INDUSTRY X.0
Discovery and Impact: Innovations driving sustainable energy
Nuclear energyproducing countries
SMART ENERGY
Branching Out: SolarBotanic Trees
CAPTURING CARBON
Why technology and regulation are key
INSIDE GOOGLE’S GLOBAL SUSTAINABILITY
Head of Sustainability, Google EMEA, Adam Elman offers insight into the integral nature of AI
Fueling the next wave of innovation within the energy sector - in this issue of Energy Digital Magazine, we take a closer look at how AI and smart technology are integral to hitting net zero targets and driving the energy transition.
As we have seen in recent years, after countless climate catastrophes and a worldwide energy crisis, it is not enough to concentrate solely on the role of renewables. In the energy sector, we must utilise AI in the effort towards increasing efficiency and flexibility, while also reducing cost.
Within this issue, we examine the role of carbon capture and how AI is used to accelerate advanced materials within the process, and the role of AI in Google’s sustainability efforts all over the world.
As always, we hear from a range of industry leaders on the role of AI within the energy sector, who provide their insight and strategic action plans to help further innovate the world of energy.
MARIAM AHMAD mariam.ahmad@bizclikmedia.com
twins offer real-time modelling for data centres
Golden Hills Wind Farm in Alameda County, California, comprises 48 wind turbines, generating 85.9 megawatts of energy, with 48 1.7MW GE wind turbines. The turbine blades have a diameter of 100 metres and can power 25,500 homes. The project was developed by Nextera Energy Resources for Google.
“SO WHEN WE THINK ABOUT CLIMATE MITIGATION, WE ALSO NEED TO THINK ABOUT CLIMATE ADAPTATION AND CLIMATE RISK”
Adam Elman Head of Sustainability Google EMEAREAD MORE
“CARBON CLEAN RECENTLY CLOSED A $150MN SERIES C ROUND LED BY CHEVRON, WITH PARTICIPATION FROM EXISTING INVESTORS AND NEW INVESTORS”
Prateek Bumb Co-Founder, Carbon CleanREAD MORE
“WE ARE IN DISCUSSIONS WITH A NUMBER OF POTENTIAL JOINT VENTURE PARTNERS THAT CAN FACILITATE GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION AND MANUFACTURING
Harry Corrigan Founder and Chairman, SolarBotanic Tree ProjectREAD MORE
Less than 1% of cars in the US are electric; this will increase by 23.17% in 2027.
Sinopec and QatarEnergy sign 27 year LNG agreement
China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and QatarEnergy have signed a long-term Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) purchase and sales agreement for the annual supply of four million tonnes of LNG to Sinopec.
READ MORE
Alfa Laval is set to supply the world’s largest green hydrogen plant
Alfa Lavel, the Swedish company specialising in heat transfer, centrifugal separation, and fluid handling, has signed on to supply the world’s largest green hydrogen plant in NEOM, a US$500bn futuristic city that is being built from scratch in the north-western deserts of Saudi Arabia.
READ MORE
GlobalData, a data and analytics company, has found that the overall number of contracts in the oil and gas industry declined by 7% in Q3 2022, decreasing from 1,662 in the previous quarter to 1,542 in the current one.
READ MORE
The ‘UK-US Energy Security and Affordability Partnership’ will work to reduce global dependency on Russian energy exports, stabilise energy markets, and step-up collaboration on energy efficiency, nuclear, and renewables.
As part of this, the US will strive to export at least 9-10bn cubic metres of LNG over the next year via UK terminals, more than doubling the level exported in 2021. This will benefit both UK and European partners. To fulfil this shared objective, both governments will work to proactively identify and resolve any issues faced by exporters and importers. Furthermore, the partnership will also drive international investment in clean energy technologies, from offshore wind to carbon capture.
This will complement the work the UK and US are doing together with G7 partners to support the use of clean and sustainable energy in developing countries through the Just Energy Transition Partnerships.
Accenture and Planet are set to collaborate on AI-powered geospatial intelligence tools for sustainability, traceable supply chains and climate risk solutions.
The world’s largest vertical farm, in Food Enterprise Park, Norfolk, is due to open in early 2023. The four-acre site will supply 6.5 tonnes of vegetables all year, and when completed, will be powered by renewable energy.
OIL AND GAS
Oil and gas companies are spending vast sums of around $58bn on new production that will tip the world towards climate catastrophe, reveals a report from the financial think tank Carbon Tracker.
Enel's Francesco Starace has stated that it will take years to get energy prices back to pre-Ukraine war levels. The global energy crisis, triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has displayed a clear over-reliance on one energy source.
W I N N E R S L O S E R S
FEB23
reliance on clean energy, offsetting emissions, and protecting the environment.
Overall objectives include cutting down global methane emissions, increasing exports of blue and green hydrogen, protecting and rehabilitating coral reefs, and more.
country launched a National Renewable Energy Programme. This involves 11.8GW planned with Acwa Power by 2025 and falls within the objective to have 50% of electricity generated by renewables by 2030, the rest coming from natural gas.
by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the context of rising environmental compliance across all sectors. This includes the development of natural vegetation, and initiatives such as a reduction in emissions and a 30% increase of EVs in the city.
In 2019, Saudi Arabia joined the International Solar Alliance, which is a treaty-based, intergovernmental organisation for countries that fall within the ‘Tropics’ category. As part of this initiative, International Solar Alliance (ISA) has proposed an agreement to facilitate the trading of solar power across borders.
Part of Saudi’s G20 Presidency, CCE (Circular Carbon Economy) is framed as an extension of the circular economy and adds a new category – remove – to the established principles of reduce, reuse, recycle (the 3Rs) referring to removing carbon dioxide (CO2) both at the combustion stage and directly from the atmosphere.
The solar plant Sakaka is a 300MW photovoltaic (PV) solar project that aims to generate 9.5GW of renewable energy by 2023 and 58.7GW by 2030. The Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm is a 400MW utilityscale project that’s connected to the country’s grid and generates electricity for up to 700,000 homes.
Launch of Sakaka Solar Power Plant & Dumat Al Jandal Wind Farm
CEO of Octopus Energy – the UK’s fastest-growing green energy retailer – Greg Jackson is revolutionising the sustainable energy industry one home at a time, with the backing of world-leading global investors
Launched in 2016 by CEO Greg Jackson, Octopus Energy Group is an energy tech pioneer that is focused on delivering green energy to homes in the UK – and now globally, too.
With investment from names such as Origi Energy, Tokyo Gas, CPP Investments and Generation, the sustainable investment fund co-chaired by Al Gore, Octopus Energy is leading somewhat of a green energy revolution, with the company now valued at £4 billion.
Jackson isn’t your typical company CEO: in his youth, his first job was making milk rounds in his neighbourhood, he subsequently went on to join Green Peace at the age of 16, and then spent his young adult years as a video game developer.
Jackson eventually started Octopus Energy when he realised that there was a severe lack of affordable energy providers.
Growing up with a single mother who struggled to pay electricity bills, Jackson’s overarching goal with Octopus Energy is to ensure that customers are treated fairly and are not burdened by inflated energy bills. In his own words – and as seen on his LinkedIn – Jackson wants to “disrupt industries that underserve customers and society.”
“After experiencing my bills jump frequently when I was paying them myself as an adult, I knew that something had to be done to change this,” Jackson said.
Through his work at Octopus Energy, Jackson has managed to absorb £150mn of the cost increase on behalf of customers since the start of the energy crisis.
Octopus Energy Group works out just how much power customers are taking out of the
grid annually from a mix of power sources – such as fossil fuels – and ensures an equal amount of renewable energy is added into the system in its place over the year, buying energy directly through renewable sources, such as solar and wind farms.This makes electricity consumption effectively net zero and, concomitantly, gradually helps make the energy system greener.
One of Europe's largest investors in renewable power, Octopus Energy Generation manages a total of 300+ UK green energy producers. Although the company currently powers over 1.2 million homes, the goal is to raise this number to 50 millions worldwide by 2027.
Speaking on issues surrounding the net-zero goal and how sustainable energy is integral to this effort, Jackson said: “If we’d moved to renewables sooner a nation, the crisis would be less bad now.
We can’t carry on like this; we have to escape from these colossal gas prices of the global markets.”
The founding team of Octopus are mainly from tech backgrounds, as opposed to energy-focused. Consequently, this means that the company is more interested in utilising technology to keep prices fair and push towards a renewable future through the use of a smart grid.
A key factor of Jackson’s strategy, and a personal love of his own, is ensuring
“
Moving towards clean, cheap, renewable energy is a huge opportunity for citizens around the world to enjoy a better life”
As for the future, Octopus is looking to expand its reach globally, having recently also launched in Australia partnered with Hanwha Group – a leading solar panel manufacturer – expanding the move to greener energy. “Energy companies are going to end up more like technology companies, like AirBnB, Amazon, Google and Monzo,” says Jackson. “They will be global.”
“ If we think of our assets as the customers with whom we build trusted relationships and the understanding we have of the system required to deliver this, I think this opportunity is bigger than the internet”
I also manage and run our customer advisory board - a group of people from the industry that guide and consult with us, helping us make sure our solutions are aligned to the market.
» I am Vice President of the energy, utilities, and resources team for IFS. IFS develops and delivers cloud enterprise software for companies around the world who manufacture and distribute goods, build and maintain assets, and manage service-focused operations.
I’ve worked for companies like ABB Group, MDSI and Itron, where I was part of smart meter implementation projects. Now, at IFS, I have moved over into the industry team, looking at the energy industry as a whole – the trends and challenges in that industry and how we should be responding with new solutions and our long-term roadmap. In energy, for example, there is a lot of convergence, and the focus is on renewables.
» IFS is going through huge transformational changes, both organically as we build our solutions and add new capabilities, and inorganically, through strategic acquisitions. The goal and vision in the energy sector is to support organisations’ goals for asset management and infrastructure, bleeding out on the ERP side.
We support asset-heavy industries, with energy being one of those. Some competitors see it all through a CRM lens, but others will start from the ERP side, before adding in asset management. We start from asset management, making it easier to procure through supply chain management and project management, and to maintain and manage the asset lifecycle. Now we’re moving into
predictive asset maintenance and management, radiating out to support the ERP functions and field service. We deploy a lens in which we see how everything revolves around the asset, at the back of which is the customer. That’s critical.
