenge is to reorganize the energy system to make it more efficient, resilient, and digital”, BNEF concludes.

Digitalizing the power sector in 2025 will generate $64 billion in revenue for the associated value chain.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF): “Digitalization of energy systems”

The complexity of energy systems is increasing tremendously and digital data management is one of the levers to manage this infrastructure

Millions of new smart and decentralized energy generation units are tremendously increasing the complexity of the energy infrastructure. The traditional linear concept of the energy system is replaced by a complex multi-way approach with an ever growing number of prosumers and energy trader, may it be communities, companies or private households.

Digitalization leads to much more intelligence within and interconnectivity between different smaller energy networks. And digital data management is one of the biggest levers to manage this complexity and ensure security of power supply, while improving economic efficiency of existing power infrastructure. But according to BNEF, we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

In data volume, we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg

BNEF estimates that 50 billion connected devices will be connected to the “Internet of Things” by 2020 and about 1.1 billion smart meters will be deployed globally by 2021. This development creates huge market potential also for the energy industry.

Still at the beginning, the industry has to face fundamental challenges in managing the transition of the energy landscape. The existing power infrastructure has to be integrated into this transformation to benefit from digitalization. Single assets and localized digital “islands” have to be incorporated into one large data infrastructure and millions of devices have to be controlled, managed and analyzed. BNEF takes a look at these challenges and shares its results on the main drivers and opportunities for the digital transformation of energy systems.

Mastering these challenges will be essential to create a sustainable energy future for the industry and society as a whole.

Start typing and press Enter to search

Share via
Copy link
Powered by Social Snap