SHAPING OUR GREEN FUTURE

NATALIA MAKAROCHKINA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, SECURE POWER DIVISION, INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC, ON BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE WORLD WITH NEXT-GENERATION TECHNOLOGY

Driven by an increase in social and economic damage all over the world due to the pandemic and abnormal climate phenomena.

As businesses everywhere look for recovery and structural reshaping to welcome new opportunities, sustainability is at the heart of those efforts.

Before the pandemic, a survey from

Harvard Business Review found that of 1,000 Top CEOs across the Globe, 99% agreed that sustainability was important for the future success of their organisations. This was further highlighted by MIT Sloane Management reporting that three quarters (75%) of investment executives agree that a company’s sustainability performance is important when making investment decisions.

In 2021, Schneider Electric was named the top sustainable enterprise in the world by

Corporate Knights, an organisation founded to promote and encourage responsible and sustainable capitalism globally. The award was the result of the company’s long and deep commitment to energy sustainability— and to the many individuals on the “frontline” who make it happen.

We believe that electrification and digitisation is the recipe of sustainable and resilient world. We call this “Electricity 4.0”. Electricity is the best vector for decarbonisation because it is the greenest source of energy by a factor of 3-5. We expect 6 times more electricity coming from renewables by 2040.

Accelerating the journey to net-zero

Digital makes energy smart. It makes the invisible visible and drives efficiency by cutting waste. Digital has a critical role to play in halving our emissions over the next decade while ramping up renewable energy capacity globally. In simple words, electricity makes the energy green and digital builds a smart future. Then net-zero becomes a natural by-product for both.

In the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, capacity must be built out quickly and efficiently to meet the demand generated during the pandemic. This capacity must be efficient, adaptive and resilient, all the while with sustainability as key growth driver.

From the design stages of equipment and systems, sustainability can be built in to enable circularity practices. While pre-approved, modular designs improve efficiency and ease of deployment, hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) further simplifies infrastructure deployment, increasing performance and resilience, as well as facilitating right-sizing.

Technology also exists in shifting to renewables. The move towards renewable energy sources across the region can be embraced and expanded by the current capacity build out trend. The MEA region is enjoying a huge focus for investment and development of its digital infrastructure that will be boost to economies and populations across many countries, bringing together ambitions for digital economies and smart cities.

The use of intelligent uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) combined with microgrid architectures can facilitate increasing RES capacity in national grids. This is becoming increasingly important in the Middle East and Africa. In fact, the Middle East Energy Transition report states that RES project contracts worth $2.8 billion, were awarded in the region in the first half of 2021.

Various sources suggest that 2022 will see major investment in IT infrastructure across the region, from the Saudi Arabian investment plan for digital infrastructure worth $18 billion over five years to build large scale data centres, to general market forecast for 10% CAGR over that period, there is massive scope to boost build out capacity.

This level of investment and activity will drive services, infrastructure, as well as energy sectors, creating opportunities across the board. Broader availability of high-quality data centre services will strengthen economies, while providing the infrastructure necessary to develop digital public services, support digital transformation generally and underpin the next generation of energy supply as part of the worldwide net zero target.

In short, the technology already exists to power Electricity 4.0 to decarbonise, decentralise and to deliver a world that is more electric, more digital, and more sustainable. Everything we install, everything we build today is likely to be here for the next 20 years.

It is also truly exciting time as emerging technologies have meant that these kinds of major infrastructural investments can be done more efficiently and sustainably than ever before, combining capabilities for new architectures with availability from all operators.

This is an opportunity to not just thrive but to do so responsibly and sustainably, meeting obligations and targets for a greener future and sustainable world development. Finally, the demand for digital services growth can be met with intelligent, sustainable development that can serve as a foundation for the economies of the future.