» The Doomsday Clock was created by atomic scientists and marks the manmade threats to humanity, primarily nuclear war, but now climate change has now been added to the list.
The energy sector obviously has a big role to play in taking us away from the midnight point at which catastrophe strikes. Climate change is certainly a huge focus for utilities, which IFS fully recognises - utilities and energy, including oil and gas, contribute about 25% of the overall carbon production on earth. So, this is a key area for us, and we have the solutions to help tackle these
“The growth of cyber attacks on the industry, especially in the US, is evidence of how energy is becoming a weapon”
major worldwide challenges. For example, our solutions can aid energy organisations in their efforts to meet the current sustainability standards and regulations, helping them to deliver a reliable service that is both sustainable and affordable.
» Our greatest challenge is achieving greater brand recognition. We must make it clear how our portfolio meets the challenges facing the energy sector.
Whereas previously, the focus was on manufacturing and construction, aerospace and defence, now it’s a matter of making sure people know that, through our organic and inorganic growth, IFS is firmly embedded in the energy sector.
And we are very serious about partnering with the utility sector. The leadership team is ensuring we introduce ourselves properly to this industry.
There is a level of industry conservatism we must overcome. However, the big difference with us is that we have solutions that are tailored and not generic. We have a proven offering, and we are ready to shout about it.
» The biggest lesson for me is the importance of getting the word out about our portfolio and everything we do within the entire sector.
The other big lesson I have learned so far is how to stretch our applications for scheduling, workforce and field service management into a complete enterprise asset-management offering, along with the project management and financial capabilities that we bring to the table. It’s about the broader portfolio, as opposed to slices of a solution.
“The energy sector obviously has a big role to play in taking us away from the midnight point at which catastrophe strikes”
» We are working on predictions for 2023 in concert with our advisory board, looking at the challenges in the industry, and ensuring that our longterm roadmap and solutions remain completely relevant.
We’re continuing to stitch it all together in a compelling use case,
facing all the challenges the industr is going through. Rapid transformation is afoot, with the focus on sustainability and dealing with the political disruption of energy supplies.
The growth of cyber attacks on the industry, especially in the US, is evidence of how energy is becoming a weapon, because obviously, nobody in the developed world can operate without it.
Digital twin technology has gone from a futuristic ideal to a present-day reality for data centre developers and operators. This highly specialised virtual modelling can impact the entire data centre lifecycle, beginning with site due diligence and moving into design and construction, as well as measuring sustainability objectives and creating tools for operational excellence.
Black & Veatch is using its internal resources to develop real-time modelling for global clients. Digital twin technology eliminates geographical barriers in initial site due diligence and design phases. The entire team can virtually walk the “completed” project without leaving their desks. This provides great convenience, but the real value is evolving.
Digital twins are not simply simulation tools because they also provide a previously inaccessible depth and breadth of exploration of data. It allows clients to review a project in a virtual world before implementing it and allows developers to sell the project to stakeholders earlier.
The digital twin can also support operations of the data centre, where monitoring and other tasks are done remotely and the ops officer can review issues from any location to make decisions that have a significant impact on the enterprise.
This report features industry insights from key personnel at Black & Veatch who are invested in its activities and translate the company’s achievements into professional services for its core industries.
Example of an image captionDigital twin modelling allows clients to design a site even before the land or building is purchased, says Black & Veatch’s Shilpa Maganti and Greg Zalewski Black & Veatch perform site due diligence for data centres and mission-critical facilities, collaborating with clients to assess greenfield and brownfield sites using the company’s expertise in the power, water, telecom/fibre, environmental and data centre industries.
The company has the capability, scalability, and global resources to help clients select sites that will meet future capacity and sustainability requirements. This expedites challenging schedules and gives clients a competitive advantage by leveraging Black & Veatch’s vast global internal resource pool, preferred sub-
consultants and long-term relationships with utility providers in major markets worldwide.
“We might have a client who has a piece of land and asks us, ‘Can we build a data centre here?’” explains Shilpa Maganti, Black
“Clients know how large a data centre they're looking to build, so our team works with them to build a virtual master plan”
SHILPA A. MAGANTI, P.E. PROJECT MANAGER, BLACK & VEATCH
& Veatch’s
Centres Project Manager. “At that point, we would look at the site, look at the topography, even the soil conditions. We have to be able to answer the question of whether we can even build at that location.“
“We also need to calculate the civil and structural side issues related to a project – do we need to blast the site? How is the grading going to work?”
Black & Veatch also considers power and utilities during a site due diligence project, including an overview of potential cooling systems and water supplies.
“Then we move on to other investigations, including the environmental side and master planning. We investigate any environmental impacts. Most of the clients we work with know how large a data centre they're looking to build on that piece of land, so our team works with them to build a master plan.”
TITLE: PROJECT MANAGER
INDUSTRY: ENGINEERING
LOCATION: UNITED STATES
Shilpa Maganti is a Project Manager for Black & Veatch with more than 13 years of experience with a wide variety of auxiliary power system designs and arc flash hazard analyses associated with data centres, power plants and mission-critical industrial facilities.
Shilpa’s experience includes design and specification of auxiliary electrical distribution equipment for new and retrofit data centre projects. She is experienced in performing power system studies, including load flow, short-circuit and arc flash hazard analysis engineering activities using SKM (Power Tools for Windows) or Electrical Transient and Analysis Program (ETAP) - PowerStation by OTI. She has developed procurement and design-build/ Engineering, Procurement and Construction.
GREG ZALEWSKI
TITLE: PRECONSTRUCTION MANAGER
INDUSTRY: ENGINEERING
LOCATION: UNITED STATES
Greg Zalewski is a Preconstruction Manager at Black & Veatch and has more than 14 years of experience providing project estimating services for data centers and mission critical facilities, including modular systems. He is responsible for the development of project cost models for opportunities ranging from Design Requirements
Reports to At-Risk cost estimates for engineer-procure-construct (EPC) opportunities. He considers cost factors such as site investigations, the local labor market, availability of materials, quantities from design drawings, and quotations from suppliers. He also develops cost opinions for reports and feasibility studies and maintains procedures for quality control of cost opinions.
Digital twin tech gives real-time understanding of critical issues
Some developer clients may already have their own facilities, which requires Black & Veatch to carry out a facility assessment.
“Evaluating an existing facility requires more extensive detail. Do we need to make any structural improvements? Are there any permitting or zoning requirements that change the land use, or the use of this building? What are those implications?”
Greg Zalewski, Preconstruction Manager at Black & Veatch, says digital twin technology gives the client a real-time understanding of a broad range of critical issues.
“And it means you're not waiting for architects and engineers to come back and redraft; you can make a lot of those changes on the fly using that digital model of a digital twin,” says Zalewski. “It doesn't have to be a fully developed model – you can do some very rough block models and get an idea of how it will all work. From there you can visualise what that project will look like and what your facility will be, before you ever put a shovel in the ground.”
GREG ZALEWSKI PRECONSTRUCTION MANAGER, BLACK & VEATCH
“You can visualise what that project will look like before you ever put a shovel in the ground”
India aims to secure much of the regional investment being made in Asia, which is expected to account for half of the global data centre market by 2025. The country reclassified data centres as “infrastructure” in April 2022, and this change in legislation is expected to attract investment from developers having access to capital at lower credit rates as a result. With huge potential for demand growth, international data centre providers are
ramping up to secure market share. In recent years, many have acquired local players or entered into joint-venture arrangements. Developers looking to fast-track construction face challenges including access to local teams at wage rates that retain reliable and high-quality outcomes, while also designing facilities that are sustainable within the Indian market, particularly with the country facing increased climate change impact.
Global business and society demand data centres – and sustainable designs are the future, says Black & Veatch’s Angie Nygren, Amol Samant and Drew Derrick Black & Veatch is committed to continuous improvement for clients and communities, so sustainability is ingrained into the company’s strategy. Mitigating and adapting to climate change, decarbonising supply chains, and creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce are just some of the challenges the company is committed to addressing head-on.
Together with its clients, partners and employees, Black & Veatch’s work designing and building tomorrow's infrastructure plays a powerful role in improving sustainable outcomes.
“Our clients are feeling accountable for sustainability and making sure they have sustainable options in their designs,” says Black & Veatch Architect Angie Nygren. “The need for data centres is not going away, so how can they not feel accountable?”
Black & Veatch Project Manager Amol Samant has also seen a significant increase in the number of conversations around sustainability in his work with clients. Some of the most important factors to consider
TITLE: ARCHITECT & EXECUTION MANAGER
Angie Nygren is a licensed architect and Execution Manager for Black & Veatch with more than 13 years of experience in design of complex building types. Her expertise extends to several market sectors, including athletic training facilities, football stadiums, mixed-use developments, and data centres.
Angie is responsible for the crossdiscipline coordination of the complex building systems within mission-critical facilities. She leads the design team through design and documentation and is responsible for coordinating across disciplines to uphold the client’s standards, design intent, and project schedule.
ANGIE NYGREN ARCHITECT & EXECUTION MANAGER, BLACK & VEATCH
“Our clients are feeling accountable for sustainability and making sure they have sustainable options in their designs”
Digital twins offer real-time modelling for data centres
“The city centre is where the infrastructure for things like power are available, but there is a scarcity of water”
AMOL SAMANT PROJECT MANAGER, BLACK & VEATCH
are water, heating and cooling, and noise pollution, all of which can present challenges for sustainability-minded clients regarding where a data centre can be placed.
“The city centre is where the infrastructures for utilities, like power, are available,” says Samant. ”At the same time, there is a scarcity of water, and we cannot use the huge amount of water required for data centre cooling at the same location.”
A technical “balancing act” to save energy, power and water This can mean Black & Veatch has to work with the client to perform “a balancing act” to save energy, power and water while still ensuring data centre facilities are optimised.
“We've had a client come to us recently and tell us they want to use air-cooled chillers, which are not necessarily the most efficient cooling option available,” says Black & Veatch Mechanical Engineer Drew Derrick. “But they've made the
TITLE: SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER
INDUSTRY: ENGINEERING
LOCATION: VIKROLI, MUMBAI, INDIA
Amol Samant is a senior Project Manager with more than 25 years of diverse experience with multiple complex projects like IT parks, shopping malls, health care facilities and data centers. His project activities have included condition assessments, feasibility studies, design and construction administration. Amol has served as Project Director for mission critical data center projects which include complex electro mechanical installations, centralized chilled water systems, hot aisle systems, thermal energy storage.
decision that they want to use cold chillers so they can save water.
