Why electrification is key to curbing future climate change

Electrification holds the key to cleaner, more efficient energy distribution and use. But fully realizing its promise demands balancing tech innovation with collaboration across industry, says Massimo Muzzì, head of strategy, business development and sustainability at ABB Electrification.

With this year’s Earth Day seeing a continued climb in carbon emissions, what will our climate be like on Earth Day 2050? And what’s needed to deliver on tough targets for reduced carbon emissions and greater use of renewables over the next quarter century?

According to the EU’s Copernicus programme, 2023 was the world’s hottest calendar year since records began. This increase in global temperatures is mirrored by rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases including CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide that attained record levels last year.

The reality of climate change and its effect on our environment is indisputable. The question is what we can collectively do about the situation – and how can we use technology and innovation to slow it down.

Earth Day 2050

What will our planet’s climate be like on Earth Day 2050 if we don’t deliver the energy transition? What do we need to do in our industry to ensure that global temperatures don’t stray more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels before the middle of this century?

On a positive note, ahead of the UN’s COP28 climate summit in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that a global warming increase cap of 1.5°C by 2050 remains achievable. However, for this to happen, and to achieve net zero by 2050, the IEA asserted that we need to treble renewable energy capacity and double our current rate of progress in improving energy efficiency by 2030.

Have you read:
The electrification megatrend
Iberdrola to invest €41bn to accelerate electrification

Cleaning up our act

Delivering this level of energy efficiency and renewables while satisfying society’s voracious demand for power will require urgent and innovative approaches to generating, distributing, and using energy cleanly and efficiently.

Significantly increasing renewables in the energy mix, while meeting growing demand for power, requires greater innovation. Work is underway, but there is still a great deal to do.

Replacing large-scale fossil fuel power stations with renewable solutions goes far beyond the energy generation itself. As well as generation, these solutions need to effectively distribute that clean power, with minimal losses, where it needs to be used, when consumers need it.

To ensure this, grid resilience is important, making it vital to invest in updating ageing grid infrastructure and replacing antiquated medium voltage (MV) switchgear. Utilities are also investing in hardening the grid against extreme weather events by taking steps such as moving cabling underground and turning toward robust MV switchgear solutions that can operate in challenging conditions like 3 meters of flood water.

Future-proofing the grid is also important, with further investment needed to make the transition to the smart grid. A smarter grid will be able to accommodate the changing balance between large-scale power generation and local or distributed generation. A key component of a smarter grid is battery energy storage systems (BESS), which help reduce stress on the system and offer a cost-effective way to integrate wind and solar power. BESS offers advantages in balancing supply and demand, crucial when everyone wants to cook dinner and charge their electric vehicles simultaneously.

A smart grid also offers monitoring, control, load and outage management, and remote access. Preventative maintenance and distribution automation can predict potential outages. These capabilities, coupled with advancements in AI, will enable intelligent matching of supply capacity and resources with complex demand patterns. These innovations will facilitate the seamless integration of solar, wind, hydro, and other renewable sources within a secure, resilient, and sustainable energy infrastructure.

Also of interest:
ABB announces tech initiatives in Brazil in build up to Formula E
ABB and Gravitricity partner on gravity energy storage systems

Energy efficiency

We don’t have to wait for new technologies and infrastructure investments to reduce emissions. Energy efficiency technologies are already available to help make meaningful reductions to energy consumption. Energy efficiency is the quickest and most effective way to reduce energy costs and our emissions. In fact, it’s the fastest way to net zero as it uses mature, low-risk solutions like smart buildings and cloud-based energy management that can deliver significant ROI.

Smart and sustainable energy efficiency technologies mean businesses can both cut costs and lower their emissions, while the data insights derived from these systems will help utility and power providers, as well as consumers, better manage consumption and optimize energy usage.

Some of the biggest potential ‘wins’ in the energy transition between now and 2050 would be significantly improving energy and asset monitoring solutions at scale in manufacturing, in buildings and in data centres.

Today, buildings account for 30% of global final energy consumption and 26% of global energy-related emissions. The NDB bank in Shanghai achieved 15% energy savings with intelligent building controls, while Viettel reduced its energy costs by 20% by making its new HQ a smart building. Improving energy and asset monitoring solutions like this at scale – in industrial applications, commercial buildings and in data centres, in particular – will help the world achieve net zero.

Data centres are power hungry and need to be more efficient. It’s estimated that data centers will consume 4% of all energy consumed by 2030. Data centres are increasingly adopting emissions-free BESS and renewable energy sources to decarbonize operations. This transition not only reduces environmental impact but also enhances resilience against grid outages. By coupling battery storage and renewable on-site generation within a microgrid architecture, data centres can safeguard against revenue-threatening power grid disruptions while enabling more sustainable operations.

What’s the roadmap to 2050?

Achieving the roadmap to a cleaner future involves multiple stakeholders, from consumers through to technology suppliers. At ABB, our technology roadmap ranges from MV and DC solutions to energy management innovations. From AC and DC microgrids, to building automation, and sustainable switchgear. We also continue to invest in digital tools that offer insights on operations and equipment, and energy consumption patterns. The promise of responsible AI utilization will help boost efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in our own operations and in our products and services that we offer to our customers.

In the future, AI will become a key tool helping us to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions.

AI is already playing an increasingly important role in electrification and sustainability – particularly in optimizing energy usage, enhancing grid efficiency and security, enabling smart charging solutions for electric vehicles (EVs), predictive maintenance and integrating renewable energy sources into the electrical grid.

Focus on collaboration

Understanding the complexities of the energy transition and sharing these insights with our innovation partners is a key way to help deliver net zero by 2050.

A cleaner and more sustainable future cannot be undertaken in isolation, so we have to have a real focus on open innovation, with partners, large and small.