Why we need 'intelligence everywhere' to build the energy ecosystem of the future

In an Enlit exclusive, Nitin Sharma, General Manager of Sustainable Energy at Analog Devices Inc (ADI), highlights the need for intelligence to be integrated at every point in the energy ecosystem.

What are the top three challenges to delivering the energy transition?

The energy transition calls for re-imagining how we fuel our cars, and power our homes and businesses. Technological advancements in electrification are enabling renewables to become viable, low-cost alternatives to traditional fossil fuel sources. As the grid evolves, the distribution and management of electricity is changing. Innovation, cross-ecosystem collaboration, policy support, and community participation are all needed to tackle these key challenges:  

Rearchitecting the infrastructure: The existing grid infrastructure, designed many decades ago as a centralised hub-and-spoke model, is not capable of supporting the clean energy ecosystem. It needs to transition towards a decentralised network of distributed renewable energy sources and be supportive of bi-directional energy flows.

Accommodation of new loads and balancing the mix of energy sources is also necessary to ensure seamless and reliable access to energy. This is further exacerbated by the challenge of delivering electricity reliably to all users in the presence of the tremendous growth of electric vehicles – an energy load that is dynamic in both space and time. 

Creating smart networks: The expansion of infrastructure must be supported by an intelligent and communicating network that is resilient, automated, and constantly evolving. A smart ecosystem connected by data-driven insights would break down the siloes that have cropped up, making energy production, distribution, and consumption more efficient. From a technology perspective, the distributed nature of assets like cars, homes, and industries is giving rise to the Intelligent Edge where analog sensing meets digitalisation.

We need intelligence everywhere: in every vehicle component, sensor, actuator, storage system, and metering point. New solutions need to be bought in from areas that stretch into artificial intelligence, virtualisation, energy as a service model, and more.

In taking a holistic view of intelligence at the edge, solutions must be designed with the total cost of ownership in mind, and to accommodate constant value creation. Furthermore, access to quality data enables better investment decisions. Programmes can be strategically deployed, and impact can be more accurately measured. Thus, a feedback loop is created to sustain modernisation efforts and to enable better ROI.  

Securing Community Participation: Motivating consumer behaviour change, enabling prosumers, and empowering communities to participate in this transition. Technology and business innovations must solve the total cost of ownership of clean energy solutions, such as EVs, solar rooftops across residences, commercial and industrial establishments, etc.

What single action will ensure sustained, long-term success for the deployment of clean energy? 

Adding intelligence to the energy ecosystem would ensure sustained, long-term success. All the key aspects of the grid must be intelligent, with a mix of intelligence at the edge in sync with intelligence across centralised networks. Simultaneously, the grid must be resilient to malicious threats, by integrating proper security measures. 

A sound approach is to measure both the impact and the outcomes at critical steps. This can be done by enabling visibility into the entire grid – from a macro network level (transmission) to the micro ‘nodes’ (distribution) across the network, and into the real-time flow of energy at the points of supply, demand, and reserve.

Transparency enables data, data connects the ecosystem and empowers insights which grow the ecosystem. Therefore, it is a necessity to build information ecosystems around various ‘nodes’ of the grid utilising precision sensing, intelligent edge processing, and cyber secure connectivity. Facilitated by digitisation and insights, the complex interplay between production and consumption will become increasingly optimised, making it possible to achieve smart load management, Energy as a Service (EaaS), digital twins, convergence of e-mobility and the grid, industrial and building efficiencies, and more.

Moving from the more simplistic model of sensing and switching to a decentralised methodology by enabling multi-point decisions, the availability of data working in harmony with software to generate concurrent system insights, processing and prioritising those insights leads to grid optimisation. The clean energy industry requires partnerships at all levels to reduce inefficiencies while simultaneously increasing the number of points where and how often data is collected. 

What most excites you about the European energy transition? 

It is exciting to see the deep collaboration and new relationships being forged across the ecosystem to accelerate the energy transition.   

Europe is a leader in the energy transition and is paving the way for the rest of the world with its ambitious efforts and programmes. There is good policy support, a culture of innovation, and a commitment from stakeholders to scale their clean energy efforts.  

The healthy rate of EV adoption and efforts to promote electrification as the driver of manufacturing operations are particularly exciting, acting as catalysts for the development of the broader clean energy infrastructure. 

ADI is engaging closely with European automakers on battery management and powertrain solutions to enable the scaling of EV fleets, to roll out newer models faster, and to deliver incremental value to the EV buyer by transforming the battery pack into a technologically advanced asset. 

It is encouraging to see collaboration between the automakers to collectively put in place a reliable charging infrastructure. 

There are strong programmes to accelerate the convergence of electrified mobility and the energy grid. We are engaging with car makers, battery pack manufacturers, utility service providers, and charge point operators to enable EVs as a reliable, fast, and safe bi-directional energy transfer and to solve the distributed load challenge. Smarter charging solutions are evolving as a result. 

Substation intelligence is another exciting opportunity where utility companies are leveraging our precision measurement, control, and real-time signal processing solutions to achieve reliable energy delivery and grid management. We expect this type of equipment to be the new standard as the grid continues to become more decentralised as new energy sources and new energy loads are added.

There is a growing consciousness of energy usage and as a result, an increased adoption of smart energy meters. In addition to helping decrease energy wastage and enhance billing accuracy, it provides a mechanism to enable real-time insights for utility companies and energy producers to develop robust demand-response programs. 

Finally, there is a strong commitment from countries throughout Europe to ramp up renewable energy generation. This has presented opportunities for ADI to solve the intermittency problem through energy storage solutions and to deliver smart grid technologies that can enable better balancing of the energy mix.

How are your industry experts going to address these challenges at Enlit Europe in Paris? 

At Enlit Europe, we are excited to present our solutions that aim to simplify the grid modernisation paradigm.

Electrification technology is the foundation for the energy transition and ADI is a technology leader in sophisticated electrification solutions. We are uniquely positioned on both sides of the charging cable and across the industrial, communications, and automotive markets. This has enabled us to look at the entire energy ecosystem and work with a diverse set of stakeholders to secure rich insights into the challenges and opportunities – that have ultimately guided the innovations roadmaps for our electrification solutions portfolio, ADI RechargeTM. 

In this regard, we will be demonstrating our solutions for electrification technology innovation and deployment that simplify the energy transition paradigm into Energy Management, Conversion, and Storage capabilities, and how those stack up to enable Digitalisation, Decarbonisation, and Decentralisation of energy.

Our goal is to accelerate the pace of grid modernisation, working with our customers to ensure we have an intelligent clean energy ecosystem that is connected by data and continuously optimised via rich insights. Our solutions offer flexible and scalable capabilities, intended to benefit major ‘nodes’ across the clean energy ecosystem - from renewable generation to energy storage systems, transmission and distribution, smart grid infrastructure, charging equipment, etc. 

Thanks to ADI’s deep involvement across multiple markets and innovation leadership in electrification technology, we can offer a fresh perspective to accelerate the clean energy grid’s destiny to become an intelligence centre.

Analog Devices will take part in many exciting sessions at Enlit Europe in Paris, 28-30 November 2023, covering topics such as:

• Enabling EV charging infrastructure supporting e-Mobility on the grid
• Achieving a Net Zero Industry
• Empowering grid intelligence, security and flexibility through advancements in semiconductor technologies

You can join experts from Analog Devices at booth 7.2.C10, where they will be happy to discuss your challenges and opportunities in detail.