“We have that discussion with the client, bringing their requirements and preferences to the forefront. Then we can design a system around their values for sustainability – and that can be an interesting topic of the conversation if the client hasn’t thought of it before.”
Derrick predicts that, in the next decade, the data centre construction industry will see more liquid cooling options – both direct-to-chip or immersiontype technology – but this will require
TITLE: MECHANICAL ENGINEERING MANAGER
INDUSTRY: ENGINEERING
LOCATION: UNITED STATES
Drew Derrick is a Mechanical Engineering Manager with more than 20 years of experience with heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) and plumbing systems for mission-critical facilities, including data centres. His project activities include condition assessments, feasibility studies, design, construction administration, value engineering and commissioning.
Drew has engineered and served as certified commissioning agent for mission-critical mechanical systems subject to client reliability criteria, redundancy, and single-point vulnerabilities. He has experience developing mechanical systems for sensitive compartmented information facilities (SCIF) subject to DCID 6/9, and is an Accredited Tier Design (ATD) by Uptime Institute.
“After you've built it, it’s much more expensive for the client to make changes”
DREW DERRICK MECHANICAL ENGINEERING MANAGER, BLACK & VEATCH
clients to make upfront investments in the technology to reap the rewards of its better functionality over time.
Digital twin technology also allows clients to quickly determine how sustainable their new data centre would be using different materials for construction. “From a rough design of the
structural system using different materials, we can pull those quantities and materials from the model and give them a carbon factor,” says Nygren. “Then clients can know whether a concrete structure, a steel structure, or a timber frame might affect the carbon footprint of these different structural systems.”
The data centre market is set to grow across the Asia Pacific region over the next five years, with many sources projecting a double-digit growth. This demand growth – for data locally and regionally – could see significant capacity development beyond traditional regional centres, such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
Investment flows could shift to locations such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines with low existing capacity alongside promising demographics and projected economic growth.
Countries like Singapore have only recently lifted moratoriums on data centre development, with government
officials citing the intensity of water use and electricity as a key factor behind the previous moratorium. Such circumstances highlight the looming issue facing new development, as our hunger for data competes for energy and water resources.
Well-planned and calibrated growth is required at a national level, while on a project-level, best-in-class technologies and practices for energy and water efficiency must be considered early to ensure long-term viability of projects. This must be considered alongside making sure adequate and reliable utility interconnection infrastructure is in place or developed in parallel.
REGIONAL FOCUS: NEW GROWTH FOR DATA CENTRES IN ASIA PACIFICData centre virtual models mean contractors can work together with perfect precision, says Black & Veatch’s Angie Nygren, Drew Derrick and Greg Zalewski Black & Veatch’s integrated design, engineering, and construction approach increases project performance while ensuring cost and schedule certainty for critical infrastructure. As clients’ single point of contract responsibility, Black & Veatch works in a collaborative team to maximise return on investment and deliver projects of the highest value possible. The company’s design-build teams identify and implement creative solutions through a contractor-led, construction-driven model.
“With the 3D fly-throughs we can offer, the client knows what they're getting, knows
that operationally it's going to function for them,” says Black & Veatch Architect Angie Nygren. “So, in a sense, we're really designing twice.”
CFD modelling is used to build interior and exterior twins, which allows Black & Veatch to work with clients to fine-tune master plans. “We had a project where the client was using direct evaporative units on the exterior of the building, sucking in large volumes of air,” says Black & Veatch Mechanical Engineering Manager Drew Derrick. “Diesel generators for the project were sitting relatively close. We found that when the generators were on, the exhaust fumes came back into the building.
“We ran the model and had to extend the stacks, moving the generators a little farther away, so we could make those modifications before it became a problem in the field,” says Derrick. “After you've built it, it’s much more expensive for the client to make that kind of change.”
A fully coordinated model provides a clear understanding of where systems should be placed, says Greg Zalewski, Preconstruction Manager at Black & Veatch, which didn’t always happen in a time before digital twin technology. “When people weren't coordinating their work, they may not know how they're going to arrange their systems, whether it's electrical conduits or mechanical piping, or sprinklers.”
Digital twin technology does away with this “first-come, first-served” approach, replacing the need for subsequent
contractors having to make allowances around the first to start work.
Clients in different regions may also have very different requirements – for example, Black & Veatch has carried out studies to explore options to recycle data centre cooling water for irrigation or other purposes.
“This is designing twice and building once, because you can coordinate all those systems in the virtual world before you actually get into the field, and then your contractors can build from the model. They know exactly down to the inch where they need to be and how close they should be from one system to the next, and this saves a lot of time in the field.”
Digital twin technology leverages drones and specialist software to give an overview of operations, says Black & Veatch’s Julia
Guerra and Anthony TaylorOperational intelligence provides insights that help optimise day-to-day operating and maintenance practices to boost reliability and efficiency. This can include important monitoring and diagnosis services that provide a dashboard for clients to see deeply into their systems
via the cloud. Adaptive planning focuses on the future, using scenario analysis and predictive analytics to better inform asset management, long-term capital expenditures and other planning decisions.
Black & Veatch also prepares clients with well-defined procedures, such as lock out/ tag out and confined space instructions, to optimise day-to-day operations and maintenance. Other services include: preparation of facility-specific operations manuals; process control optimisation and troubleshooting; onsite technical support for completion of facility start-up and commissioning; assessments, including facility operations, of staffing
and maintenance; laboratory design and onsite laboratory reviews; and equipment specification development.
“Recently, we've been leaning towards something called DroneDeploy,” says Black & Veatch BIM coordinator Julia Guerra. “This is a very exciting piece of software that very easily shows with one click that a client representative in the field doesn’t need to be an engineer to be able to use a drone. It's about simplicity, scalability, and how everybody can get their hands on it – from the owner to the surveyor or an engineer, it doesn't matter, everybody can use the same data. We’re taking the fear away from drones and simply making it a tool like
TITLE: BIM COORDINATOR
INDUSTRY: ENGINEERING
LOCATION: UNITED STATES
Julia Guerra works in technology construction for Black & Veatch. Her background includes reality capture technology including Drone services, 360 cameras and laser scanning. Julia has extensive experience in BIM technology, including 3D modelling, and model management for field teams. She has previous experience in founding a drone programme that accelerated to 10 pilots in under a year. Her experience in reality capture includes execution and strategy of laser scanning, and 360 capture walks. Julia can help provide a clear picture for communication
TITLE: BIM COORDINATOR & TECHNOLOGY MANAGER
INDUSTRY: ENGINEERING
LOCATION: UNITED STATES
Anthony Taylor is BIM Coordinator & Technology Manager for Black & Veatch. He is responsible for the strategic development and implementation of Black & Veatch’s BIM initiative using BIM related tools and platforms including BIM 360. Anthony specialises in
the use of BIM on complex regional and global BIM projects including setup, establishing objectives, providing technical direction and support. Anthony has design capabilities in multiple software applications including Globally
specific space control, grading and drainage design through Civil 3D and/or OpenRoads (Power Inroads SS4), and mission-critical facilities utilizing BIM 360, Revit, VEO, CADworx, NavisWorks.
everything else so that people in the field are just as comfortable using a drone as they might be using a hammer.”
Black & Veatch’s digital-twin work makes extensive use of BIM 360, part of the Autodesk Construction Cloud designed to connect workflows, teams, and data. This software – along with an extensive line of modules designed to extend and focus functionality – reduces risk, improves
quality, and helps deliver projects on time and on budget by predicting safety hazards, proactively managing quality, automating tasks, and reducing rework so that clients can control costs and stay on schedule.
“With BIM 360, not only are you able to have your team on a single platform, you're seeing data throughout the project lifecycle from design to construction,” says Anthony Taylor, BIM Coordinator & Technology Manager in Black & Veatch’s Data Center Group.
“You have the ability for your clients to see the same data from any device that has Internet service. That could be a computer or a tablet or a phone – as long as there is Internet access, you can access these files anywhere in the world.
“BIM 360 also has security layers, so if you only want certain roles like project managers or admins to have access to certain folders, it's really great for management and security,” says Taylor.
JULIA GUERRA BIM COORDINATOR, BLACK & VEATCH
“We’re making it so people in the field are just as comfortable using a drone as they might be using a hammer”
COORDINATOR
“With these new technologies, not only are you able to have your team on a single platform, but you're seeing data throughout the project lifecycle”
Traditional paper plans used by construction contractors have been replaced by digital twin technology, says Black & Veatch’s Angie Nygren and Greg Zalewski Black & Veatch has been leading the construction industry since its earliest days of building infrastructure in America’s heartlands and worldwide. The company delivers the highest standards of safety, quality and efficiency and adapts its diverse construction solutions to mitigate risk and suit client budgets.
The company’s construction experience extends across all industries they serve, benefitting from a holistic view of infrastructure lifecycles. Black & Veatch has experience with multiple contracting approaches as a prime contractor, design-builder, construction manager at-risk (CMAR), major subcontractor, joint venture partner, or consortium member. The company also selfperforms construction trades as a direct hire, as a construction manager of multiple subcontractors, or a combination of both.
“I'm seeing a couple of trends in digital twins in construction,” says Black & Veatch Architect Angie Nygren. “The first is much more client interaction. Historically, we used to give 2D plans to the client; they would approve the plans, and we would build it, and then it would be something of a surprise when they saw the end result after construction.”
2D plans and drawings are not enough for clients anymore, says the Black & Veatch team, with clients instead calling for 3D and digital twin models. “They want to see the building in three dimensions before we even stick a shovel in the ground,” says Nygren. “The client is going to be the end user, so they want to know things like how are they going to load the racks? How are they going to access the cable tray? Will they have a clear space for a ladder to get to areas that will be required in the future?”
Modelling catches issues long before they become problems Black & Veatch goes further than this and ensures clients can assess the smallest details, which can then attract interest from other departments such as marketing and brand management. “Clients can discover how the finishes we've chosen interact with their brand,” says Nygren. “How is the flow of the space from break rooms to offices? Increased client interaction means they’re looking for that 3D fly-through.”
