What's New in the Energy Landscape?

By CIOReview | Friday, June 12, 2020

Almost all countries around the world are moving towards adopting technology to reduce emissions and adopt renewable energy.

FREMONT, CA: Smart businesses will always aim to stay up-to-date with trends in energy management to optimize their energy consumption, as well as optimize their energy expenses and reductions in emissions. Owing to increased diversification for sources of electricity generation, utilities are beginning to change their business models. Sustainable energy sources, such as solar power, hydroelectric power, wind power, wave power, and tidal power, help the world move towards a sustainable future. Let's take a look at some of the energy technology trends that are dominating in 2020.

Artificial Intelligence

AI can help energy enterprises, and customers collect and sort data to identify and monitor patterns in producing and consuming electricity. Integrating AI also benefits smart meters and smart energy management systems. Energy companies are beginning to employ AI to help them with increasing production and reducing waste. Eventually, the expenditure will pay dividends and make services more cost-effective. It can also help make better decisions regarding energy storage and improving energy efficiency.

Blockchain

Blockchain technology is slowly gaining popularity in the energy landscape as it makes energy trade simple and secure. Blockchain, with the help of IoT, can help improve the performance of smart, energy-saving devices and building management systems (BMS). It can be used by both commercial enterprises and individuals. Utility companies can leverage the distributed ledger technology from blockchain by monitoring the chain of custody for grid materials.

Cybersecurity

One of the advantages of the energy grid's increasing digitization is its vulnerability to cyber-attacks. A carefully planned and sophisticated attack could destroy a country's entire energy grid. Wargames, mostly, are conducted regularly to test this theory. AI and Blockchain are two technologies that can help energy companies overcome this challenge.

Grid parity

Grid parity occurs when an alternative source of energy can generate electricity at a reasonable cost, which is less than or equal to the electricity grid price. With some renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind, becoming more popular, several utility enterprises aim to gain grid parity soon.

See Also: Top Smart Grid Companies