The technological challenge of the transition to renewable energy

The Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Global Compact are now a must. Organizations are pushing their net emissions agendas, and no longer just because of evidence of climate change or rising energy costs brought on by the war in Ukraine, but because of pressure coming from all directions, including regulations, investors, and the environment and the companies' own employees.

Spain wants to become one of the hubs of the ecological transition. In fact, this vision is one of the main axes of the Plan España Puede (Spain Can Plan), representing almost 40% of its entire budget. Of the 30 components, in which investments and reforms are detailed, 3 mark the path towards the ecological transition of the energy sector:

1. Massive deployment of the renewable energy generation park aimed at energy development.
2. Electric infrastructures, promotion of smart grids and deployment of flexibility and storage.
3. Renewable hydrogen roadmap and its sectoral integration.

These points are fully aligned with the objectives of the 2021-2030 National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC), which aims to achieve a 100% renewable electricity sector by 2050, with the following intermediate milestones:

• A 23% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 1990.
• Achieve 74% renewable generation by 2030.

So, what is the end goal? What is the future of renewable energy and what technologies will play a role?

The technological challenge in the energy transition is a social, economic and environmental need. Moving towards a low-carbon production model has become the most cost-efficient alternative, in addition to the cleanest.

The energy transition is an unstoppable reality, so much so that it is revolutionizing the global economy and industry.

Source: IRENA - International Renewable Energy Agency (https://www.irena.org/)

It is therefore not surprising that the European Union (EU) has set the ecological transition as one of the three pillars of the European Recovery Plan (also known as Next Generation EU), together with digitalization and reindustrialization.

Technological development can be a lever of change towards a better and more sustainable world. Technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), the cloud or artificial intelligence (AI) help improve operational efficiency and energy management in your sector.

Spain is the sixth country in green technology inventions in Europe. In energy and transport we are the main focus of attraction, both on the European continent and in the rest of the world, most of the innovations are concentrated in the renewable energy and transport sectors, followed by construction.

From this point we are going to talk about 3 lines of work with projects in which technology helps to improve sustainability:

Shared mobility and eco-friendly vehicles:

1. Shared mobility apps offer varied solutions for users since there are multiple ways to share vehicles. Carsharing, motor sharing, kicksharing or carpooling are booming concepts of multi-user vehicle options.
    
2. Ecological vehicles also come into play in this section. They are vehicles that do not emit gases and are named as such because their use does not negatively influence the environment and contributes to reducing the presence of polluting gases in the atmosphere. These vehicles must be accompanied by technologies that also help ensure the safety of drivers, such as the first CarPlay app from a major car maker.

Smart territories:

1. Projects like Sentilo help us capture the state of the city in real time thanks to a complete network of sensors that produce large amounts of information which must then be processed. This is known as Big Data and the processing and analysis of this data as Data Analytics.
   
   This network of sensors knows the flow of people and bicycles that cross the main avenues or thoroughfares of the city, how many decibels are being emitted on the streets, the temperature in each neighborhood and what quality of air is being breathed. In other words, we are turning cities into smart cities.
2. The increase in household and industrial waste has been disproportionate in recent years. Recycling and solid waste management is a commitment of both companies and individuals. Outstanding technologies such as smart containers that also use IoT, automated food waste tracking systems, and computer vision technologies can help sort mixed plastics by separating them from others.
    
3. The Ebro Hydrogen Corridor is one of the examples where the digital transformation and new renewable energy sources such as hydrogen seek to drive the goal of climate neutrality. This project includes the construction of a hydrogen-powered train prototype. The tests are being carried out at the CAF railway company's factory in Zaragoza.

Energy consumption and use of renewable energies

1. All of these initiatives must be accompanied by the reduction of energy consumption to avoid relying on oil or coal, since these energy sources produce greenhouse gases. Added to that, reducing energy dependency is also a priority task. Improve energy efficiency in the attempt to use less energy to produce the same result.

   In this case, technology is also on our side. Artificial intelligence helps to reduce energy and resource consumption, promote decarbonization and boost the circular economy, because it allows us to improve environmental planning, decision-making and monitoring of environmental threats.

We have already talked about the key technologies for sustainable digitalization, but what role does each technology play? 

• IoT: It makes it possible to implement sensors in the real world then using the data that is generated and, through machine learning, make predictions that facilitate decision-making. In this way, the environmental impact can be controlled and prevented.
• Big Data & Data Analytics: The generation of large amounts of data, thanks to technologies such as IoT, and its subsequent analysis and processing (Data Analytics) allow us to better understand the world in which we live and make better decisions.
• Artificial intelligence: It accelerates the analysis of large volumes of data, allowing us to better understand environmental challenges and provide solutions to these challenges.
• User Experience: It manages to increase end-user engagement with ease of use and an optimal experience in using the solutions that are developed.
• Cloud: On the other hand, these solutions must have an optimized architecture, both in terms of consumption of computing resources and energy, and this is achieved thanks to cloud-based models with neutral carbon emissions, such as the new AWS region in Spain.

The objective is clear, to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability to achieve a better planet as in these well-known use cases in SEIDOR Opentrends. If this is one of your goals, we can help, contact us!