This approach to construction means even the smallest efficiencies can be identified or discovered in the digital twin environment. “We model everything,” says Nygren, “so that we know if there's a picture that's going to clash with a duct from our model long before this is an issue in the field.”
Beyond the third dimension, Black & Veatch is also seeing trends extend into the fourth and fifth dimensions of those digital twin models. These take into account not only what the project or product will look like, but also how it looks over time as well as the costs involved in its operations and maintenance.
“While you're evaluating a project, you can look to custom construction sequencing to see how this project is going to be built, and you can look for
opportunities there to either accelerate or – if you're considering phasing – how you would implement that throughout the project by using that 4D aspect,” says Greg Zalewski, Preconstruction Manager at Black & Veatch
“On top of that, we're starting to see a lot more focus on the fifth dimension, which is adding cost to that,” he says. “While the fourth dimension takes the model through time, the fifth dimension adds cost to that time factor. From an owner's perspective, you can actually get a very reliable picture of what your capital expenses are going to be throughout the course of that project and how you need to finance and fund it.”
As digital twin technology becomes the industry standard, data centre owners and operators will benefit from more reliable, efficient and sustainable facilities. Traditional paper plans used by construction contractors have been replaced by digital twins, which allow clients to design a site even before land or buildings are purchased.
Digital models presented in 3D, 4D and 5D will impact not only site due diligence and design, but also construction, budgeting, modernisation and operations. Modelling catches issues long before they become problems and Black & Veatch goes further to ensure clients can assess the smallest details. This can then attract interest from other departments such as marketing and brand management.
Black & Veatch is ever-evolving and leading the industry in applying these
tools and technologies to leading-edge data centre development. The company has the capability, scalability, and global resources to help clients select sites that will meet future capacity and sustainability requirements.
This expedites challenging schedules and gives clients a competitive advantage by leveraging Black & Veatch’s vast global internal resource pool, preferred subconsultants and long-term relationships with utility providers in major markets worldwide.
References:
• What is a digital twin?
• Mission-critical facilities/data centers
INNOVATIONS DRIVING INNOVATIONS
INNOVATIONS DRIVING
Bryan Davies, VP of Engineering Solutions at Elsevier, on how data harnessed by engineers can help optimise operations within the energy sector
WRITTEN BY: MARIAM AHMAD
The global energy sector is facing its defining moment: rising energy costs highlight the immediate urgency of achieving energy security while, at the same time, the necessity of decarbonising the global economy grows more urgent. Addressing the key energy challenges surrounding achieving net-zero goals will require collaboration on innovative solutions between governments and industry.
Despite the general consensus that energy security and net-zero goals are at odds, Bryan Davies, VP at Elsevier, believes just the opposite – energy security and net-zero goals now come hand-in-hand, with engineers playing a critical role in enabling nations to achieve both.
As VP of Engineering Solutions, Davies oversees the management of the engineering R&D information solutions portfolio, which includes geospatial intelligence tool Geofacets, as well as the substances and material database Knovel.
His role includes working with customers across energy and natural resources to understand the issues they are trying to solve, while updating the vision and direction of Elsevier's products to align with those needs. Davies leads the Engineering Solutions team at Elsevier, developing online information tools, databases and services for global academic, corporate and government
customers to help them improve their research and commercial outcomes through innovation. Currently, much of this work involves helping companies along the path to net zero; Elsevier’s solutions are being used to identify how current operations can be made more sustainable, as well as how to accelerate renewables projects.
Elsevier is a leader in information and analytics for customers across the global research, health, and engineering ecosystems. We’ve got a rich history, founded in 1880, and are currently headquartered in Amsterdam –although we have offices globally. While many will know of Elsevier’s publishing division, we also have a powerful portfolio of R&D solutions for corporate and academic users
“With the right data, the industry can overcome the global energy challenges of today and reduce its environmental impact on tomorrow”
BYRAN DAVIES VP OF ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS, ELSEVIER
that bring together incomparable data assets, powerful analytics and technologies. Our tools help R&D professionals, engineers and researchers shorten the distance between discovery and impact, enabling them to make more confident decisions while managing costs, regulations, and health and safety risks.
Recent changes to the workplace have reiterated the importance of having the right technologies for many industries, and engineering is no different. Onsite visits to existing and prospective sites during the pandemic were reduced, and what we saw instead was many energy and natural resource companies trying to make more of the desk research phase of projects. This is where Elsevier enabled them to thrive –providing technologies that enable scientists to understand the intricacies of a location and assess potential risks by taking a virtual tour.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be overlayed together with base maps, allowing researchers to conduct in-depth virtual field work that’s comparable to walking around a location without visiting it in person. Researchers can analyse terrain, rock and mineral composition, or data on climate and weather, such as wind direction or wind speed, using our platforms.Having these insights virtually and in a user-friendly format informs strategy for remote researchers, saves time and money, and reduces carbon emissions produced by unnecessary travel or failed attempts at developing new sites.
In the energy industry, data is the foundation on which all projects are safely and successfully built. For example, data is
critical for screening and developing new offshore renewables sites, which present high capital costs and risk due to their limited supply chains and connectivity. Having access to the right data enables engineers to make confident decisions about the viability of potential sites and ensure energy investments deliver results. Some factors they might assess include: geology, shallow seismic data, seabed mobility and obstructions, and meteorology data. It’s also important to be aware of existing infrastructure, transport viability and environmental impact, especially when setting net-zero opportunities such as geothermal plants and wind turbines.
However, finding and aggregating the different types of data is often a timeconsuming and arduous process. Data is typically stored in inconsistent formats, and it is a labour-intensive process to normalise data for analysis. Such challenges mean engineers can spend up to 80% of their time searching for and formatting geoscience information and data, slowing down projects. To really thrive and keep pace with the latest innovations, engineers need data to be searchable, interoperable, and in userfriendly formats to provide better insights into the sustainability of various choices, commercial feasibility, and mitigate risk.
An Elsevier study found that globally, the amount of NØEnergy (net zero) research has grown rapidly in the last 19 years. Net-zero publications have risen by 13%, whilst overall research output only grew by 5%. Leading the way is China, with nearly 400,000 publications between 2001 and 2020, followed by the US with 280,000 publications, then India, Germany and Japan. Collaboration is key to accelerating timelines to net zero – our study found that Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland and Canada are most likely to collaborate. In total, the international collaboration share
of net-zero research increased from 31% in 2011 to almost 50% in 2020.
What do the next 12 months hold for you and the company?
COP27, the landmark US Climate Bill, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and shifting consumer preferences mean governments and companies’ timelines to net zero have accelerated rapidly. We’ve already seen intergovernmental organisations such as the International Energy Agency seeking to help sustainability journeys, establishing shared goals to promote the effective operation of markets.
But, change doesn’t happen overnight. 2023 will see companies and governments strategising on their transition period, including how they can improve their energy security posture.
At Elsevier, we’ll be providing the technology and data that will help companies identify points in their current operations that can be made more sustainable – for example, using innovative materials and better maintaining current infrastructure. We’ll also be helping customers accelerate their renewables projects, providing insights that can mitigate risk and ensure ROI. We believe that with the right data, the industry can overcome the global energy challenges of today and reduce its environmental impact on tomorrow.
“It is important to be aware of existing infrastructure, transport viability and environmental impact, especially when setting net-zero opportunities”
BYRAN DAVIES VP OF ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS, ELSEVIER
Greece's Motor Oil is taking decisive action to address climate change and help the world transition to a more sustainable way of using energy. With a strong track record in the energy sector, spanning over 50 years in Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean region, the company is well-equipped to guide the industry towards a brighter future.
Motor Oil's ambitious plan to transition to a new energy environment includes dynamic targets and is the largest of its kind in Southeastern Europe. As the company looks towards 2030, it is clear that Motor Oil is committed to driving positive change in the energy industry.
Founded in 1970 – and marking the launch of its refinery in Corinth two years later – Motor Oil has built a Europe-leading role for itself in the sectors of crude oil refining and the marketing of petroleum products in Greece and the greater eastern Mediterranean region. The company’s workforce of more than 2,500 supplies customers with a wide range of high-quality products and exports to more than 70 countries.
“The question I ask myself when I wake up is: ‘What makes me feel like I want to jump out of bed and come to the office?’,” says Nick Giannakakis, Group Chief Information Officer at Motor Oil. “And the answer is that I am driven by the proposition. It’s the
promise I give to all my colleagues that I will equip them and enable them to do their jobs with technology and accomplish missioncritical priorities. This commitment then cascades down to my direct reports and on to the entire technology community in this large-scale organisation.”
A graduate of the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, Giannakakis has a Bachelor's degree in physics, a postgraduate degree in industrial systems administration and over 15 years of experience in executive roles in the field of information technology. He has worked for several well-known multinational organisations, and, in 2021, he was recognised as one of the top 100 Chief Information Officers.
Giannakakis says he and his team take pride in the way they have helped support Motor Oil in its new organisational strategy. “We’re very proud of how we innovate and what we can digitise at one of Europe’s
largest industrial operations with solutions like predictive maintenance.
“There is also a lot to be proud of in the work we’ve done in the retail sector and how we have launched one of the largest EV charging solutions in this part of the world,” says Giannakakis.
“And last, but certainly not least, we are proud and pleased with the work regarding sustainability. To give you an idea, when I joined the organisation three years ago, our renewable footprint was quite low,” he says. “Today, we are maybe the second largest renewable producer in this part of the world, and this is also part of our contribution.”
Motor Oil is a publicly traded company, listed on the Athens Exchange since 2001. It is included in several indices, including the Athex Composite Share Price Index, the FTSE/Athex Large Cap index, the MSCI
TITLE: GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER
INDUSTRY:
LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM
Nikos Giannakakis holds a degree in Physics, a Master of Science (MSc) in Industrial Systems Management and Administration and is a graduate of the International Institute for Management Development - IMD (Lausanne, Switzerland).
He has 18 years of international experience in the positions of Director and General Manager of Informatics in distinguished Multinational Clubs.
He is also awarded as one of the top 100 Chief Information Officers for 2019.
He is eager on using technology to drive Digital transformation which he believes has brought tremendous cost savings and process improvement to companies across the world.
