Academia and industry partner to boost energy management

ABB and the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing have teamed up to develop a blueprint for improving energy management in industry, with focus being placed on technology challenges and the processes and people needed to plan purposeful change. 

The partners say rising energy costs as well as the need to reduce emissions and meet environmental targets all require a change in energy management. The current energy crisis has caused a fundamental shift in the speed at which governments and businesses wish to move away from reliance on fossil fuels and reduce fuel consumption, they add.

In response to the crisis, a roadmap has been developed that takes a strategic approach to improving energy management. The collaborators – comprising ABB Electrification and experts from IfM Engage – sought to break down the complex changes involved into manageable steps.

Reviewing processes, resources and capabilities and building on tools such as road-mapping supports the most effective change, they say.

“Sometimes organisations make the mistake of looking at what technologies can help them to ‘go digital’, without considering the broader context including where value can be created and what pain points could benefit most from digitalisation,” said IfM Engage industrial associate Dr Clemens Chaskel.

“Do not build on the status quo but think about your ideal future scenario, then develop a roadmap for your digital transformation,” he urged. “It is not the technology that makes your digital transformation successful, but how it is applied. During road-mapping, the vital component is establishing connections between those strategic elements to ensure that every item on the roadmap has a purpose.”  

ABB Smart Power Division president Giampiero Frisio added: “IfM Engage and ABB developed a roadmap that will improve our technology strategy, R&D projects, customer deliverables and anticipate future trends, which has the potential to shape the energy management systems of the future. The next step is to turn this blueprint into real world actions.”