He has worked as CTO to globally distinguished brands such as British American Tobacco, CocaCola HBC, Richemont Int’l (Cartier, Montblanc, Van Cleef & Arpels, Piaget, SAP etc.
NIKOS GIANNAKAKIS GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, MOTOR OIL
Greece Small Cap Index, and the FTSE4Good Index Series.
The company operates a refinery, ancillary plants, and fuel distribution facilities that form the largest, privately-owned industrial complex in Greece and are considered among the most modern in Europe.
Motor Oil primarily exports its products, which are made with advanced technology that allows the company to adjust the final product mix to market needs and
achieve higher refining margins than other Mediterranean refineries.
Subsidiaries of the company, Avin Oil and Coral (formerly Shell Hellas) also have a significant presence in the liquid fuel retail sector, with Coral operating in several countries besides Greece.
The company's subsidiary LPC is involved in the industrial production and trade of basic and packaged lubricants and acts as the agent for Valvoline lubricants in Greece. Coral Gas – another subsidiary – is involved in storing, packaging, and marketing bottled and bulk liquified gas, as well as liquified gas for vehicles.
In 2017, Motor Oil established a subsidiary in Cyprus to expand its activities. The company's subsidiary NRG Trading House Energy is involved in the power and natural gas market, offering electricity and
“WE’RE VERY PROUD OF HOW WE INNOVATE AND WHAT WE CAN DIGITISE AT ONE OF EUROPE’S LARGEST INDUSTRIAL OPERATIONS”
natural gas programmes, in addition to comprehensive services for residential and commercial customers.
In the face of global challenges, Motor Oil is making significant investments in the energy transition in Southeastern Europe as part of its efforts to transition to a new energy environment.
These investments reflect the company's commitment to securing energy supply, promoting the energy transition, and generating sustainable returns for shareholders, while also aligning with the company's strategic priorities. The plan is being implemented in the context of geopolitical and economic instability, as well as significant environmental challenges.
• Commitment to acting responsibly
• Enhancement of energy efficiency
• Acceleration of the renewable energy penetration
• Investment in new sustainable technologies
• Provision of energy & mobility solutions to customers
Motor Oil plans to invest more than €2.5bn in growth and energy transition projects, including renewable energy sources (RES), petrochemical products, natural gas, biofuels, hydrogen, and decarbonisation.
Additionally, the company will invest over €1.5bn to improve infrastructure and increase resilience through facility maintenance, logistical improvements,
digitalisation, and projects related to efficiency, health, safety, and the environment.
These investments are part of a plan to create jobs, growth, and value for stakeholders, while simultaneously being environmentally and socially responsible and contributing to the country's gross domestic product (GDP).
Four strategic pillars form the basis of this plan: the first is expanding the company's renewable energy portfolio through its subsidiary, MORE; the second is building an electromobility network through investments in e-mobility, strategic partnerships and installing charging points at gas stations. The
goal is to have over 1,000 charging points by 2023, with a target of 4,000 by 2030.
The third pillar focuses on the circular economy and alternative fuels, including the production of green hydrogen through a joint venture with PPC, the construction of a natural gas-fuelled power plant with GEK TERNA, and investment in solids and waste management.
The fourth pillar involves improving the resiliency and sustainability of Motor Oil's Corinth refinery, including the construction of a Naphtha Treatment Complex and the investment in a new propylene unit, as well as energy upgrades and infrastructure optimisation at the refinery.
NIKOS GIANNAKAKIS GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, MOTOR OIL
“COMMITMENT CASCADES DOWN TO MY DIRECT REPORTS AND ON TO THE ENTIRE ORGANISATION”
Motor Oil works with a range of partners and service providers, all of which it sees as a combined community dedicated to improving and refining the company's business. It is a high priority for Motor Oil.
This community includes VMWare, which Nick describes as one of the company's most innovative partners. Motor Oil has worked closely with VMWare on the company's transition to cloud technologies.
VMWare's work with Motor Oil has become a reference case for other companies, due to its success. This makes Giannakakis proud. "VMWare is one of the partners that contributed significantly towards our expansion strategy execution," enthuses Giannakakis.
Other key partners include a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, Fortinet, which works with Motor Oil on security regarding the company’s retail outlets. “To give you some context, we are one of the biggest retailers in this part of the world, with approximately
1,500 outlets,” says Giannakakis. “We’ve been focused on expanding the services and goods in this area, and this involves scalability and, of course, security aspects, which are a key element of everything we do. And Fortinet is exactly the partner we need to allow us to do that.”
As result of an RFP process during 2022 and a technical evaluation of the best available technologies and vendors globally, MOH decided to strategically be partnered with Fortinet for the implementation of a wide-range SD-Branch project at MOH, taking advantage of Fortinet Secure SD-WAN solution, multi-factor authentication (MFA) & WiFi technologies. There are many benefits for MOH from this project and Fortinet; however, some of the most prominent ones are the increased availability and performance of their branches’ communication paths & interaction with their central datacentres & applications, increased security at their Edge infrastructure, significant reduction at future OpEx and being able to cover the IoT challenges by dynamic detection, segmentation, and protection! Last but not least, all provided edge solutions are future-proof ready and easily expandable and adjustable for zero trust network access (ZTNA) & secure access service edge (SASE).
Motor Oil also lists Microsoft as a key partner, providing a wide range of services including machine learning and cloud infrastructure, in addition to the Greek telecoms company Nova, with which Motor Oil has a strategic alliance.
“I truly believe that telco companies with large ICT programs are key partners that will enable us to achieve our ambitious goals,” says Giannakakis.
NIKOS GIANNAKAKIS GROUP CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, MOTOR OIL
“THERE IS ALSO A LOT TO BE PROUD OF THE WORK WE’VE DONE LAUNCHING ONE OF THE LARGEST EV CHARGING SOLUTIONS IN THIS PART OF THE WORLD”
Solar-powered SolarBotanic Trees will be branching out in the UK later this year. We caught up with the company’s Founder and Chairman, Harry Corrigan
WRITTEN BY: MARIAM AHMAD
Already receiving hundreds of advance orders, the game-changing SolarBotanic Trees are due to appear all over the UK in the very near future.
Completely unique to the energy market, SolarBotanic Trees consist of solar panels in the shape of tree-like structures.
The design and concept is the result of five years of research, and features new photovoltaic 3D leaf-shaped nanotechnology to harness solar energy for charging and storage solutions. SolarBotanic’s energy harvesting technique is based on three technologies, namely photovoltaics, thermovoltaics and piezovoltaic. Equipped with nanotechnology and a combination of the three major technologies, Solar Botanic offers a clean way of generating electricity.
The Energy Trees are also able to calibrate with wind energy, featuring high-tech piezoelectric ribbons, which are integrated into the branches, twigs and leaf stalks.
HARRY CORRIGAN FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, SOLARBOTANIC TREE PROJECT
These ribbons are able to utilise a large amount of kinetic energy, due to the fact that the tree responds to environmental forces with tension, compression, bending, shear and torsion. Wind, as well as vibrations and raindrops, will all contribute to the energy tree’s gathering of convertible energy. Designed to offer aesthetically pleasing and sustainable energy, the trees are suited to large-scale commercial environments, such as flagship office sites and sports stadiums.
The development of the project came about through collaborations with Brunel University London and its Co-Innovate enterprise programme with the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry (MTC) and the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), all of which have been fundamental in getting the innovation to market.
The first-generation SolarBotanic Tree is aiming to be the first step in a range of renewable products and industries, primarily aimed at the rapid Electric Vehicle charging market for homes, businesses and commercial car parks, where solar power can be captured and stored for charging points. A single tree generates enough electricity to provide the necessary energy for a threeroom house, and any excess energy produced can be sold back into the main grid.
“We are in discussions with a number of potential joint venture partners that can facilitate global distribution and manufacturing”
SolarBotanic Trees are aiming to produce 3,000 trees a year by 2027. The artifcial trees can produce between 2000 and 12,000 of energy per year.
Solar Botanic claims that its artificial trees will have the ability to produce between 2,000 and 12,000 KWh of energy per year.
Due to the tree's domed surface area, its photovoltaic cells are designed to capture as much light as possible throughout the seasons, whilst its smart management and storage system can link trees together, to form part of a local grid or feed into the national one.
Founded by its now-Executive Chairman, Harry Corrigan, a decade ago, the project took a total of ten years, with Corrigan designing the 16ft device.
SolarBotanic Trees recently received its first set of orders, with RAW Charging initially supplying 200 co-branded solar trees as part of SolarBotanic Tree’s network of commercial electric vehicle (EV) charging sites currently being rolled out across the UK and Europe. Deliveries will start in mid-2023 and be completed in 2024.
With an estimated 45% of drivers needing to charge their EVs away from home, RAW is one of the largest UK providers of EV charging solutions.
We caught up with Harry Corrigan to learn more about his innovative product, and how it is shaking up the energy sector.
The SolarBotanic Tree as a product concept was devised over 7 years ago, and has been
“We have been inundated with requests to host demonstrator sites”
HARRY CORRIGAN FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN, SOLARBOTANIC TREE PROJECT
designed in collaboration with potential customers, architects and suppliers to ensure an aesthetically attractive, functional and affordable alternative to conventional solar panels. The project was inspired by wind turbines, and from Corrigan’s reading about biomimicry and what can be done by copying nature.
The tree has been developed in collaboration with Co-Innovate – a business support programme which supports SMEs in London by using academic and innovation resources at Brunel University London, the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry and the AMRC’s Design and Prototyping Group – who will be conducting the prototype testing.
“My role within SolarBotanic is overseeing R&D. From the start, I have taken the initial concept through various iterations, designed the concept by collaborating with an Innovation and business support scheme at Brunel University London called ‘Co-Innovate’ and funded various educational institutions in order to give bright engineering graduates the opportunity to develop something truly ground-breaking technologically, as well as aesthetically pleasing, which will contribute significantly to decarbonisation,” Corrigan explains.
“I would consider myself to be a serial entrepreneur, with over 40 years of experience in business in the US, Europe, Africa and Australasia.”
Using a dome-shaped surface to host solar PV cells is challenging, since all cells receive different energy inputs from the sun and therefore have different amounts of energy generation.
Simulations have been performed to find the difference in generation in a typical year and to limit the influence lower-performing cells have on the higher-performing ones. This will be field-tested in Q1 of 2023 to validate the simulations.
Regarding the tree itself, the dome is designed to capture as much sunlight as possible by utilising a 3D surface area which is elevated so that the land underneath can still be used, for example,
to park a car, grow shade-resistant crops, or shaded seating for people. The AI-driven Energy Management System (EMS) uses AI to optimise energy generation, conversion and distribution strategies.
“The battle against climate change, and the visual impact that distributed renewable energy technologies have, motivated me to come up with a solution that generates clean energy while looking good,” says Corrigan.
“We have been inundated with requests to host demonstrator sites and currently
we are talking to local and town councils with a view to find a high profile site in a large city centre,” Corrigan adds.
“We are also in discussions with a number of potential joint venture partners that can facilitate global distribution and manufacturing and with President Biden’s recent statement regarding the need for EV charging infrastructure, the US is a likely market, however, we will concentrate on the home market in the UK first and foremost.”
WRITTEN BY: ALEX CLERE
PRODUCED BY: MICHAEL BANYARD
In recent years, Yorkshire Building Society has undertaken a transformational journey –one that starts and ends with the customer
When Yorkshire Building Society’s (YBS) Chief Commercial Officer, David Morris, and Director of Business
Transformation, Ben Sampson, join me to discuss the seismic change that the mutual has enjoyed over the last five years, there’s more than 100 miles between them. Morris is joining from Oxfordshire in the south of England, while Sampson is dialling in from Halifax in the north. It’s a sign of the times – in business today, it’s not unusual for colleagues to be separated by postal codes, time zones or even oceans. But it’s also a mark of how far Yorkshire Building Society has come since it was founded in 1864.
YBS can trace its roots back more than 150 years to the Huddersfield Equitable Permanent Benefit Building Society, whose members would meet each morning from 5-8am – not on Zoom, but in a single room in the Yorkshire town. Early directors of the society included a dentist, a shoemaker and a plumber. At the end of the first year, there were just six borrowers and assets of around £4,000 – over £400,000 in today’s money.
The name itself stems from the West Yorkshire Building Society, which was founded two years later in Dewsbury –a short six-mile hop from the town of Huddersfield. For over 100 years, the two building societies operated in separate orbits – orbits that would rarely stray outside this small, 10-mile patch of northern England. In 1982, the West Yorkshire Building Society
and the Huddersfield Building Society merged with another local mutual, the Bradford Building Society, to create the entity that exists today.
It is a history of consolidation: in the years after the merger, the newly rebranded Yorkshire Building Society would gradually accumulate more of its peers from across the UK, slowly increasing its sphere of influence and growing steadily in size. The Haywards Heath, Barnsley, Chelsea, and Norwich & Peterborough Building Societies were all subsumed into YBS and today the group has a balance book in excess of £55bn.
Being local and mutually owned means that Yorkshire Building Society is motivated by its members, not by a distant shareholder who they’ve never met. Everything that YBS does is for the service of its members.
“I don't actually think we are local at all anymore,” Morris says. “We've got a national branch network, a sophisticated digital footprint across all our brands and we've obviously got customers from all over the British Isles. We've got customers in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall, and a huge London presence.”
Instead of thinking local, YBS today thinks about local values. It has expanded far beyond Yorkshire’s borders, but the organisation is still proud of its heritage and
is committed to upholding the traditional values that are said to define this beautiful part of the world: humanity, empathy, honesty, and a sense of doing the right thing.
“I’m a proud Yorkshireman. I'm a local lad,” says Ben Sampson. “I love coming to work at the Yorkshire Building Society because whilst we're national and we make a national impact, I think the culture and the roots of the business feel very Yorkshire. If you ask a Yorkshireman what they think about being from Yorkshire, they'll use words like openness, integrity, fairness and honesty – and I think we have a culture that really thrives on that.”
• Historical area of northern England made up today of four counties
• Nearly 15,000km² ranging from peaks and dales to heritage coastline
• Major cities include Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, Hull and York
• Renowned for its food and drink including strong tea, batter puddings, Wensleydale cheese, Pontefract liquorice, and its forced rhubarb
• Population according to the 2021 UK census: 5.5mn
“ I’M A PROUD YORKSHIREMAN . I LOVE COMING TO WORK BECAUSE, WHILST WE MAKE A NATIONAL IMPACT, THE CULTURE AND THE ROOTS OF THE BUSINESS FEEL VERY YORKSHIRE”
BEN SAMPSON, MBA DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION, YBS
TITLE: DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION
INDUSTRY: FINANCIAL SERVICES
LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM
Ben began his career at HBOS and worked in various business areas until 2008 when Lloyds TSB took over during the financial crisis. At the newly formed Lloyds Banking Group Ben undertook significant roles in both the Integration and Verde (TSB creation) programmes. Since Joining YBS Ben has led a number of high profile programmes of work that have helped transform and modernise the society, such as the lending re-platforming work to move YBS to the IRESS MSO platform. In his current role as Director of Business Transformation, Ben is responsible for the strategic design, business case and planning of the YBS transformation. This includes overall sponsorship and ownership of the benefits and benefits for the programme and accountability to the Executive and board.
UNITED KINGDOM
David began his career at Citigroup and has subsequently worked at various Financial Services institutions across the UK and abroad. He is responsible for the innovation, development and on-going management of the Society’s mortgages and savings products, YBS’s marketing and its digital channels, mortgage distribution and the Society’s branch network. David is also responsible for our Commercial Lending and is Chair of Accord Mortgages Ltd. Prior to joining YBS David was the Head of Products at Coventry Building Society.
In every organisation’s history, there are usually a few executives that have a defining impact. For YBS, one of the most influential was Mike Regnier, the erstwhile chief executive who left to become CEO of Santander UK at the beginning of 2022.
David Morris says: “What Mike did was come in and effectively provide quite a lot of strategic clarity in terms of what we can and can't be. We need to be a savings and mortgage business and we need to get simple, lean, and focused. That's really been the mantra over the last eight years. What we've seen since about 2018 is an acceleration of that vision.”
Yorkshire Building Society focuses on mortgages, savings products and commercial lending, shying away from everyday transactional banking (which is highly regulated with a lot of competition) in favour of higher-interest products that encourage consumers to put some of their money aside. That means YBS has three core lines of business, which Morris describes as “low-touch but meaningful”. The company is one of the largest lenders in the UK: “We’re very big but we’re focused,” he explains.
The sheer scale that YBS has been able to achieve is testament to the laser-tight focus within the business. “We want to make sure we're doing things purposefully; we want to make sure we've got the capability to execute against that; and critically we only compete in parts of the market where we think we can win,” Morris continues.
On mortgages, this means a higher proportion of its lending goes to firsttime buyers or customers who are often overlooked by other providers. This allows them to occupy the underserved space in between other mainstream lenders, carving out a competitive advantage for themselves. “They’re good people but for whatever reason other banks are not providing solutions that help them get on the housing ladder,” Morris says. YBS still lends to more affluent customers who have higher equity in their homes, but they are clear that the
“ I FIND MYSELF ENGAGED BY PEOPLE WHO ARE ABLE TO BREAK PARADIGMS, THINK DIFFERENTLY AND LIFT THEMSELVES OUT OF THE STATUS QUO ”
DAVID MORRIS BA, MA CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, YBS
business’ focus is on being purposeful and finding innovative solutions.
This incisiveness and clarity of focus, coupled with the fact that YBS is “just a building society”, often leads to people underestimating their scale or level of expertise. Morris says: “I think the YBS of today is far more capable than people realise. It's very interesting when you go out into the market and people say, ‘oh you're a building society, do you know X’ or ‘do you know Y’? Of course we know it, we're really very good. It's just we're very, very focused.”
This clarity of focus is clearly winning: in H1 2022, YBS outperformed some of the UK’s traditional ‘big six’ banks in terms of
“ WE HAD A GOOD PHYSICAL BUSINESS MODEL , GOOD BRANCHES, BUT WE WERE REALLY LAGGING BEHIND ON BOTH TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL PERFORMANCE ”
BEN SAMPSON, MBA DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION, YBS
both book growth and yield performance. It is also highly competitive now on digital. Morris believes that there are other financial institutions who could learn from this focused strategy.
When you think about digital transformation, you tend to think about the process of replatforming and the multiple legacy systems that often hold firms back. That is one of the key tenets of digital transformation after all. But, as with any sizeable undertaking within a business, the most important thing to get right from the outset is strategy. It can be a challenge to get everybody within a business subscribed to a digital transformation – it requires a huge
cultural shift – but it can also be difficult to get all your objectives aligned.
When Director of Business Transformation Ben Sampson joined the business, YBS had an ageing legacy platform powering its websites; it didn’t have a consumer app; and the percentage of customers signing up through digital was somewhere between 15% and 20%.
It’s not an atypical hangover for a building society to have; indeed, according to research from the Building Societies Association published in 2021, twothirds of building societies identify digital transformation as the main challenge facing the sector in the next five years.
“We had a good physical business model, good branches,” Sampson says. “But we were really lagging behind on both the technology front and the digital commerce performance front.”
First, Yorkshire Building Society established a single vision and ambition organisation-wide that everybody was aligned to. Digital transformation has proven to be a considerable, long-term investment for the business – the single biggest programme of work that YBS has ever done, as Sampson puts it. “That’s as significant as the replatforming for me,” he says. “A business that gets unified behind that single goal, which can then lead to all the important elements of conditions for success such as the ability to have razor-sharp prioritisation discussions. They’re not possible if you’ve got different viewpoints, because it just becomes an argument.”
YBS built and launched its first native apps for iOS and Android, getting into the pockets of its customers for the first time. The demand has always been there: research shows that a majority of UK banking customers want their banks to offer
mobile apps. It established a partnership with identity confirmation provider HooYu, allowing it to elevate its onboarding and ID verification process. Together, they developed a programme called “experiencedriven acquisition”, which involved building a more seamless account opening process. Alongside the partnership with HooYu, YBS also redesigned some customer journeys and replatformed to make this project work.
YBS has also invested heavily in modernising its mortgage origination system. A new platform was introduced in 2018 and through the programme this has been extended, adding the remaining products one by one. Significant time has also been spent optimising this tool, working with technology partner Iress to create innovative solutions and leverage its capabilities. Permanent squads were also set up, allowing technical expertise and strong relationships with the supplier to develop. The result is that the speed of change has increased by 300%.
Morris says this has had a huge impact on the business: “When I started at YBS I saw our mortgage business had lots of potential. I think it is easy to overlook the impact of our transformation here but, for me, this has been the spark that enabled the broader transformation. With our mortgage engine firing, we have been able to subsequently transform our savings proposition and invest further and faster in our digital transformation.”
The results have been staggering, the company says: digital acquisition has gone from 20% of the mix to over 70% and the online book is over 2.5 times bigger than it was before the transformation began; over 20% of lending originated utilises the new capabilities the transformation delivered; and digital satisfaction has increased by over 40% in the last 12 months alone.
It also transitioned away from waterfall development, which just wasn’t cutting it with the modern digital technologies, and created a ‘digital services tribe’ instead. It was the first time that YBS had attempted to work in that agile way at scale, so clearly the technical undertaking itself was vast. But it all stemmed from a single collective vision that helped to clearly define the building society’s priorities, who it was and who it served as a business, and exactly how it would take advantage of the digital opportunity before it.
“As we have learned we have sped up certain bits, slowed down and reordered priorities,” David Morris says. “But we have done this in a way that is completely
1864 YEAR FOUNDED 1982 MERGER BETWEEN THREE BUILDING SOCIETIES CREATED YBS
£60bn YEARLY REVENUE
consistent with our long-term vision, which remains unchanged. This has allowed us to continue to review and improve our performance in terms of delivery and value creation. Our modular approach has also helped enable this.”
At that time, YBS had never undertaken a digital transformation programme on this scale before. It needed some support to mobilise and to get that initial jumpstart, which is when it partnered with business consultancy Johnston Carmichael. Their expertise and knowhow supported YBS in accelerating and creating pace, but it also offered a couple of additional edges – like challenging YBS’ own internal ways of thinking, and lending an experience and a pragmatism that firms like Johnston Carmichael benefit from.
They've got a team of very experienced, highly professional people that have been through a number of cycles of both the external environment and transformations,” Ben Sampson says. “That experience is invaluable when you've got a company like YBS, which has good core capability but maybe hasn't done this before and is lacking in that real-world experience. Johnston Carmichael certainly brought that. They came in, they gave us a huge injection of pace, they gave us some really strong critical thinking, and they brought a clear view of design thinking.”
Carmichael is indicative of YBS’ broader thinking around collaboration and partnership, as Sampson explains: “We want to be more selective about the partnerships we have. We can't throw good money after bad if we get that wrong. So we tend to go with trusted partners and longer-term
relationships. We will often run competitive processes with people we've worked with before and we look for a cultural match –people that will work well in our business. It’s vital that we have people who have done this before. We want to learn from others, we want to take their experience to help us be successful.
“The thing that's absolutely essential from any partnership for us is that they must help us to learn, and to be able to do that, they need to leave a legacy of us being able to do things ourselves. We don't want transactional relationships that give us a step change that then falls away. It's one thing to transform, but it's another thing to then optimise. And to be able to optimise, we need to be building our capability as we do it.”
David Morris concurs: “We want people who can augment, people who can do things that we can't or people who can help us accelerate. We’re not looking for people to
come in and do the stuff that we can already do, because we already have some skillful, capable people within the business.”
So who inspires them? “I believe in the power of people and in creating environments that allow people to thrive,”
Sampson says. He is drawn naturally to people who have overcome adversity: to Stephen Hawking, who became the preeminent scientist of his generation despite battling personal adversity; to Richard Branson, who built Virgin from the ground up and who today is quite pioneering about the way in which he nurtures his teams, giving them unlimited time off as an example.
Sampson also identifies with Steven Bartlett, the founder of marketing agency Social Chain and the youngest investor in the history of Dragon’s Den (the UK version of Shark Tank). He also has a podcast charting
the highs and lows of being a CEO. Sampson calls him an inspirational figure and likes the fact that Bartlett dropped out of university, like he did.
David Morris says that central to his style of leadership is a ‘belief in better’. He is inspired by people – both from within YBS and outside the organisation – who are able to think differently, challenge the ordinary and strive for something extraordinary. “I genuinely find myself engaged by people who are able to break paradigms, think differently and lift themselves out of the status quo. People who are able to say ‘here's a completely different way of doing things’.”
That disruptive mindset has always been rare, but wherever they exist those people are usually invaluable assets. There is clearly something of a disruptor personality trait among Morris and Sampson themselves. When we first speak, it is just a few days before Christmas – yet there is no let-up
for either of them. They brim with passion about the progress that YBS has made, the potential it’s unleashing within the organisation, and crucially the benefits it will bring for customers.
YBS has spent the better part of eight years reorienting its business towards customers: giving them the platforms and digital channels they expect, but also honing its propositions so that it can meet underserved demand in the grey space between traditional high-street lenders.
David Morris believes that, because business value has played such an integral role in YBS’ transformation, the customer has become an inescapable end-goal. Every path that YBS takes now leads to the customer. That means the customer has become a really useful currency for explaining digital initiatives to executive
stakeholders within the business, particularly those that are not digitally confident.
“To me, digital inherently means being customer-centric,” Morris says. “So when we're trying to build customer journeys, there's no point building great technology if it doesn't work for the customer. We've recognised that the solutions we need to create have to be built with the end-user in mind. I think that's just a natural, inherent part of this type of transformation.”
Sampson concurs: “We're building things that meet customer needs and wants, and that's research-based. That's quite powerful.”
Customer-centric design permeates every pore at YBS, including recruitment. Everybody that has been brought into this digital transformation journey has been steered by customer demand – from UX and UI designers through to programme managers. Much like its namesake region, Yorkshire Building Society has a distinctive character, a flavour, a non-negotiable way of doing things. It only takes on new people that fit into this customer-led culture. “You can be the world’s greatest project manager
or the most sophisticated architect, but if you don’t understand the YBS culture then it just doesn’t work,” Morris says.
That applies not just to the people that YBS recruits, but the partners it chooses to work with as well. The building society partnered early on with Johnston Carmichael to help them quickly realise pace, mobilise the digital transformation programme and become clearer on the designs of its digital products. This allowed it to remain focused from the outset on the customer.
“What Johnston Carmichael brought to the table was an acceleration of what we were trying to do, [along with] huge amounts of experience and pragmatism,” Sampson explains. “They used that to not only help us think about what we wanted to do, but to be a critical friend and challenge us in our thinking, and help us avoid pitfalls that others might have experienced who went before us.”
Looking ahead to the future, Morris continues: “Over the last 2-3 years, we've been able to prove just how much opportunity there is in the business and how digitising parts of our enterprise has created huge amounts of value. I think our vision for the next 12-18 months is about how we can go from good to great. We think our approach can be really quite distinct and unique by taking this best-of-breed approach, using digital and human to create something that's distinct in the market. And I think a big focus for us over the next period is going to be about how we create an operational model that supports this powerful acquisition capability we've built.”
“ TO ME, DIGITAL INHERENTLY MEANS BEING CUSTOMERCENTRIC. THERE'S NO POINT BUILDING GREAT TECHNOLOGY IF IT DOESN'T WORK FOR THE CUSTOMER ”
DAVID MORRIS BA, MA CHIEF COMMERCIAL OFFICER, YBS
he relevance of Artificial Intelligence in today’s business landscape is ever-evolving, present in myriad forms. And for the world of big tech, the primary form AI takes is in cutting energy consumption.
AI and its capabilities have been utilised by many of the biggest tech companies, including Google, who operate a carbon intelligence programme to cut energy needs in powering their immense amount of data centres.
Concomitantly to this, Google uses AI for the social good, supplying countries with environmental insights, flood forecasting, wildfire detection, and, of course, Google Earth Engine to provide information about renewable energy possibilities.
So, what lessons can big tech – and companies at large – take from Google's innovative utilisation of AI? Google's Sustainability Lead for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Adam Elman, offers Energy Magazine his insights.
Google is totally dependent on their technological infrastructure, and in particular, data centres to help facilitate processing mass amounts of information – this includes 63,000 Google searches per second. Through AI, Google has reduced energy consumed for cooling by 30% through the creation of a more efficient framework.
"If you look compared to five years ago, we produce about five times as much computing power for the same amount of electricity used. But how do we do this? Well, through artificial intelligence and DeepMind, which is an AI/machine learning specialist organisation within Google.
A number of years ago, we started using what we call neural networks to take thousands of data points and figure out optimisations that humans simply can't do," says Adam.
Google's new focus is on becoming net-zero in their operations and across their value chain by 2030, having already made it around two-thirds of the way there. In fact, the company uses 100% renewable energy, making sure to buy enough renewable electricity to match usage.
One of the solutions Google makes freely available to cities and regions around the world is the Environmental Insights programme, which is key to developing carbon plans, and subsequently, tracking
any progress made. Google EIE runs by extracting estimates of transport activity data and then building footprint data, based on actual measurements of traffic and buildings.
This data is then multiplied by emission factors from the World Bank’s Climate Action for Urban Sustainability (CURB) tool. Cities account for around 70% of carbon emissions, and struggle to find the data and tools needed to create tangible plans to tackle environmental problems; Google's Environmental Insights programme is the solution to this.
"Environmental Insights provides data – real-time – on transport emissions, and more on opportunities to deploy energy sources like solar. More recently, we've been piloting a solution for cities around tree canopies, where there are opportunities for cities to plant more trees. One example is the city of Dublin and its set target to increase cycling trips by 20%," explains Elman.
Google provided the city of Dublin with transport data to pinpoint what’s happening in real-time. This has helped the city develop their plans for what infrastructure and policy changes they need to make to improve the
volume of cycling, using this data to track progress to see if it's really having the impact that they desire.
In terms of AI for social good, Google is firmly at the forefront. With communities around the world facing the immediate, damaging effects of climate change, key areas of focus that arise will be looking towards how people can work together to implement sustainable solutions.
To achieve this, Google uses AI-powered platforms alongside partnerships with frontline emergency workers and organisations.
One of these platforms is called FloodHub. Available globally, the AI-based flood forecasting programme offers a map display of forecasts that shows when and where floods may occur to help people prepare. The company sent 115mn flood alerts to 23 million people over Search and Maps in 2021. The new expansion of flood forecasts adds 18 countries across Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.
"Flood forecasting is made possible using AI and physics-based modelling, taking data from historic flood events, river levels, terrain, elevation data, and many other data points. We use this in partnership with government agencies to actually issue millions of alerts to users to tell them there's a flood coming, you need to take action. So when we think about climate mitigation, we also need to think about climate adaptation and climate risk – a key area where we can use this type of technology in the real world," explains Elman.
AI-powered Google Earth Engine has the capabilities to understand big data and analytics to identify, reduce, and report on
to scientists and researchers to help them really understand what's happening at a planetary scale in terms of changes to the planet.
“We have another solution called Global Forest Watch, which again is helping companies, governments and cities track monitored deforestation and take action. So, again, it's using AI and machine learning in a real-world environment," concludes Elman.
This extends into individual conglomerates and their immediate sustainability needs. Unilever is currently utilising Earth Engine's satellite data to work towards achieving a deforestation-free supply chain by 2023.
The research is clear: if we want to avoid the disastrous effects of climate change, we must reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.
Even with the mass production of solarpanels and wind turbines, reaching net-zero is going to require capturing large amounts of emissions from activities that are hard to decarbonise, such as making cement.
Enter: carbon capture. CCUS (carbon capture, utilisation and storage) involves the capture of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from industrial processes, such as the creation of steel, or from the burning of fossil fuels in power generation, and burying it deep underground. In some instances, the captured CO2 can be repurposed to create products such as synthetic fuels and cement – an environmental recycling of sorts.
Carbon capture, however, does not come without its unique set of challenges – the immense cost of such technologies being one.
WRITTEN
The role of carbon capture could be instrumental in meeting net-zero goals – we take a look at why technology and regulation are key
BY: MARIAM AHMAD
Ensuring you have the best partner at your side.
Since 2010, dozens of projects have failed to come to fruition because the technology involved with carbon capture is simply too costly. At the moment, there are only about two dozen large-scale facilities that use CCUS – capturing roughly 40mn tonnes of carbon, annually.
Amongst the global leaders of the CCUS industry is Carbon Clean. The company was awarded a ‘Technology Pioneer’ award by the World Economic Forum, was recently selected as one of Cemex Ventures’ Top 50 ConTech Startups, and named a 2021 Global Cleantech 100 company.
The company recently launched the world’s smallest carbon capture technology, CycloneCC. 10-times smaller than the industry standard, Cyclone CC can be deployed at most industrial sites in only eight weeks. It’s predicted to drive down the cost of carbon capture to $30 per tonne on average – half the price of the EU’s August carbon price ($60 per tonne on 30.08.21).
To better understand the role of CCUS, we talked to the CTO and co-founder of Carbon Capture, Prateek Bumb.
Carbon Clean was founded to solve a critical climate challenge – decarbonising heavy industry, which accounts for around 30% of global emissions. We are an innovation
leader in point source carbon capture, developing cost-effective solutions to accelerate the global deployment of CCUS, especially in hard-to-abate sectors such as cement, steel, refineries and energy from waste. We’ve achieved big things at Carbon Clean since we founded the company in 2009 – relocating to the UK from India after we received funding from the UK government – launching CycloneCC, the world’s smallest industrial carbon capture solution, in 2021 and raising a record $150mn in funding earlier this year.
“Our technology is proven at scale across 49 sites worldwide, including in the UK, US, Japan, German, India, Norway and the Netherlands”
achieving net zero isn’t a pipe dream, it’s
To date, Carbon Clean has raised $195mn through a combination of public and private sector investment. Carbon Clean recently closed a $150mn Series C round led by Chevron, with participation from existing investors CEMEX Ventures, Marubeni Corporation and WAVE Equity Partners, and new investors AXA IM Alts, Samsung Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures and TC Energy.
We’ve also been the recipient of British government funding on three occasions, including at the SEED stage, prior to private investment. It was pivotal to our growth.
We know carbon capture is essential to delivering industrial decarbonisation and net zero, but the current installed capacity is way off what’s needed. As an innovation leader in the sector, with more patents than any other CCUS technology provider, Carbon Clean is determined to address this delivery gap.
Our new generation of standardised, fully modular, skid-mounted carbon capture units are vital to accelerating global CCUS deployment. Prefabricated, delivered on a truck and installed in around eight weeks, these units are revolutionising a 50-yearold technology by overcoming two of the biggest barriers to deployment – space and cost.
“Carbon Clean recently closed a $150mn Series C round led by Chevron, with participation from existing investors and new investors…”
PRATEEK BUMB CO-FOUNDER, CARBON CLEAN
I’ve learned that risk and reward go hand-inhand – you can’t be afraid of taking risks if you want to succeed, and you need to know that failure is part of the process. Take our CDRMax solvent for example, which is a key part of the solutions we offer to our clients now; we went through 14 failed chemical formulas before finally getting it right. An equally important lesson I’ve learned since founding the company is that having a team that believes in your vision is key.
Our focus over the next 12-18 months is delivering on the promise of our $150mn Series C funding round. We want to ramp up the commercial roll-out of our breakthrough carbon capture solutions, expand our team to deliver on our growing order book, and develop our Carbon-Capture-as -a-Service (CCaaS) proposition for heavy emitters.
Sustainability, renewable energy, net zero – these terms, and more, are at the forefront of our climate change vernacular, with the conversation concentrated on how global industries can move towards clean energy to combat the climate crisis.
As we seek to rely less on high-emission energy sources, nuclear energy can serve as a low-carbon, transitory solution. In fact, currently, 441 nuclear reactors generate 10% of global electricity already.
Although not renewable, nuclear energy is still recyclable and produces zero greenhouse gasses, serving as the secondlargest source of low-carbon energy in the world behind hydropower.
Here are the world’s top 10 nuclear energy-producing countries in 2022.
As countries swiftly move toward sustainable energy sources, nuclear power remains pertinent.
Here, we look at the top 10 nuclear power-producing countries
Nuclear Generation: 7.1GW
Recently replacing Sweden in the number 10 spot, nuclear energy currently accounts for 22% of Spain’s electricity. The country has an installed capacity of 7.1GW, generated by seven reactors.
Nuclear plants are currently essential to the country's energy grid needs and ministers have thus lifted limits to their operational lifespans. In 2020 and 2021, six of the country's seven reactors renewed their licences. All of these would expire before 2035 – the deadline for the Spanish Government's planned phaseout of nuclear power.
09
UK
Coming in at number 9 is the UK, with a combined net nuclear energy capacity of 8.9GW from 13 operable nuclear reactors. The country generated a total of 51TWh of nuclear energy in 2019 – 15.6% of the UK’s total electricity output.
Expected to open in June of 2027, construction has started on two new nuclear reactors, Hinkley Point C1 and Hinkley Point C2, which will supply low-carbon electricity for 6 million homes. Approximately half of its existing nuclear power reactors will be retired by 2035.
UKRAINE
Nuclear Generation: 13.1GW
With 15 operable nuclear reactors and a combined net installed capacity of 13.1GW, Ukraine is in the number 8 spot.
Two reactors (Khmelnitski 3 and 4) are currently under construction, with heavy water reactors providing 2GW net capacity.
Ukraine produced a total of 78.1 TWh of nuclear energy in 2019, accounting for 53.9% of the total electricity produced in the country.
Due to current geopolitical instability – and to subsequently lessen its reliance on Russian nuclear fuel and services – the country is proactively purchasing fuel from US-based Westinghouse.
CANADA
Nuclear Generation: 13.6GW
In the number 7 spot is Canada, with 19 operational nuclear reactors that are spread across four power plants, amounting to a total of 13.6GW net installed capacity.
Canada generated 94.9TWh of nuclear energy in 2019, accounting for 14.9% of the country’s total power generation.
All the power plants in Canada utilise Canadian Deuterium-Uranium (CANDU) reactors, which are pressurised heavy water reactors that use uranium as fuel, and water as both a coolant and moderator.
Nuclear Generation: 24.5GW
With 24 nuclear reactors in operation – a combined 24.5GW capacity – South Korea is in number 6. The south-eastern region of the country is a major hub for high electricity demand due to it being home to several heavy manufacturing plants.
South Korea generated 139TWh of nuclear energy in 2019, deriving a total of 26% of its total electricity from nuclear energy in 2019.
Nuclear Generation: 29.6GW
Often touted as the original frontrunner of nuclear technology due to the USSR’s industrial efforts, Russia takes the number 5 spot, with 38 operating reactors and a net capacity of 29.6GW.
Russia produced 195.5TWh of nuclear energy in 2019, which accounted for approximately 19.7% of the total electricity generated.
Two reactors – as part of the Kursk II project – with a net capacity of 2.3GW, are currently under construction.
JAPAN
Nuclear Generation: 32GW
At number 4 is Japan, with a total of 33 operational nuclear plants that have 31.7GW net installed capacity. Two reactors, Ohma 1 and Shimane 3, are currently under construction but will, when finished, account for an additional net capacity of 2.6GW
Prior to the Fukushima nuclear incident in 2011, 30% of Japan’s energy requirements were derived from nuclear energy. Now, the country imports 90% of its energy requirements.
CHINA
Nuclear Generation: 50.8GW
A net installed capacity of 50.8GW via 51 nuclear reactors makes China the third biggest nuclear energy-producing country in the world.
Though currently under construction, China is planning to grow its power system, with 18 reactors to open soon. Collectively, this would generate 17.2GW for China’s power systems. The country is also planning to build an additional 39 nuclear reactors with a combined gross capacity of 43GW.
Nuclear Generation: 63.1GW
Generating a larger share of nuclear energy than any of its counterparts on this list, France produces two-thirds of its electricity from nuclear sources from 56 operational reactors, which collectively generated 338.7TWh in 2020.
Low production costs and general expertise in this area have allowed the country to generate approximately 17% of its electricity from recycled nuclear fuel.
France will build more reactors in years to come, aiming to decarbonise its power generation by 2050.
In the number 1 top spot is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the USA. It boasts a total nuclear capacity of 91.5GW, which is generated by 93 reactors that are spread across 30 of the country’s 50 states. This capacity currently allows for the production of 20% of the country’s total electricity consumption, with the US – particularly since 2016 – relying more on coal and gas for power production. The state of Georgia is to see the construction of two more reactors, part of the Vogtle project.
